We were watching a talkshow on television where some Parisian was pontificating on some damn thing or another—I'm not sure what, as I was half-snoozing and his grating voice and pinched accent was penetrating my rest—when I said, "Good Lord! these frogs are annoying!"
"Excuse me!" Skeeter and Boo-Boo said in unison.
"Oh! don't start!" I said.
"Frogs?" Boo started anyway.
"Get a grip, you're not a frog, you're French-Canadian!" I barked.
"Excuse me!" Boo bellowed.
"Jayzus, here we go," I muttered.
"No one says French-Canadian anymore," Skeet said.
"Okay, you're a pepsi, then!" I said.
"My God!" Boo nearly shrieked. "It's getting worse!"
"Look," I began, "maybe I'm wrong about the frog thing. That may be racist...But I thought it was like with the darkies—"
"—STOP THAT!—" Skeet screamed.
"—negroes—" I recovered.
Skeet picked me up and shouted into my face (incidentally spraying my beard with spittle), "MY GOD! HOW STUPID ARE YOU?!?!?!"
"Okay! Go for it! What's the right word this week?"
There was a long silence as they wondered if it was "African American", "Black", "people of colour", "Afro-American" or something else and I said, "You see? Now may I make my point, please. I thought I could say anything I wanted about gays, French-Canadians or white people (like frogs) because you—and by extension I—are all three. Like when Blacks use the n-word to each other."
There was a little silence and then Skeet said, "Not quite.On the white people, for instance; you can't say wop or spic—"
"—don't be a dink," I countered, "those are people of colour so of course I wouldn't say that. But krauts, frogs, limeys—"
"My God!" Boo said, "you're a foul little beast. I'm so glad you can talk."
There was another long silence and they stared at me as Boo tried to form an argument. Then he said, "Bottom line: you don't use any of those words. You are right, however, about people using some words like that amongst their own. Also, even if you are not part of a certain group, if people know where you're coming from they might make allowances."
"Hunh?"
"For instance," he went on, "I let my friend Robin talk about fags around me because I know she's a hard-core leftist, a feminist and she's goofing on me."
"So, where do I stand, here?" I asked. "What am I allowed to say about gays, for instance."
"We'll have to see about that," Boo said.
"Speaking about feminists," I said, "what about words like 'twat' and 'cunt'?"
"Hm..." Boo said.
Skeet said, "Well, look—and this is very personal to me, and as a writer—but for me those are simply hard words, not necessarily sexist. They're the last line of insult. In my opinion, again, they're like the word fuck and its variants used to be: taboo and used only in very special circumstances—hard insult. And not just for women. Guys can be real cunts too."
"Jeez..."
"What?" Boo asked.
"It's confusing."
"And another thing," Skeet said, "people chose what they want to be called. People of colour can decide—when they want!—that one word is no longer right and that's it. No discussion. When I was a kid, 'Negro' was the right word, now it's very much not and that's that. Got it?"
"Humans are fucked," I said. "And when you hear someone using a racial epithet what do you do?"
"I call it out."
There was a little silence and then I got a flash of blinding light. "And the other night, when Bill Maher was comparing stupid Americans to dogs and you were laughing your ass off...?"
"Well, dogs—" Boo started.
"Yes, 'Well, dogs'," I mocked.
And that ended the conversation among my fellow animal lovers and meat-eaters.
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