Annmarie Throckmorton, M.A.
- Oct 15, 2017

Slurs are beyond irksome.

I resent being gassed (in the old sense not the new) with someone’s poisonous hatred. There are a few words you just cannot say to me, like White Genocide, or these sly slurs:

Cracker "is not a slave owner or overseer cracking a whip. 'Cracker' predates the plantation era; and it refers to someone who would have been too poor to own slaves.” http://www.urbandictionary.com. Cracker was snipped at me when I was too young to see any risk, but warm-hearted enough to try friendship with all sorts of people. I did not know what they meant until decades later when an internet search revealed the slur.

Toubab “is a Central and West African name (sic) for a person of European descent (‘whites’). Used most frequently in the Gambia, Senegal, and Mali, and also in Ivory Coast, the term does not have derogatory connotations by itself...”, soft-pedaled by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toubab

Toubab actually means “stinky, white ghost” as in “I wish you were a dead, stinky, white ghost” when yelled by children as I walked the dirt back streets of Mali, West Africa doing volunteer American Peace Corps service work. Where did they learn that?

Haole (derogatory, in Hawaii) is “a person who is not a native Hawaiian, especially a white person... alternative definition: ringworm; any of numerous different fungal infections of the skin...” and was sneered at me during a tidal surge when ethnic Hawaiians invited me to go on down to the turbulent beach.

I am old. I cannot hear as well, I cannot see as well, and I cannot run fast anymore. Actually, I cannot even run. If you slur and belittle, I worry what you might do next. Please speak gently in this world. Thank you. Goodness on Earth is as much your responsibility as mine.