We have a kitten named Blackie. He has black stripes. We got him last November. Are we racist if we named him Blackie because he is black? Or does that mean we are anti-racist? We’re so confused!
We also have his brother, Bullie. We named him Bullie because he is always beating up and otherwise discriminating against Blackie. Bullie is also light-colored (orange striped, which is called “orange privilege”).
At any rate, we’ll bet our retirement savings that no character in a book or movie ever gets named “Blackie” again, not in this country anyway. The name of Clark Gable’s character in San Franciso (1936), Blackie Norton, will have to be dubbed over, or at least a “trigger” warning added which of course you won’t be able to skip or fast-forward over. The movie Bad Day at Black Rock (1955) will be Bad Day at White Rock. And of course the Black Plague (or the Black Death) will have to be renamed, probably to The White Plague. Black Diamonds on ski slopes will be White Diamonds. While turnabout is fair play (we think, anyway, or it used to be), these examples don’t quite have the same impact, do they? Of course, not having the same impact is surely a direct result of our collective white racism, so we’re back where we began.
Fortunately there are a variety of alternatives. According to https://www.lexico.com/synonym/black, there are many synonyms for “black.” We can use inky, ebony or sable to replace black as a color. Or for adjectives we can use tragic, disastrous, calamitous, catastrophic, cataclysmic, ruinous, devastating, fatal, fateful, wretched, woeful, grievous, lamentable, miserable, dire, unfortunate, awful, terrible, direful, miserable, unhappy, sad, wretched, broken-hearted, heartbroken, grief-stricken, grieving, sorrowful, sorrowing, mourning, anguished, distressed, desolate, devastated, despairing, inconsolable, disconsolate, downcast, down, downhearted, dejected, crestfallen, cheerless, depressed, pessimistic, melancholy, morose, gloomy, glum, mournful, funereal, doleful, dismal, forlorn, woeful, woebegone, abject, low-spirited, long-faced, blue, down in the mouth, down in the dumps, angry, cross, annoyed, irate, vexed, irritated, exasperated, indignant, aggrieved, irked, piqued, displeased, provoked, galled, resentful, irascible, bad-tempered, tetchy, testy, crabby, waspish, dark, dirty, filthy, furious, outraged, threatening, menacing, unfriendly, aggressive, belligerent, hostile, antagonistic, evil, evil-intentioned, wicked, nasty, hate-filled, bitter, acrimonious, malevolent, malicious, malignant, malign, venomous, poisonous, vitriolic or vindictive.
If all those words are synonyms for “black,” well, apparently it really does suck to be black. But of course the word “black” as an adjective is probably shortly to be outlawed by the woke mob, with black people being the only permissible users. Probably the same will happen to the word “brown” pretty soon too, since most black people aren’t actually black, but some shade of brown.
But think of the fun and possible party games we can have interchanging many of these words with “black” in ordinary phrases. Some people are African-Unfortunate (which might be true, actually). How about The Cheerless Plague that “resulted in the deaths of up to 75–200 million people in Eurasia and North Africa, peaking in Europe from 1347 to 1351.” Black Death – Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org › wiki › Black Death. Well, you get the idea.
So instead of Blackie, meet our kitten “Crestfallen Despairing Sable.” That’ll scare off the neighborhood dogs alright. And he’s going to sue his racist brother Bullie for discrimination and creating a hostile kitten environment. Anyone know a good lawyer?