On another forum I was besieged by posts telling me that "pot calling the kettle black" is a racist and un-PC term. I was under the impression that this idiom referred to the color of cast iron cookware and not the color of anyone’s skin. Someone suggested that if the expression was not intended as disparagement toward people of color, then the expression might as well be "pot calling the kettle hot" instead, which I found ridiculous.

The silly contretemps reminded me of a character’s diatribe in a movie whose title I cannot recall, in which he argues that billiards is a racist past time because a white ball is used to hit the colored balls.

What do you all think of the expression?

I view it as far more racist to read such meanings into perfectly innocent idioms simply because they involve visual information. Aren’t we trying to move away from defining people by color?

~Silver
(Who isn’t silver-colored. She just likes the word "silver".)

I would ask two questions:

How is one supposed to know what is objectionable? Almost anything is going to be objectionable to someone.

What is it that you (i.e. the objector, as a black person,) find so objectionable about the phrase? Would a Native American object to the phrase "A stop sign calling a fire engine  red"? Would an Asian American object to "a banana calling a lemon yellow"?

Okay, more than two questions.

DJ

[quote author=demijohn link=board=idiom;num=1063661402;start=0#4 date=09/16/03 at 13:22:34]
Would a Native American object to the phrase "A stop sign calling a fire engine  red"? Would an Asian American object to "a banana calling a lemon yellow"?

It seems that any phrase in which the word black is used can be interpreted as disparaging because "black" is also used as a racial identifier, as opposed to your examples of red and yellow. Indians don’t refer to themselves as Reds, Asians don’t call themselves Yellows, but prior to the expression African-American (which I still don’t understand. lambaste me if you will, but aren’t Americans just Americans? only people who are actually FROM Africa should call themselves that IMO) people with darker skin and an African ancestry were referred to and called themselves "black", which has made the color word a potentially inflammatory word. Sucks, doesn’t it?

And I still think "pot calling the kettle black" is a completely acceptable phrase.

Also, ALL color words used to describe skin tone sound absurd to me. I don’t know any yellow, red, or black people. I know lots of various shades of brown and pinkish taupe though.  :)

I agree with stickler that calling yourself an African-American if you are not actually from Africa is ridiculous.  A certain friend of my brother was born in Africa and yet is a white person.  She could still call herself African-American though.  I feel the term shouldn’t be a name for just black people, but should be used if you’re from Africa, not to denote race.  I especially like katy’s use of the word niggardly, which for all those who don’t know means stingy and cheap.  Anyone remember the name of the senator who resigned because of intense hatred towards him after using the word "niggardly"?  How ridiculous!

- Robby

I get a bit irritated at the use of "African-American" myself - I don’t think anyone ought to be hyphenated unless they’re immigrants themselves. It causes confusion - it implies that the people it usually refers to aren’t real Americans, and it especially makes it a pain when you want speak about those who were born and raised in Africa and now live in the United States, whatever their descent.

~Silver
(Who if pressed would describe herself as pink, and distinctly NOT from anywhere near the Caucasus.)

PS I just remembered an incident from a couple years ago - my friends and I were starting a new club at our school, and for some reason the administration wanted to know the racial composition of our members. The answers of "white", "black", and "Asian" were far outnumbered by "Elven", "Cat-person", "alien", etc.  ;D

Well, if the snowball wants to call the milk white it won’t offend me. I usually check the white box, but only because 1st generation Italian - 3rd generation Irish - All American isn’t usually one of the choices.

Besides, except for a few albinos, nobody is white anyway. White is kind of a racist concept anyway.

Oh well, I guess I’ll trade my cast iron pot in for a copper one.

DJ

none of which are angles

Surely ‘anglo’ can be used for anyone that is a) not Hispanic and b) not African-American or obviously Asian.

- PW

I don’t really give a rat’s behind where you’re from; it’s where you’re going I care about.

[quote author=Palewriter link=board=idiom;num=1063661402;start=15#17 date=09/17/03 at 23:58:03]I don’t really give a rat’s behind where you’re from; it’s where you’re going I care about.

I’m going to dinner.  8)

Well, I guess that one’s fair enough, since I made a similar joke about Demijohn in another thread - and my answer is assuredly the same as that which you provided on his behalf.

