"What was that word he called us, your uncle, I mean", says Carl.
"Guailo", says Tommy. "It's a nasty Cantonese slulr for white people. We still use it a lot. Translates, loosely, as white ghost guy or foreign devil."
"I have heard that word before", says Sarah, "And you know, it is kind of offensive?"
"It's only a word", says Carl. "And really, when people use it among themselves, it's more for purposes of ingroup identity. Like the way a lot of rappers use the word Nigger."
Sarah let's out an audible gasp of horror. "That is really offensive?" she says in her question tone. "Can't you just say N-word?"
"I just said the N-word", says Carl, laughing."
"Don't listen to him, he's pissed", says Aaron smiling.
"Right now, maybe", says Carl, "But tomorrow, you are still going to be ugly."
"Sir Winston Churchill," says Aaron.
"You know your history."
"But you know", say I, "He does have a point . About the N-word being used for ingroup identity. kind of like how Dan Savage used to start each letter in his column with "Hey Faggot."
"Then he quit doing that after a while", says Aaron.
"How do you guys know about that filthy mouth gay sex columnist?" says Sarah, still indignant.
"The same way that you must know about him, dear, " says Carl. "By the way, I met him once."
"No kidding"
"In Amsterdam. He was doing research. But that's another story..."
No comments:
Post a Comment