Mom, not pleased
TheStar.com – News – Racial slur on sofa label stuns family — How much effort does it take to prevent this sort of thing?
When the new chocolate-coloured sofa set was delivered to her Brampton home, Doris Moore was stunned to see packing labels describing the shade as “Nigger-brown.”
She and husband Douglas purchased a sofa, loveseat and chair in dark brown leather last week from Vanaik Furniture and Mattress store on Dundas St. E.
Moore, 30, who describes herself as an African-American born and raised in New York, said it was her 7-year-old daughter who pointed out the label just after delivery men from the Mississauga furniture store left.
“Shes very curious and she started reading the labels,” Moore explained. “She said, `Mommy, what is nig … ger brown? I went over and just couldnt believe my eyes.”
If I laughed when i read this, does that make me a bad person?
Yes, hehe.
engrish.com
Probably just an import label translation snafu, nothing nefarious. Too much reliance or Mandarin to English translation software.
I assume Al Sharpton will be having some sort of press conference, or call for the furniture store to be burned or something.
“Nigger-Brown” – oh my! It reminds me of my high school Creating Writing class teacher favorite saying “Being Specific is Terrific!”
Um,
Look it up…In europe it means Brown or black…
Its derived from Niger…where they picked up slaves…
Yes.
Translation isn’t enough.
Localization is the key.
You would call something that in a Modern Britain…. you’d probably 10 years of special rehabilitation by the Politcally Correct police ….
If you are translating form Spanish or Portuguese I could see how you’d make the mistake….
you realize this is really old. The company in China admited that is was a translation issue.
I’d be surprised to see that the Brits have changed that much. I worked for a UK-based sporting goods conglomerate a couple decades back – and ran into exactly the same color description in a brochure for products they were about to introduce into the US market.
As much as some of us prod and poke to keep our “fellow Amurikans” on the straight and narrow – I’d be the first to admit one result of many decades of battling against our native flavor of racism is a national level of consciousness about racism well above par for Western Europe.
I can’t believe I’m the first to comment on Miss Moore’s amazing Klingon make-up job. It’s quite astonishing. The huge forehead, the hair, the sneer, god it’s perfect!
Wow. Do they still call cigarettes “fags” in UK or is that outlawed by PC Police?
Chinese translation error.
http://snipurl.com/1i2sj
Moore is consulting with a lawyer and wants compensation. Last week, she filed a report with the Ontario Human Rights Commission.
Gee, what a surprise!!
And here is more stupidity from a deep pocket (M$):
Load up Visual Studio 2005. Then paste a button or any old object that has a color property. Click on that color property, go to the “web” tab, locate the color “red”, then look a couple more colors down — specifically between “firebrick” and “snow”.
It’s called IndianRed.
Have the Chinese ever enslaved Africans? Do the Chinese care about the history of Africans in America?
Why cause trouble for the store? They didn’t make the furniture. It is like not shopping at stores that sell Sony because every time you buy Sony products, the products break. Please take the complaints to the manufacturers of the products.
So their daughter never heard or seen the word before. I guess the family doesn’t listen to hip-hop or rap. I would type out the word but I am white which would make the word automatically offensive.
In 500 years from now, will the word be offensive to anyone?
Anyone else remember these fine products?
Isn’t it against the law to remove tags from furniture?
I love this ongoing double standard. Black folks call each other ‘nigger’, no problem – heck, it’s even considered friendly, cool, and hip. White folks even whisper ‘nigga’, and risk getting shot or prosecuted for a hate crime. I find that utterly hilarious. What I’ve observed is that despite all the efforts to help, the black community keeps itself down. So personally, I’d like to either do away with affirmative action and the NAACP, or make affirmative action be non-racial and create a NAAWP. Of course, for saying all this, I’m a racist. So, we’re back to the double standard… 🙂
Yearsbehind.com
Unless her daughter was born white, I don’t believe she didn’t knew what “nigger” means. What, they live on the moon?
Blacks call themselves “nigers”, don’t they? If someone calls himself “Alfred” why should I call him some different name? Just because someone else thinks its not appropiate? LOL fuck you all you politically correct imbeciles 🙂
I wonder when whites will finally be offended for being called white? Its racism too since its using color/race isnt it? 😉
Oh, its not racism?
#22,
This happened in Canada. Brampton is a suburb or Toronto, approximately 350,000 people and relatively wealthy. I haven’t been there in a while, but it is a nice city. It is also racially diverse with many blacks, Asians, and Orientals. I doubt if the daughter would have heard the word “nigger” already.
#23
You mean black people don’t have tv nor listen to any modern ‘black’ music up there in Bramton, ON, Canada?
😯
To #18, yes I remember Funny Face Drinks. As I remember, there was also a “Loud Mouth Lime”…. or was it, “Loud Mouth Limey” ?
Isn’t this story 3 weeks old? Dvorak, you’re really slipping here.
Probably just a misspelling of “Niger”, which is a west African country. There is also a river, called the Niger river – the main river in Africa. I bet it has a praticular brown color along the line somewhere.
#13
Yep, the last time I checked they still do; And Germans call Basoons (a wind pipe instrument) “Faggot.”
Should it have been negro brown?
…And if the sofas were made in Africa, would it made the same fuss?