Words are powerful. There's no doubt about it.
And since I chose to study English and communications, and then chose a career dedicated to teaching communicating, I didn't think this was something I needed to be reminded of. But today, for the first time in quite a while, I was reminded of our national identity, and how so much of it is tied up in the words we choose to use. And the words we don't use. Unless you're in a Virgin Active gym apparently.
I'm talking of course of those words that South Africans know are taboo. Words that are not to be used, and that can cause great hurt, anger and offense if they are used. Especially in Virgin Active gyms!
There are certain words that can make a South African twitch if they are uttered aloud, or written by supermodels on their idiotic Facebook status updates. And the four lettered racist "C" word is one of those words. (Err, this word is not to be confused with the other four letter "C" word which is also bad). I battle to even write it here within the context of this post without twitching, but I have to use the word as it was used today, so that you can relate to my angst.
Right, so as many of you know, we've come to Canada so that we can travel a lot more than we did from SA, which sometimes requires leaving our zoo of two dogs and two cats at home. We schlepped them to Toronto, but it won't always be practical or fair to schlep them around on our travels with us now that we're here. In SA, when we went overseas, my wonderful parents always moved into our home, and looked after our fur babies. Often for weeks at a time, and so well, that our animals never looked that excited to have us back.
Alas, things are different here. We don't really know anyone, and aren't prepared to leave our babies with just anyone, so an intensive interviewing process has taken place to find the right person to move into our home and look after our zoo when we travel.
The candidate we most liked was a 66 year old woman who loves animals, and supplements her pension and combats boredom by house sitting people's pets. She came highly recommended, and the interview was going really well until:
Her: So, how does Muggle feel about coons?
Me (spitting out my water at the mention of the no-no "C" word) : I beg your pardon?
Her: Coons! Coons! Does she hate them? A lot of dogs hate those damn coons, and if they see them, they chase them. You can't blame them, can you? I don't like those damn coons either. There are a lot of them moving into the suburbs which is a big problem. They're always in your garbage and running around at night. They have sneaky eyes - you can't trust a coon! Can I let Muggle off her lead to chase a coon if she wants to? They hardly ever catch them to bite them, which is a pity".
Picture me twitching every time the lady said "coon". I was horrified. Toronto is the most multi-cultural city in the world, which is one of the things I most love about it. It threw the world's biggest Pride parade in July, and has a huge Canadian bank that proudly sponsors it. There are people here from every nationality living, mostly, in harmony. It makes eavesdropping that much harder, because so many languages are spoken here. How was it possible that I was hearing such blatant racism?
I started to splutter and stammer about Muggle being a non-racist dog, and her fully accepting people of all races, and that we would never allow her to attack anyone, and how in South Africa, some of Muggle's best friends were black (often Labradors but still!), and that I couldn't hire someone whose values and ethics were so clearly questionable.
She stared at me blankly and innocently, and then asked what any of that had to do with raccoons. Which they call coons over here.
Oooooh raccoons.
Amazing the power that a word, that's totally innocent in one culture, can have in another one. Damn raccoons really are going to be a problem after all.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
No comments:
Post a Comment