+
“A balm for the soul”
  review on Goodreads
GOOD PEOPLE Book
upworthy
Education

8 changes that were made to a classic Richard Scarry book to keep up with the times. Progress!

All the misogyny and racism you may not have noticed are now gone.

parenting, Richard Scarry, children’s books
Images via Alan Taylor/Flickr, used with permission.

Updating the kitchen.


Remember those beloved Richard Scarry books?

Books from when you were a kid?


Like a lot of people, I grew up reading them.

And now, I read them to my kids.

books, education, philosophy

Richard Scarry’s Best Storybook Ever

Images via Alan Taylor/Flickr, used with permission.

If that doesn't ring a bell, perhaps this character from the "Busytown" series will. Classic!

evolution, gender roles, equality

Apple Car.

Images via Alan Taylor/Flickr, used with permission.

Scarry was an incredibly prolific children's author and illustrator. He created over 250 books during his career. His books were loved across the world — over 100 million were sold in many languages.

But here's something you may not have known about these classics: They've been slowly changing over the years.

Don't panic! They've been changing in a good way.

Scarry started publishing books in the 1950s, when times were, well, a little different. So some of the details were quietly updated.

Alan Taylor, a senior editor for the photo section of The Atlantic, noticed differences back in 2005 and decided to photograph them. From his Flickr album:

"The 1963 edition is my own, bought for me in the late 60's when I was a toddler, and read to tatters. The 1991 edition belongs to my kids today. I was so familiar with the older one that I immediately started noticing a few differences, and so have catalogued 14 of the more interesting differences here in this collection."

Taylor found 14 pages with differences between the original and updated versions.

Here are eight changes that reflect some of the progress society has made:

1. First up: The cover got a makeover. It might seem subtle at first glance, but look closely.

words, growth, creative

Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever

Images via Alan Taylor/Flickr, used with permission.

The original has a woman (bunny) in the kitchen, while the updated cover has both a man and a woman (still bunnies) in the kitchen. Also: The "policeman" bear changed to a woman, and the label changed to "police officer." The word "mailman" became "letter carrier," and a female farmer was added. Oh, and we went from a cat-mom pushing the stroller to cat-dad! Progress!

(The bunny brushing its teeth in the house was changed from a boy to a girl, but I'm not gonna read into that because hopefully all bunny-kids brush their teeth, right? I mean, for the sake of their little bunny teefs!)

2. Men can be flight attendants and women can be pilots. And, you know, they don't have to be hot.

jobs, career, fairness

Pretty stewardess to flight attendant.

Images via Alan Taylor/Flickr, used with permission.

While the gender of each role remained the same in the newer version (which is, unfortunately, pretty legit, given the glaring lack of female pilots in real life), the stereotyping was eliminated by making the "handsome pilot" more of an everyday "pilot" (raccoon?) and by turning the "pretty stewardess" into a regular flight attendant.

3. Christmas isn't the only holiday people celebrate.

inclusive, menorah, bears

Adding the menorah.

Images via Alan Taylor/Flickr, used with permission.

Shhhh: Don't tell the Starbucks Christmas cup haters this, but there are a lot more winter holidays than just Christmas. The newer version of the book included a menorah in the blank space to recognize those who celebrate Hanukkah.

4. Mommy Bears are no longer expected to have breakfast prepared for Daddy Bears...

mommy bears, daddy bears, best word book ever

Dad bears being dad bears.

Images via Alan Taylor/Flickr, used with permission.

...and the subtle change from "called to breakfast" to "goes to the kitchen to eat his breakfast" reflects that.

(Side note: Do Daddy Bears realllllly want to be treated like Kid Bears by being called to a meal, where they must promptly appear? I'm thinking not.)

5. Because guess what?! Dads can cook, too! (Even Dad Bunnies.)

professionals, professions, 20th century

Dads can cook, too?

Images via Alan Taylor/Flickr, used with permission.

And Richard Scarry's book was updated to reflect the late-20th-century realization that everyone belongs in the kitchen!

6. Helping professions aren't just for men.

cowboys, grown ups, characters

No more cowboys.

Images via Alan Taylor/Flickr, used with permission.

The updated version recognized that fact by changing "policeman" to "police officer" and "fireman" to "fire fighter." The ever-important job of cowboy was eliminated ( sigh ... how many career hopes and dreams were squashed?), replaced with a gardener and a scientist, both of which are filled by female characters. Three cheers for women in STEM! Also: The milkman was replaced by a taxi driver, but I'm pretty sure that was had to do with the fact that milkman (or woman) isn't a growing occupation any longer.

7. Regular people need rescuing, too.

firemen, danger, hopes

Cat is in danger.

