Racial slur on sofa label stuns family

<http://www.thestar.com/News/article/200265>

Mother had to explain to daughter, 7 origin of 'totally unacceptable' word on wrapping of furniture built overseas


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This is a bizarre and fucked up story from last week. I apologize if someone else already posted it.

Perfect! :hide:

:spank: ;-)

i would expect the furniture store to offer me my money back or a different furniture set immediately. frankly, i can't imagine that they never noticed the labels on the merchandise. no matter what, passing the buck in this situation was not appropriate, imo.

with all that said, it's almost hard to believe. But then again...

never leaves the box/crate at the furniture warehouse/showroom...it is very EASY to see them not noticing a label.

D

in the situation figured out the obvious. Someone misspelled the word "Niger". Talk about mass hysteria. :crazy:

For them to misspell Spanish is hardly surprising. An unfortunate mistake, but as mistake nonetheless. The Chinese are out to sell their stuff, not gratuitously insult customers.

It's time to move on and get a life.

Oh boy.

(**'s are mine)

From here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/bob.tame/muni/prospect1.htm

I think that this is exactly what it looks like - total racism.

I used to have a girlfriend from Taiwan (Circa 1987-89) who had a tube of this in her bathroom:

In the late 80s and when I first saw that I was shocked. There was pressure from the ex-pat community and the company made a lame effort at a change. It became "Darlie" toothpaste.



The Chinese name of the toothpaste remained "Hei-ren" (Black person).

was a black woman?

Or was she just the first to complain about it?

I'm sure someone who was a buy described it to their foreign dealer that way and they didn't know it was a US racial slur.

But I doubt she was the first person to notice the slur.

are making excuses for this.

The woman should get her money back. Then, the people who sold her the furniture should go all the way up the line and let their dealers and suppliers know that this is unacceptable. Someone has to take responsibility.

Surely the distributor or the retailer noticed this. I'm sure it appeared on manifests and in wholesale records.

The woman should get a refund.

The Chinese have no concept of the word "ni***r". It doesn't exist in their language, and has no special relevance to them. Few Chinese factory workers speak fluent English, and most depend on poorly designed computer translation, or old Chinese-English dictionaries. Words get mistranslated, and cultural differences allow actions that would horrify someone from elsewhere in the world. It's possible that they actually intended to convey that the color was similar to that of an African's skin, and they simply didn't realize that some might find that offensive. When searching for a word to describe it, they picked an unfortunate one. The Chinese aren't taught about the African slave trade, the subjugation of that race, or the racism that existed following their release from bondage. It simply isn't relevant to them.

Most people would find this horrifying too:


It wasn't intentionally hurtful, it's just a bad translation by someone who didn't understand the language. If you want to make a lot of money, there is a HUGE demand for Chinese/English translators in China right now.

for the "N" word. They also have a Chinese equivalent of derogatory terms for just about everyone else.

I'm Anglo, not that that should matter. This is totally unacceptable and everyone should speak out about it.

And this idea that it's some kind of typo or translation problem is B.S. What's the typo? I don't buy "Niger Brown" for one minute.

owner for an explanation or would you just rip it off and ignore it?

That's how you deal with insults!

sorry for double post...computer issue.

for the most part (I saw a report) are a mess and they have to change them. It was I'm sure, in the case of the furniture done with malice.

on hand to sell those electronic pets. Mine were knock-offs from China of the original ones and the instructions were in a horribly translated Engtilsh, and they were next to impossible to read. One of the words they did use was shit when it came time for the electronic pet to do its business. Luckily I never had a customer return one to me, but I live in NY and i don't think the word is that of a big deal here.

Oh she makes me soooooo mad!

:sarcasm:

:spray: Thank you.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=597296


I think it was a bad translation. The sofa came from China. And Niger is latin for black. I think what they meant was black-brown sofa.

I seem to recall, when I was quite young in the late 40s and first learned to read, seeing a Crayola crayon with some such color designation ... it may have been "niger brown." (It certainly wasn't the "n-word" but close.) I cannot be certain, since the memory is so vague ... but the echo of that memory is there like a dangling thread bumping against me in the dark.

FWIW, if I were to encounter such a label on something I bought, I'd sure raise all kinds of hell. As I've said, I regard that term right at the top in terms of toxicity ... and it leaves a stinking slime trail in my brain whenever I encounter it. (Excuse me while I use some mental Clorox)

finding out this is actually hate speech, or a person in another country with challenges in spelling and English.