Re: Race Card

[Alexander Wang <awang@MIT.EDU>]

I don't think the point here was the intention of the original poster who 
used "melonhead." Some people on the list find the term offensive, probably 
because they've heard it used in a racist manner - and just because you 
haven't heard it yourself, or have heard it used in a non-racist way, 
doesn't mean that it hasn't been used that way - so it has negative 
connotations to them. They'd just prefer not to have it constantly repeated 
to them. Is that so hard? It's not like taking "melonhead" out of the list 
vocabulary is going to make it impossible to talk about Antoine.

I wasn't aware of any racial connotation to melonhead but let me give an 
example from my personal experience. When I was young, every so often, a 
bunch of random white guys would drive by and yell out something like "You 
fucking gook" because I was Asian. Naturally I didn't feel too good about 
this. At one point in college, a bunch of Asian guys I knew took to calling 
each other "gooks." When they called me that it reminded me of my prior 
experiences, even though I knew that these guys weren't a bunch of hick 
racists, so I told them I'd rather they didn't. The point is that 
regardless of the intent of the speaker, certain words may have a 
particularly charged associations for certain people, and when they ask you 
not to use it, they probably have a reason - maybe one that you're not 
familiar with or aware of.

Alex


At 11:21 PM 11/13/2001, Nathan A. wrote:
>I'll agree that this anti-melonhead reaction has gone to far. That 
>nickname has been used on this list for about a year or so I think. It 
>simply comes from the fact that AW has a huge head! (This reminds me of 
>"So I married an Axe Murderer" with Mike Meyers. I can see the old 
>Scottish dad yelling in a thick Scottish accent: "Good God, child, move 
>that friggin' huge noggin' o' yours. Would you look at the size of that 
>melon!" The kid was white.)
>No one can predict what pedestrian phrases someone on this list is going 
>to take offense to. How about the ol' headless chicken outbreak press? 
>Shouldn't that be just as offensive/racist as melon head?