Sure it's not a bad idea, that doesn't make it a good one though.

I just want candy. I don't discriminate.

Spitzbueb (a thug, ein Kleinkrimineller), also a term that's no longer part of everyday vocabulary, seems a much better comparison because it's also negatively connotated.

The problem with this discussion, on here, is that foreigners who typically have very limited knowledge of language and local culture try to tell the locals what a certain term means. And they have the audacity and try to order them to change.

Things simply don't work that way.

For me this is a point that is often underestimated, which is why I appreciated Stephan Fry's sentece at Munk debate



".. one of the greatest human failings is to prefer to be right than to be effective"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_W_npyI7Xsw&t=3m38s

This is all well and good and I'm a huge fan of Fry's, but perhaps some things you cannot say "Oh well, it's just how they think, don't try to change them".

If you have a child being naughty, you don't say "oh just leave him, that's his nature" - you try to take corrective steps. The same applies to people with childish or simplistic attitudes to things like racism - letting them get on with being racists isn't really a great option, you do need to try to do something to show them the error of their ways.

An excellent example of hubris.

Keep your child under control man!

I wonder if I have come across a more condescending attitude to the local culture. I understand your point but disagree that our role here is to "try to do something and to show them the error of their ways". I find it, in fact, quite culturally insensitive.

If people had never stood up against racism, white people would still be enslaving black people today, hanging them by trees, forcing them to sit at the back of the bus, etc.

People tend to follow social norms. As long as people think it's socially acceptable to be racist, they will continue to do so.

This is embarrassing to admit, but I'm going to admit it anyways... I received an email from my father a bit ago in which he casually referred to a Middle Eastern person as a "camel jockey." So I was put in the position where I had the choice of either ignoring it or calling him out on his racism. I chose the latter, because otherwise he is left oblivious to his own racism and the fact that it is not okay or acceptable to be racist (he comes from an era where, for much of his life, racism was considered socially acceptable and "the norm"). I explained to him that racism is a sign of ignorance and low education. So while I don't really expect to change him, at least I can hopefully force him to realize that maybe it's not okay to be a racist asshole.

It's actually black people who enslaved other black people and then sold them to white people. Meanwhile in parts of Africa, they still enslave people, they didn't get the memo.

Naah, not really. Racism is pretty universal so hiding behind "we use racist symbols but we're super open and welcoming otherwise" doesn't really cut it. Good try though

I didn't understand Fry that way.
The question is about effectiveness.
What we are doing really serves the cause we are defending or simply satisfies our ego in feeling right.

Okay, but the treatment of blacks by whites in the US can't be blamed on blacks in Africa. That thing called accountability, remember?

I remember.

Racism can never be considered culture. Tradition, perhaps, but certainly no contribution to any cultural landscape.

Presumably a more condescending attitude to local culture was considering black people inferior and putting them in chains for half a millennium. Maybe direct your opprobrium towards that not my criticism of certain sections of Swiss society.

The only problem with your assertion is that neither the term nor the sweet is racist.

Don't worry, even you will get that "logic" thing sooner or later.

Yeah, when it’s applied to something brown as a descriptor, it’s racist. Even migros got this.

I’m sure you’ll figure it out, sooner or later.

I've heard first-hand that coloured children in Switzerland have been called that in the school playground.

It doesn't really make much sense to me for white people to try to say what isn't offensive to black people.

Would that also happen (and work) if the child was white?

I've been taunted as a child for wearing glasses. Let's say I was black, would that make the glasses racist?