Well I'll let you guys decide.
CULVER CITY, Calif. (KABC) -- A graduation card sold at local stores has been pulled from shelves after a civil rights group raised concerns about the content. The group claims the card's micro-speaker plays a greeting that's racist.
It is a graduation greeting from
Hallmark that says, "Hey world, we are officially putting you on notice."
Members of the
Los Angeles NAACP did take notice. As characters known as "Hoops" and "Yoyo" banter on, African American leaders hear offensive language.
"And you black holes, you are so ominous. Watch your back," the card vocalizes.
NAACP calls Hallmark graduation card racist | abc7.com
That was hilarious. I remember when I was in elementary school one boy telling me that his mother prohibited him from listening to Michael Jackson because he used the word 'ass' in his song 'Beat it!'. After listening to it, we could all tell that the word was in fact 'eyes' but with a broad open vowel ending with a weakly vocalized 's' at the end, making it sound almost like 'ass'. His mother insisted the word was 'ass' though we could all tell it was 'eyes'.
It would seem that having an accent is not very tolerated by that civil rights group I suppose, just as it wasn't very tolerated by my friend's mother when I was in elementary school.
So I must conclude from this that saying the word 'black' followed by the word 'hole' but with enough of an accent to confound it with '*****' is now racist.
I'd hate to see one of those parents sitting through their kid's French lesson while the teacher, showing the picture of a seal (in reference to a sea mammal) with the word 'phoque' typed below it applauding in full approval as a kid raises his hand and says a word pronounced exactly like f u c k, and then with the teacher getting all the kids repeating it in chorus three times straight to help them remember the word.
Or what about when the Spanish teacher is teaching the Spanish word for black in reference to the noun referring to the colour, and get all the kids to write and repeat the word 'negro'. Or the Esperanto teacher teaching the word 'nigro'.
Or what about the English teacher who suggests 'Ben' as a good name for a student's dog, only for his Chinese mother to give the teacher heck for calling the kid's dog stupid.
When it reaches the point where so much as an accent can offend, how do you avoid offending people except by just keeping your mouth shut. And then you'll offend for not responding when spoken to. You just can win with all those traps lying around.
By the way, the root of the word Sudan, in reference to the country comes from the Arabic word for black.
You just can't win.
A lot of nonsense, in my opinion. Apparently the card has been around for three years, it didn’t bother anybody. And if one reads the posters behind the characters, they all refer to Astronomy.
I suppose Hallmark was right to pull the card, they don’t want to offend black people and be accused of racism. All the same, the whole thing is nonsense. Reminds me of the time when South African government banned the film ‘Black Beauty’, thinking it was about a black woman.
My guess is the NAACP will get an earful from some blacks about how ridiculous this makes the NAACP look.
