It sounds way less offensive to those who decry the original terminology’s problematic roots but still keeps its meaning intact.
Until a couple of years ago, we had a brand of cheese called ‘Coon’, here in Australia.
The word isn’t used as a slur over here, and the brand was simply named after the founder about 150 years back.
But it was getting increasingly on the nose as cultural influences from the US and everywhere kept seeping in, and it reached a point where it pretty much needed an excuse or at least an explanation.
So they renamed it; now it’s ‘Cheer’.
And at the time, there was all kinds of pearl-clutching about the malicious / disingenuous / officious / vapidly-offended / white-knighting / attention-seeking / etc / etc ‘woke crowd’ stomping in and making them change everything when it was perfectly good and harmless and stuff.
Six months later, nobody gave a single shit any more. Nobody died as a result or was even mildly inconvenienced, no great cultural traditions were lost, and contrary to several predictionsm newly-empowered wokeocrats have not risen from the shadows to re-gender everyone or whatever. It’s that cheese with the blue white and green label, nobody reads it anyway.
My point is that small token changes cost virtually nothing, and even if they achieve little in and of themselves, the mere fact of people being willing to make them is of benefit. Small courtesies, you know? Returning your shopping cart. Smiling at passing dogs. It models kindness and consideration, and promotes the idea that those things have value.
Which is not to suggest that we must avoid giving offense at all consts; far from it. I’m one of those stereotypicallly abrasive genX types raised on ideals of free speech, punk rock, uncomfortable truths and loudly pointing out the elephant in the room no matter how many toes get stepped on. But when there isn’t some burning issue that needs to be addressed, niceties be damned… then yeah, small courtesies. Give people that extra bit of room even if they don’t strictly needed. It’s nice to be nice.
Look back a handful of decades at all those cultural relics that your grandparents considered harmless and invisible. Asking people to drop them may have attracted ridicule and suspicion at the time, but looking back at some of them… oh dear god, really?
Hell, I remember The Black And White Minstrel Show on TV, and if you don’t remember it yourself, it’s far worse than you’re imagining.
I like the world better without things like that, even the little seemingly-trivial ones, and even if it seems like empy virtue-signalling while you’re cleaning them up.
Great response, thanks for writing this. I live in the US, and your Coon -> Cheer cheese reminds me of Land O’Lakes butter – there was a brouhaha over a decision to remove a Native American woman from the packaging. Same result, it’s still in the butter section of the market.
My point is that small token changes cost virtually nothing
Well-put. I’ve been in the position of complaining about this type of change before, and this is a perfect counterpoint to that mindset. I’ve often said “What do we want? Police to face accountability when they commit crimes! What do we actually get? We’re going to use the term ‘main’ instead of ‘master’ for programming things!”
What we so often forget in that moment of “What, I have to re-learn some terminology? Ugh, friction!” is exactly your point about small courtesies. Something doesn’t have to be a Big Damn Deal to be worthwhile.
Land O’Lakes butter – there was a brouhaha over a decision to remove a Native American woman from the packaging
Maybe I just have no awareness but I have a hard time seeing how this was offensive. Master-slave, sure; coon, sure; those are directly something negative. However a Native American women is not inherently negative and they are using it as a positive symbol of something. What about this is offensive?
Bottom line, I realize I’m not the one offended nor am I the one marketing it, so it really doesn’t impact me, but I also don’t understand
I’ve often said “What do we want? Police to face accountability when they commit crimes! What do we actually get? We’re going to use the term ‘main’ instead of ‘master’ for programming things!”
The other thing is that the big stuff is shored up by all the small stuff.
The reason you can’t get police held accountable for crimes, ferinstance, is because there’s a hundred shitty racist / sexist / classist / etc attitudes locking down the idea that the police are both besieged by and protecting us from an underclass of people who deserve neither compassion, rights or justice. Look at the people leaping on the ‘he was no angel’ bandwagon, for god’s sake.
If you want to topple the big overt heinous idea, you need to wash away the soil its roots are sunk into and that’s banked up round its trunk making it look like an inherent part of the landscape.
A spoonful at a time, if need be. It all helps.
Interesting metaphor. I’ve never really gotten that idea – I’ve never seen the connection demonstrated between the “big stuff” and seemingly innocuous things like ‘main’ vs. ‘master’.
Also, a lot of this feels misplaced. IMO, the root problem is one of attitude where the minorities are viewed as less-human, not deserving of equal treatment or equal rights. Change will happen as those attitudes shift. I haven’t seen a connection demonstrated between those attitudes and…well, pretty much any terminology issue that’s come up in recent memory.
there was a brouhaha over a decision to remove a Native American woman from the packaging. Same result, it’s still in the butter section of the market.
Sure same result in that Indians are now LESS representated in society. We’re seeing the Indian populations push back now on the idea that all the symbolism surrounding them should be removed. Example: https://www.newsnationnow.com/us-news/sports/native-american-organization-redskins-name/
TheBananaKing is offensive. It is a reference to Banana Republics, you know the system where corporations marginalize an entire populace and make them produce their product for profit. You should really change your username. It’s trivial and nobody will care if you change it.
Obviously I do think this is as absurd as asking a company to change it’s name which was named after the founder, but you went there and presented the argument for it. I can at least understand moving away from master/slave in computing especially in future products and revisions but making someone change their business name which is named after the founder’s is ludicrous.
That being said, the only reason why the company changed the name was because it gave them good PR in the form of free advertising- just imagine all the headlines. Since you have no upside to changing yours, I know you won’t do it. Humanity is full of virtue signaling hypocrites who are just out for themselves.
