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Not getting racism when you're young

Started by Rev+, September 18, 2021, 12:37:19 AM

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Rev+

Was just reminded of the popular playground pick-out song on all the hot schoolyards of the early Eighties:

Eeenie Meenie Miney Mo
Catch a nicker by his toe
If he hollers, let him go
Eeenie Meenie Miney Mo

'Holler' was an odd one, as it's not really a term we use over here.  The meaning's clear from the rhyme, though - it's a shout.  'Nicker' was always clear though - it's a thief, a robber, someone who deserves to be caught.

You can fill in the rest really.  We had plenty of racist terms floating about in England during the 80s but I'd genuinely never heard that one.  Neither had any of my cohorts.  Eventually, when I found out, it was like some horrible worm had drilled into my brain and stayed there since I was very young.  I was a racist cunt without knowing it.

No idea what the point of this thread was.  Sorry, go about your business.

touchingcloth

Hmm. I remember that rhyme but it was definitely sung with the actual n-word. From memory it was actually "shouts" rather than "hollers", though, but "holler" is one of those Dixie words so maybe it was used in a film and found its way to British playgrounds from there.

Wiki suggests that there are countless different versions of the eeny, meeny verse, and that Kipling used a fully n-worded version in Land and Sea Tales for Scouts and Guides.

Video Game Fan 2000

This might be a false memory but I remember kids insisting it was "tigger" because "n***r" wasn't a real word.


touchingcloth

Wiki mentions versions using "tiger", too.

Captain Z

My grandad was into fishing and used to sing me a version using the word "tiddler" - meaning a tiny fish, and "if he squeals, let him go". I was probably in my twenties before I realised it was not just a harmless fishing rhyme. Good old woke grandad though, I'm quite proud looking back.

flotemysost

Yeah I'm sure most of us are guilty of saying or participating in things as a youth that would horrify us now. I remember being quite attuned and sensitive to to some forms of racism from a pretty early age - e.g. I always really disliked Enid Blyton, even the less overtly gammon stuff, and quite a few other kid's authors with iffy views who made it onto the syllabus - but at the same time I probably laughed at plenty of dodgy stereotypes (I'm sure at some point I must have tugged at the outer corners of my eyes and made ching chong noises) and I was just quite sheltered about stuff in general.

There's definitely also some things where it never occurred to me at the time they might be questionable because they were only ever presented as acceptable - e.g. the time one of my teachers pointed out me and another mixed-race boy in the class as "half-caste" (it was in relation to the lesson and meant entirely innocently, I didn't see any issue with it at the time but now I think that would rightly be seen as a bit rum).

I do remember always thinking the "that's gay!" insult wasn't very nice, even before I (to my knowledge) had any queer mates or was really aware of/invested in anything relating to gay people much at all, beyond a few stereotypes.

Quote from: Captain Z on September 18, 2021, 01:06:48 AM
My grandad was into fishing and used to sing me a version using the word "tiddler" - meaning a tiny fish, and "if he squeals, let him go". I was probably in my twenties before I realised it was not just a harmless fishing rhyme. Good old woke grandad though, I'm quite proud looking back.

Aw. Think I heard that one at my school too, though the standard was "monkey" IIRC.

We always said "nipper", and I pictured someone grabbing a baby by one of it's big toes and lifting it up to stop it crawling away.

"if he screams, let it go" we said too.
It was used as a dibbing rhyme when we were seeing who was going to be "on" for a game or who would have to do something.

I don't think I heard the racist version until Jeremy Clarkson got in trouble for muttering it under his breath that time.

Ip, dip, dog shit
fucking bastard, little git
you. are. not. it

that was my favourite.

Captain Z

Quote from: ImmaculateClump on September 18, 2021, 01:09:38 AM
Ip, dip, dog shit
fucking bastard, little git
you. are. not. it

Yeah I was just reminded of that one. Also

Ibble, obble, chocolate bobble, ibble, obble, out.

