Some advice making the rounds about how us whiteys can avoid going cuckoo when someone says that we've said something racist. The summary:

Shorter Ampersand: Don't make it a whacking huge deal if you say something racist, or something others perceive as racist. Apologize, move on, and consider the criticism seriously so that you can improve your thinking, if need be.

Sometimes it's just learning new things, though. I was quite surprised to hear that two African-American women had sued Southwest Airlines a few years ago for asking them to find seats on an outbound plane by saying, over the plane's intercom, "Eeny, meeny, miny, moe/Please sit down, it's time to go."

Apparently, an older form of the rhyme, especially in the U.S. South, goes like this:

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe
Catch a nigger by the toe
If he hollers make him pay
Fifty dollars every day

I had never heard that. The second line we always used was "Catch a tiger by the toe." However, as kids, the third and fourth lines we heard and used were the same as in the racist version above. We were kids - it didn't really sink in that this made no sense whatsoever. (Most rhymes had something of talking animals in them, so a tiger hollering and having to pay a fine didn't seem totally outlandish.)

I certainly understand why people of color who had known the racist version might be offended or humiliated by an "eeny, meeny, miny, moe" rhyme directed solely at them, but I had never heard the racist form at all before the lawsuit hit the news.

It actually took scanning through several Google results to find any news about the suit that wasn't from some right-wing nutcase site that was all bent out of shape about how those uppity, uh, "defendants" had no business being offended by something in which offense wasn't intended. Ampersand's advice to step back a moment before becoming ultra-defensive would have done them good, except their entire purpose in life is to be offended by people who don't like what they like. Alas.

[Via Alas (a blog).]