Reminds me of an incident at Brown University several years ago. Group of black women were outside of a dorm making a lot of noise. An Asian student inside trying to study got angry and screamed at them to stop, calling them “water buffaloes”. Women complained and got the guy expelled for a racial slur. He sued, and won, as he proved in court that there was nothing racist in his comment, that the phrase is used in his country to describe anyone who is loud and obnoxious.
Or the politician who used the word “niggardly”, which means cheap and stingy. He was removed from office–even when he demonstrated that the word had nothing to do with the N-word, because “it sounded too much like the N-word”. Based on that thinking, we should not use the word “trigger” or “grave-digger” or Winnie the Pooh’s friend Tigger, for the same reason.
Actually, @MADad, I don’t mean to pile on, but I think you’re also mistaken about the man who used the word “niggardly”, if we’re thinking of the same incident. The person he had the conversation with demanded he be fired, but when it hit the papers and everyone pointed out he was an idiot, there was no action taken against the man with the larger vocabulary.
Edited to say: I just googled it, and we are both right. You were thinking (I assume) of an incident where the person was fired then re-hired. The incident in my state ended up only with people laughing at the one who charged racism. I’m leaving my post up instead of deleting it in case anyone else had the same memory I did.
hayden–yes, the case I had in mind, the individual, who worked in DC gov’t was forced to resign, but then due to public clamor, was offered his job back but refused it, accepting another position instead. The individual was defended by then-head of the NAACP,Julian Bond. Wikipedia describes several incidents involving that word, perhaps the case near you is one of them.