Mad Atoms

My first encounter with legitimate racial slurs was on a middle school field trip to The Museum of Tolerance.  At the time the center’s most popular feature was a darkened hallway equipped with speakers that, as one walked through, shouted hurtful epithets.  What was meant to be a stirring experience for us 7th graders, instead resulted in a cluster of giggling tweens huddled in the darkness to hear academically sanctioned phrases such as “camel jockey” and “jungle bunny.” Let me say right now that the use of such terms in earnest is despicable and ridiculous.  But in the days of pogs, florescent colors, and “finger banging,” terms like “wetback” were hilarious.     

As a lark one day, I consulted the almighty Internet to see what the current word was on racial slurs.  I myself was only aware of about 12 slurs total, but according to the Racial Slur Database, there are actually hundreds.  And they are all very silly, even to an adult mind.  For instance, if I were to refer to you as an “Abba-Dabba lovin’ Buttermouth,” I would not be quoting Dr. Seuss, but rather calling you a Dutch person who loves Arabs.  The further one investigates this hate-filled database, the crazier the terms become, requiring one to suspend their sense of logic and decency in order to understand the poetics behind each phrase. For instance “Pinky Poop,” which sounds like the invented slander of a preschooler, actually at one point was used to refer to the progeny of mixed race coupling between a white G.I. and some foreigner of war (because the baby would come out “pink”).   Now that’s just downright stupid. Grow up and learn how figurative language works, racists.

I question the validity of such titles as “Snipcock” (referring to circumcision), or “Gravelbelly” (Hispanics who crawl across the border), and wonder what requirements, if any, each must meet in order to become an official racial slur.  As far as I can tell, all that is necessary is that the word or words must be applied in a spirit of hate, and sound like a nonsensical concoction of a children’s author.  If that’s really all it takes then I say we flood the world with more racial slurs, each more ridiculous than the last, so that when some asshole does try to be earnestly racist, she’ll be laughed at like the Moon Cricket-hating (Does that sounds racist enough?) idiot she is.  So go ahead and make with the hate-silly, you welfare grubbing Loopty Loops.  Here are a few of my own to get you started (I invite you to decide their application): Rubber Necker, Book Salesman, Hoobastanker, Horse Shoe, Lava Monster, Shiver-Me-Timbers, Higgledy Piggledy, Plumber Hologram, and Belly Flopper.  Now your turn!