~Silver  :P

[quote author=El_Viejo_Feo link=board=idiom;num=1063661402;start=0#8 date=09/17/03 at 08:08:46]I am an Irish folk music enthusiast and own several records (these are vinyl disks in which grooves have been cut which grooves cause a vibration in a device called a "needle" which vibrations are electronically transformed into music, or other sounds considered by many to be music) by various Irish folk groups.  I once owned a recording of various Irish songs by a group the name of which escapes me.  But a passage from one of the songs goes as follows: "Now history left Ireland an colorful scene, one part is orange, the other is green.  The north and the south shall both look ahead, to see the Old Country stays out of the red". I think the red referred to communism, speaking of which….

Viejo,
I believe the orange and green refer to the Catholics and Protestants and the red refers to the British (similar to how red-coat was used in the US during the revolution).  What the passage is really saying is that the Catholics and Protestants need to put aside their differences to keep the British out.  I don’t know my history well enough to know whether orange stands for the Catholics or Protestants, but I’m pretty sure the orange comes from William and Mary of Orange.  -Just thought you might find that of interest!
Meredith

Orange is for Protestant; Green is for Catholic.

We had an old Irishman in my church who always tried to persuade us to wear the Orange on St. Patrick’s Day.

Sitran

Sitran, that’s hysterical!  I think I have a new family tradition!

;D

-Tim

Irish citizens do not, to the best of my knowledge, wear any particular color on the feast of St. Patrick. It’s a religious holiday which only recently began to take on the silly drunken overtones of the American celebrations (granted, imbibing in Ireland is not frowned upon for any occasion).

I find it peculiar that "the wearing of the green" has become such a fixture for Americans of Irish ancestry and many who have no such ties to the country. Just a case, I suppose, of Americans wearing their hearts on their sleeves, or chests or backsides, in this instance.

In grade school, since St. Joseph’s day follows St. Paddy’s by two days, and many of us were of Polish or Italian ancestry, we kids felt compelled to wear red and white attire to honor St. Joseph on his day. Thinking back on this behavior made me why we did this. Interestingly (to me at least), I found this:

St. Joseph’s Day in Chicago Polonia: A Polish-American Hybrid

Run by a largely Irish political and church elite, the city visibly celebrated the Feast of St. Patrick on March 17. In Chicago, this included a prominent parade and turning the Chicago River green. In multi-ethnic parochial schools this found expression in "the wearing of the green" visually marking those of Irish heritage. As is often the case in diasporic immigrant culture, the importance of St. Joseph’s Day escalated and found new significance in a new context. In immigrant Polish and Italian communities this provided an alternative form of cultural identification and expression of loyalty. Just two short days later, Polish and Italian Americans dressed in red, celebrating their patron and publicly showing their ethnic identity. (Both national flags include this color as opposed to the Irish green). Especially in those of school age, this created a curious linking of the two ethnic groups, who identified against the traditions of the Irish.

from here http://acweb.colum.edu/users/agunkel/homepage/easter/swjozef.html

Stickler:

I find it peculiar that "the wearing of the green" has become such a fixture for Americans of Irish ancestry and many who have no such ties to the country.

The Wearing of the Green by Dion Boucicault (1820-1890)

One traditional icon of the day is the shamrock. And this stems from a more bona fide Irish tale that tells how Patrick used the three-leafed shamrock to explain the Trinity. He used it in his sermons to represent how the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit could all exist as separate elements of the same entity. His followers adopted the custom of wearing a shamrock on his feast day.

The History of St. Patrick’s Day

Does " the custom of wearing a shamrock" foreshadow the " Wearing of the Green?"

Sitran

In England in the 50s we ‘Irish Catholic’ kids wore the colours of the Irish tricolour—green, white, AND ORANGE—on St Patrick’s Day.

The orange was (is) very important: the symbolism being green (the Catholic tradition) and orange (the Protestant tradition) joined by white (peace) in the shape of the tricolour (recalling the ideals of the French Revolution: liberty, equality, fraternity, and the sovereignty of the people, i.e. republican government).

All that "wearing of the green" leprachauny whimsy associated with the NY St Patrick’s Day parade harks back to a time before the Irish War of Independence and is about 100 years out of date in my view.

There, and I was supposed to be giving up writing about matters political until Lent…

Coemgenus