American Bigots Use ‘Canadian’ To Mean ‘Black’
THE National Post asks: “In the U.S. south, is Canadian a new racial slur?”
Last August, a blogger in Cincinnati going by the name CincyBlurg reported that a black friend from the southeastern U.S. had recently discovered that she was being called a Canadian. “She told me a story of when she was working in a shop in the South and she overheard some of her customers complaining that they were always waited on by a Canadian at that place. She didn’t understand what they were talking about and assumed they must be talking about someone else,” the blogger wrote.
“After this happened several times with different patrons, she mentioned it to one of her co-workers. He told her that ‘Canadian’ was the new derogatory term that racist Southerners were using to describe persons they would have previously referred to [with the N-word.]”
A similar case in Kansas City was reported last year on a Listserv, or electronic mailing list, used by linguistics experts. A University of Kansas linguist said that a waitress friend reported that “fellow workers used to use a name for inner-city families that were known to not leave a tip: Canadians. ‘Hey, we have a table of Canadians…. They’re all yours.’ “
Black Canadians visiting more some of the more racist parts of the American South should not be affected by this development…
Posted: 27th, January 2008 | In: Anorak In New York Comments (9) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
June 6th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
Tipping like a canadian is not a racial thing, it simply states the fact that most servers find them to be real cheapskates. They leave 5-10%, sometimes less. If everyone tipped like them no one would take the job but canucks rely on the other customers who do the right thing to subsidize their service.
March 4th, 2008 at 11:10 pm
As someone who has worked in the service industry for close to 20 years, and gives everyone the benefit of the doubt and great service, no matter if i give certain table all of my attention sometimes they dont tip, or leave a very small 10 percent tip at that. The term Canadian has been around for awhile, and it originally meant your getting a crappy to no tip. Sorry Canada, but 10 percent doesnt cut it. The Canadians could be Mexican, black, Asian, and yes even white. However black people, and Mexicans are more notorious for this as are the Canadian, get over it, your the ones causing people not to be able to pay there bills because you cant give up a little bit of money to someone who provided a service to you. Also if you tell me that you cant leave a tip because the bill was so high, or you cant afford it, than why are you out. Now I cant pay my bills because you caused my sales to be high and now I have to pay more in taxes with money you never left because we have to claim a percentage of our sales. People in the industry only get paid around 2.15 an hour. So excuse us if we get a little angry and start calling you names. I am sorry for where the word has changed in meaning these days, when it originally meant for it to mean all you non tipping costumers as a whole. Now these days you dont tip you dont get drunk, nor will you ever get good service. We always remember. Thank you
January 29th, 2008 at 7:03 am
RE:petronious
This is Anorak “lighten up”
Re:Steve Hughs
“Hilarious”…only in America
January 28th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
well that is the americans, our lovely friendly neighbours. god bless them!
January 28th, 2008 at 8:42 am
I’m a rubbish tipper because I’m a student.
We’re referred to as ‘bloody students’.
January 28th, 2008 at 8:36 am
Blacks, of course, are the worst tippers since their basic mind set is that the world owes them.
1. All Blacks tip badly.
2. All blacks think that the world owes them something.
Two Impossible predicates. All, blacks, at all, ever? Not in my experience, so not all then.
Since this is a logically impossible generalisation, it must therefore be racist.
Please get this yahoo off here, and thanks for inadvertantly (I assume) showing us all what you really are.
I guess that the native American indians are all lazy and drunk, well, all the Whiteys are genocidal alcoholic illiterate sons of whores, who seem to think that the world owes them America to piss on the rest of the planet from.
January 28th, 2008 at 12:55 am
Not to disagree that Canadians can be annoying, but as someone who’s lived in 4 Canadian provinces (not including Quebec, the French part) I know for a fact English Canadians tip between 10 and 20 per cent in restaurants. The only time they wouldn’t tip is if the service and/or food was terrible. It’s Aussies that don’t tip at home, according to what I’ve heard. And the gratuity is included in the price in Germany (I’ve lived there too).
That said, Canadians also tend to find white bigots from the U.S. South rather annoying…
rel:dr:28.01
January 28th, 2008 at 12:38 am
I would have thought Canadian would be used to refer to Liberals and the minorities that benefit from P.C. legislation rather than being a replacement for the N-word.
January 27th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
This is so funny, it’s not that the term Canadian is being used in place of the N word. It is that Canadians – coming from a society where tipping is included – are notoriously poor tippers.
Blacks on the other hand are notorious poor tippers for other reasons. Hence the catchall phrase “Canadians” to refer to poor tippers in general.
Blacks, of course, are the worst tippers since their basic mind set is that the world owes them.
Canadians are annoying but at least it’s understandable since in Canada tips are generally included in the bill.