Video Game Fan 2000


Ibble, obble, black bobble,
ibble obble out
turn the dirty dishcloth inside out
not because it's dirty
not because it's clean
all because of the hairy queen

I'd be surprised if that one was nationwide.

JesusAndYourBush

I remember as a kid people either catching a tiger (not tigger) or a baby by its toe, although I remember people saying the racist version too.  And we said screams or squeals (can't remember which) and never holler.

And regarding chocolate bobbles, our was...

Ibble, obble, black bobble,
ibble obble out
If you want a chocolate bobble
Please step out

ProvanFan

I wasn't aware of the bad eeny meeny miny mo until I was older. We did the 'sit the baby on the po' version.

Told a shitload of racist jokes to make up for it though.

touchingcloth

Quote from: flotemysost on September 18, 2021, 01:09:19 AM
(I'm sure at some point I must have tugged at the outer corners of my eyes and made ching chong noises)

That sort of thing was rife growing up in the 90s, but I'm not sure I ever connected it with actual people. The pulled-back eyes don't really look Asian where the defining feature is more an absence of eyelid than anything else. Likewise there seemed to be an obsession with bindi spots, but they weren't something I was coming across with any regularity. I've definitely said "bud bud, ding ding, 2.99" more times in my life than I've seen an actual bindi, but I have no fucking clue what it means.

bgmnts

The only thing I remember was Asian jokes.

Cloud

I think it was "catch a piggy" when I was a kid.

But yeah plenty of lolracism as a child.  What does BMW stand for again?

Video Game Fan 2000

definitely at least one incident of a kid crying because they told a joke they didn't understand and got done for it "i just thought it was funny that a man would be made out of chocolate" etc

touchingcloth

Quote from: Video Game Fan 2000 on September 18, 2021, 01:47:21 AM
definitely at least one incident of a kid crying because they told a joke they didn't understand and got done for it "i just thought it was funny that a man would be made out of chocolate" etc

I had to see the headmaster once because I had called Curtis a "black horse's ass", because he was being an arse and I had heard "black horse's ass" as an insult in Home Alone.

I can see why I got in trouble given that Curtis was black, and the Home Alone line is actually "big horse's ass".








I was 28.

Mr Banlon

My junior school had predominantly Punjabi pupils. Only about a dozen white kids in a school of 600 pupils. The racism I remember was about Jews being stingy. There were no Jewish kids at our school, but anyone who didn't share was called a 'Jew' or a 'Jewbag'


MikeP

Quote from: flotemysost on September 18, 2021, 01:09:19 AM
Yeah I'm sure most of us are guilty of saying or participating in things as a youth that would horrify us now.

What horrifies me is the way modern society deems a simple word to be racist, sexist, ageist or any other ist you care to mention, then substitute another word to describe exactly the same thing. But the new word (or words) is deemed to be acceptable. For example the much maligned 'n' word is now unacceptable (unless you are black) but black is still relatively widely used. Both mean exactly the same thing. Likewise with 'half caste' and it's current substitute 'mixed race'.

Too late now, but way back at the beginning of this linguistic discrimination we should have refused to crumble before it.

How is it that Aussie is acceptable as a shortening of Australian, Brit seems to be an acceptable shortening if Briton, or British person., but p**i canot be used as a short form of Pakistani? Does not even begin to make sense.

And why did we allow the word 'gay' to be hi-jacked as a substitute for 'homosexual'? IT MEANS THE SAME THING!!!

Sorry. Rant mode off

MikeP

Quote from: touchingcloth on September 18, 2021, 01:53:10 AM

I can see why I got in trouble given that Curtis was black, and the Home Alone line is actually "big horse's ass".


Quite agree, clearly should have called him a black big horse's ass.


Tony Tony Tony

Quote from: MikeP on September 18, 2021, 02:27:45 AM
What horrifies me is the way modern society deems a simple word to be racist, sexist, ageist or any other ist you care to mention, then substitute another word to describe exactly the same thing. But the new word (or words) is deemed to be acceptable. For example the much maligned 'n' word is now unacceptable (unless you are black) but black is still relatively widely used. Both mean exactly the same thing. Likewise with 'half caste' and it's current substitute 'mixed race'.


