Woman receives couch with offensive color description
This post was published 2 years 7 months 15 days ago and its content may not be valid anymore.A woman was stunned to discover that a love seat that she and her husband had ordered had a label affixed to the package bearing the color description of Nigger-brown [via]. Who’s to blame in this situation? The manufacturer? Or the distributor?
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.
“She’s very curious and she started reading the labels,” Moore explained. “She said, `Mommy, what is nig … ger brown?’ I went over and just couldn’t believe my eyes.”
Thoughts and how you would have reacted had you received an item with an offensive description on the label?
Wouldn’t have stopped laughing for a long time, should I have received that. If I had a kid, and they read it, I might be slightly more concerned.
Thats a very strange find?! Was the couch old or was it recently made, that is my question. Although the date it was created still doesn’t make it right.
I would have laughed all over ;o
Silly people, NIGER is a word in LATIN and FRENCH meaning BLACK. the label was bilingual!
Talk about intolerence, do you complain that the world map has a place called Niger on it in Africa?
Also, a lot of you might not know this, but the swastika is a tibetan symbol, the sideways versions is the Nazi version.
^ I saw on the tube that the swastika used to mean peace until Hitler used it.
Annon, I would like to point out that there is 2 g’s in nigger, and one in Niger. Bit of a difference.
I assure you that Black in French is noir.
I found a chicken head in my soup the other day.. I think I’ll sue the nearest eating establishment.
I got a maggot in my pistachios the other month. Haven’t been able to eat them since.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika
not tibetian mate…
I’m Sinhalese, so I couldn’t really comment on the ‘nigger black’ thing. It’s more insulting when you get racially abused, but that’s pretty rare in the UK. Some rascist taunts are pretty funny though, I should know…
“I assure you that Black in French is noir.”
I assure you that there are other words that have the same meaning.
Its roots come from Latin and then French.
Just like you can sell 30 cans of white paint with different names on it.
Annon is correct to a point. Most racial slurs (or most derogatory terms for that matter) actually have a very cerebral begining. Niger is latin for black. Nip is short for Nippon, which is what Japan calls itself, idiot comes from idot savant, limey and Kraut come from naval meathods of getting vitiman C so you didn’t sucumb to scurvey. There are hundreads, but the point being that niger is a very acceptable way to explain something in in a field where latin is used frequently. Science is often the case here. An insect (mosquito) which I used to research was called culex nigripalpus. Roughly translates to a mosquito whose larval form had black mouth parts. Words are not offensive, the intent behind words make them offensive. To be offened without know why seriously offends me.
Don’t know what this world is coming to. We are becoming most sensitive and wasting our energies on innocuous terms and events instead of finding solution to living harmoniously in the multi-cultural society that is here to stay.
Not racist at all, but damn I think it’s funny. Her look doesn’t help either.
i’d laugh if it said honkey-white, chink-yellow or jew-gold.
i think if you’re offended by a couch label, you’re probably not doing so well in life.
@Mark
best comment ever
I was going to say the same thing myself Mark.
I am asian, and if it said chink-yellow, I would have purchased another set.
I don’t care about the couch controversy, but Annon, you clearly do not speak French. You said it was bilingual (French and English). If that was the case, the translation of black would be noir – ask any French person in the world, and they will tell you that.
I’ve never run into a variation of black in French that is similar to the “N” word. I’m not saying it doesn’t exist, but it’s certainly not a common word.
Unfortunately I would’ve laughed.
I live in Canada,
and I see lots of imported furniture with that label on it.
I’d have laughed my c*ck off! Surely, there are more important things to worry about than the name given to a colour of a feckin sofa!? I’ve seen nigger black/brown on lots of labels and things. Less so in these oversensitive times we live in, but it still crops up. If I bought a sofa in honky-white, I think I’d have laughed just as much. ‘Mark’, you’re spot on, mate!