Ohiosphere Tale Of The Day (XI): 'Canadian' As The New N-Word

CINCINNATI (TDB) -- Mankind seems to have been wired with a never-ending itch to explore and discover new ways to denigrate other people and cultures. Now we have the word "Canadian," which reportedly is becoming freighted with a slang, mean street definition. It is now being used to describe blacks and is a substitute, or coded, racial slur to replace the N-word. A report of this troubling linguistic shift comes via CincyBlurg, who said a friend had noticed that white people were calling her Canadian.

[UPDATE: 6:35 AM edt -- There is a collection of offensive words online that is called the racial slurs database and it does list Canadian as being equated with the N-word. At last count, the database contained 2,636 entries of insulting expressions from across the globe. It does not countenance their use, but purports to collect slurs so people will know what not to say. So there is confirmation that Canadian carries a double meaning, and can be used as an epithet. The Bellwether is sad to report this news. The Mounties should be called in to recover their nation's good name from racist abusers. ]

It turns out that the people using the national description of someone from Canada actually did not see the person they labeled a "Canadian" as being an immigrant or visitor from Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver. They didn't like her dark skin color, and therefore said she had hailed from the great white north. Tricky are those slur-mongers. CincyBlurg goes on to report:

"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 abut someone else.

"After this happened several times with different patrons, she mentioned it to one of her coworkers. He told her that 'Canadian' was the new derogatory term that racist Southerners were using to describe the persons they would have previously referred to as (N-words)s. And for various reasons it didn't sound at all unusual for the average backward-ass Southerner to say things like, 'Those damn Canadians,' or 'The problem is all those Canadians.'"

CincyBlurg added she has not been able to find much more proof yet of the morphing of the word Canadian into racist slang. A Google search produced nothing. "Have I actually 'broke' this story?" she wonders.

Officially, Canada is a multi-cultural society where French and English have equal status as official languages and the Indians now control vast tracts of territory as First Nations. But it, too, wrestles with the scourge of racism at all levels of society. In the 1990s, the Canadian Broadcasting System caught cops on camera saying they were going to bait a trap for some wanted Native Americans with LaBatt's beer, a plan that would unfold the way "it works in the (U.S.) South with watermelons." Perhaps there is a code word for racist in Canada -- American?