It's dual heritage now if you don't mind, you racist fecker.

Echo Valley 2-6809

Quote from: MikeP on September 18, 2021, 02:27:45 AM
How is it that Aussie is acceptable as a shortening of Australian, Brit seems to be an acceptable shortening if Briton, or British person., but p**i canot be used as a short form of Pakistani? Does not even begin to make sense.
It's all just words, what's the problem?
Assuming you're not doing a bit, it's about context. 'p**i' was emblematic for the National Front and similar sub-humans. 'p**i-bashing' really was a rite of passage for some people (working-class people, let's not deny it) in the 1970s and '80s, so the word's poisonously loaded.

Mr Banlon

The term P*ki was used as a catch-all term of abuse for pretty much anyone from the Indian subcontinent or anyone with brown skin, not just people from Pakistan. When racists daubed 'P*kis Out' on the walls in my town, it was aimed at the Sikh Punjabi Indians who made up the majority of the large immigrant population, not the handful of Muslim Pakistanis who lived there.
A racist doesn't care if you're from Pakistan, India, Bangladesh or Sri Lanka. You're just a fucking P*ki to them.

Elderly Sumo Prophecy

You know what BMW stands for?

Black Man's Willy

TrenterPercenter

#25
I really do feel sorry for a lot of you lot not growing up in Birmingham.  It is such a diverse city you have your first encounters with racists and racism very early on but alongside that you get solutions and opportunities.  When I was growing up anti-racism was already a big thing that was actively taught in schools; we celebrated Diwali, Eid, Vaisakhi, Passover together.  Back in the 80s there were lots of community focus events trying to bring communities together because of Birmingham's "melting pot status" and it's recruitment focus for the National Front and Combat 18.  As mentioned before we literally developed our own culture and music around this.  Sadly massive cuts lead to things like this being in shorter supply (we still have great community workers mind).  I also had a very active anti-racist socialist father (like his anti-racist anti-war dad) who would attend anti-NF rallies a taught me from a young age what it was all about (I'm forever in awe of him for this).

You worked out what racism was and whether you wanted to grow to be a filthy little racist or not quite early on.  Must be horrid to just be realising all this stuff now as if anti-racism was invented in 2020.

kalowski

Quote from: MikeP on September 18, 2021, 02:27:45 AM
What horrifies me is the way modern society deems a simple word to be racist, sexist, ageist or any other ist you care to mention, then substitute another word to describe exactly the same thing. But the new word (or words) is deemed to be acceptable. For example the much maligned 'n' word is now unacceptable (unless you are black) but black is still relatively widely used. Both mean exactly the same thing. Likewise with 'half caste' and it's current substitute 'mixed race'.

Too late now, but way back at the beginning of this linguistic discrimination we should have refused to crumble before it.

How is it that Aussie is acceptable as a shortening of Australian, Brit seems to be an acceptable shortening if Briton, or British person., but p**i canot be used as a short form of Pakistani? Does not even begin to make sense.

And why did we allow the word 'gay' to be hi-jacked as a substitute for 'homosexual'? IT MEANS THE SAME THING!!!

Sorry. Rant mode off
"You can't say anything anymore without upsetting them!"

The big thing during my early secondary school days in the early 80s were Jim-Davidson-style "Chalky" voices.

TrenterPercenter

I do wonder about these threads sometimes; it's as if they are just some cover for people to "reminisce" and in the process use these words again.  Seen it quite a few times now on here.  If you have any genuine consideration for the victims of racism do you seriously think going through a list of abusive terms in order to make you feel better about your own white guilt is a good thing to do?

Now you've got MikeyP here seeing it as their invitation to actually question whether some racist terms are actually racist and innocently ask why abbreviating Aussie is not racist.  Fuck off.

bgmnts

Is calling someone an Aussie cunt not racist? The rules are confusing.