What if they had picked a racial slur that is also a legitimate word, like slope or eggplant? Would ignorance of the racial slur usage still be an insufficient excuse?
Those kids and I have never heard of the word. That's a great thing because of what that means. But of course we had to resurrect it and now all of the kids know what it means and we're back to square one. Humans are stupid.
How do you know that all the kids have never heard the word? Perhaps some 6th grade smart aleck thought it would be funny.
Jigaboo is a pretty common word with black comedians, and as a big fan of comedy/standup I'm familiar with the word. My friends and I use it here or there jokingly with eachother. I can totally see why a white lady who doesn't make or hear jokes about black people wouldn't know what the word was.
um no..its not I can count on both hands the amount of racial slurs I've heard uttered in the last 20 years..maybe 2 regarding African Americans, and 1 regarding Asians (another really old one said by a retired person that probably didn't know it was a slur..oh and he is actually from Minnesota), an a couple referring to Mexicans. Of course, being from Houston, one of the most diverse cities in the country, people generally get a long a lot better and tend to be less divisive. I find people in the northeast openly use slurs more than Texans.
I would've seen "Jig" as a dance. "do a little jig" - I guess because people don't think in terms of racial slurs with every thing they see.
if the teacher has a track-record of making inappropriate comments than i would be less willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, but it sounds like it truly was an innocent mistake. i think the teacher owes an apology and explanation...nothing more. like someone said, its easy to see how someone in their 20's might not have ever heard that word and its not like the name was her idea.
I could never count the number of racial slurs I heard in Houston. Against all races. I couldn't even count the number of times I was called a "sand n-word" or a "towel-head". Houston is not some bastion free from racism.
No town is racist slur free. Banning words will not prevent people from coming up with new words. That said, I'm in the camp that historically charged words should be left buried rather than the idea that it should be kept open in order to remove it's power.
I would agree with that. But Texas is not the "King of Racial Slurs" either - which is what I was responding too. I still think densely populated areas in NJ/NY/PA and even MA will often exhibit more open used racial slurs than the more densely populated areas of Texas.
Here's a map of geotagged racial tweets across the U.S. - pretty interesting. Texas could still do better, but at least it doesn't fair as bad as the eastern U.S. http://users.humboldt.edu/mstephens/hate/hate_map.html#
