"At school after Christmas we were discussing the foods we ate during the holidays. When I told the White teacher we had chitlins and hoghead cheese, she acted as though it was something weird. She asked me to say it again, she turned to the class and said, "You mean chit-ter-lings." She put the word on the board and spelled it and then said, "Class, repeat after me, Chit-ler-lings." I was embarrassed beyond belief and I dealt with it by joking with my family. When I went home I told them that they didn't know what they were eating because they couldn't pronounce it right." (Pinderhughes, pp.25-26, 1989)
"Whites Blacks, Puerto Ricans, and other racial and ethnic minorities are forced by racial oppression to be aware of themselves as members of racial groups, Whites are generally not aware of their whiteness." (Adams and Schlesinger 1988, p.225) (Pinderhughes, p.73, 1989)
"The very language we use is riddled with racism. When white people, including social work educators and practitioners speak of Britain, they usually mean white, 'English' Britain. Becoming aware of the implicit racism in the word makes white anti-racists hesitant in using it. But, as yet, we have neither reclaimed the word by divesting it of the racist ideologies and practices embedded within it, nor have we developed an appropriate alternative to it." (Dominelli, 1994, p.6)
This quote comes from am First Nations woman who wrote an article on violence on Aboriginal women. After the paper, she Notes: "I am uncomfortable with this construction of race. I am also uncomfortable with the word "white". So far, I have not been able to discover English words that are comfortable to me when I wish to refer to non-Aboriginal people. This is just one example of how inadequate the English language is especially for individuals who wish to bring a different cultural or gender perspective to the discourse. I think this problem of language is a reflection of disempowered status of both Aboriginal Peoples and women." Patricia Monture-Angus, 1995, P. 16
