Is "Canadian" a Racial Slur?

by Jes

While the Southeastern United States lies on the same continent, it might as well be half way around the world. The customs, attitudes, and language of that region are just so vastly different then ours in Vancouver that if I ever happened to travel to Atlanta, I'd feel like I'd landed on a new planet.

Wayne, our Southern Correspondant, passes on a very strange tidbit about how the word 'Canadian' seems to have been adopted by some Southerners as a racial slur.

O RLY?

Last August, a blogger in Cincinnati going by the name CincyBlurg reported that a black friend from the southeastern U.S. had recently discovered that she was being called a Canadian. "She told me a story of when she was working in a shop in the South and she overheard some of her customers complaining that they were always waited on by a Canadian at that place. She didn't understand what they were talking about and assumed they must be talking about someone else," the blogger wrote.

"After this happened several times with different patrons, she mentioned it to one of her co-workers. He told her that ‘Canadian' was the new derogatory term that racist Southerners were using to describe persons they would have previously referred to [with the N-word.]"

Yeesh, how sad.

I don't even get it, either. Like our favourite 4-letter word, racial slurs tends to be short, forceful and direct, like a punch in the guy.

I find it very hard to say the word Canadian and sound all that nasty. It's like people who use FIDDLESTICKS in lieu of a real curse word. It just doesn't quite work.

To any black people who might end up being called 'Canadian', turn the tide on these suckas and proclaim that you are proud of such a designation.

"Damn right I am Canadian, eh! We have free health care, low crime, and better looking women!"