Images via Alan Taylor/Flickr, used with permission.

The newer version did away with the "beautiful screaming lady" (sigh... how many career hopes and dreams ... oh, wait — none) and replaced her with a regular "cat in danger." The "jumping gentleman" label was removed altogether, and the "fireman" became a "fire fighter" again.

8. "I" is for "ice cream" — and not stereotypical depictions of Native Americans.

dreams, updates, Florida State University

Adding the cone.

Images via Alan Taylor/Flickr, used with permission.

We're still waiting for our football teams to get with the times, but the folks behind the Richard Scarry book update eliminated the "Indian" character that was wearing stereotypical clothing.

Yay, progress! And before you shrug and say "It's just a book," listen to this:

Florida State University recently led "the most comprehensive study of 20th century children's books ever undertaken in the United States." As you can surely guess, they found a gender bias toward male lead characters, even in books about animals — books like those by Richard Scarry.

Janice McCabe, the assistant professor of sociology who led the study, wrote:

"The widespread pattern of underrepresentation of females that we find supports the belief that female characters are less important and interesting than male characters. This may contribute to a sense of unimportance among girls and privilege among boys. The gender inequalities we found may be particularly powerful because they are reinforced by patterns of male-dominated characters in many other aspects of children's media, including cartoons, G-rated films, video games and even coloring books."

It's kind of cool to think these changes were made at least two and a half decades ago! That's something.

And we need changes to keep happening! Kids should be able to read books with same-sex couples and characters who have disabilities, for example, because those are everyday occurrences and books are a great intro to the world for kids.

Anyone else up for modernizing other classic kids' books so we can feel good about sharing them with our kids?


This article was writen by Laura Willard and originally appeared on 11.11.15

Family

Technology expert shares the one message that can get teens to rethink their screentime

“Social media is free because you pay for it with your time.”

via Dino Ambrosi (used with permission)

Dino Ambrosi speaks at a school assembly.

In a 2023 TEDx Talk at Laguna Blanca School, Dino Ambrosi made a startling revelation that perfectly underlines the big question of the smartphone era: What is my time worth? Ambrosi is the founder of Project Reboot and an expert at guiding teens and young adults to develop more empowering relationships with technology.

Assuming the average person now lives to 90, after calculating the average time they spend sleeping, going to school, working, cooking, eating, doing chores, sleeping, and taking care of personal hygiene, today’s 18-year-olds have only 334 months of their adult lives to themselves.

"How you spend this time will determine the quality of your life,” Ambrosi says. However, given the tech habits of today’s young people, most of those months will be spent staring at screens, leaving them with just 32 months to leave their mark on the world. "Today, the average 18-year-old in the United States is on pace to spend 93% of their remaining free time looking at a screen,” Ambrosi says.



dino ambrosi, teens and technology, smartphone addictionAn 18-year-olds remaining time, in months. via TEDx

The idea that an entire generation will spend most of their free time in front of screens is chilling. However, the message has a silver lining. Sharing this information with young people can immediately impact how they spend their time.

How to get teens to reduce their screentime

Ambrosi says his work with Project Reboot through on-campus initiatives, school assemblies, and parent workshops has taught him that teens are more concerned about time wasted on their phones than the damage it may do to their mental health. Knowing the topic that resonates can open the door for an effective dialogue about a topic that’s hard for many young people to discuss. When teens realize they are giving their entire lives away for free, they are more apt to reconsider their relationship with smartphones.

“I actually don't get through to a lot of teens, as well as when I help them realize the value of their time and then highlight the fact that that time is being stolen from them,” Ambrosi told Upworthy.

A Common Sense Media study shows that the average 13 to 18-year-old, as of 2021, spent an average of 8 hours and 39 minutes a day on entertainment screentime.

“It’s important to get them to view time as their most valuable resource that they can use to invest in themselves or enjoy life and tick the boxes on their bucket list. I really want them to see that that's something they should take control of and prioritize because we're all under the impression that social media is free, but it's actually not free. We just pay for it with our time.”

dino ambrosi, project reboot, teens smartphonesDino AMbrosi speaks at Berkeley.via Dino Ambrosi (used with permission)

Ambrosi believes that young people are less likely to hand their time to tech companies for free when they understand its value. “I find that kids really respond to that message because nobody wants to feel manipulated, right? And giving them that sense of being wronged, which I think they have been, by tech companies that are off operating on business models that are not aligned with their well-being, is important.”

He also believes parents should be sympathetic and nonjudgmental when talking to young people about screentime because it’s a struggle that just about everyone faces and feels shame about. A little understanding will prevent them from shutting down the conversation altogether.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

How to reduce my screentime

Ambrosi has some suggestions to help people reduce their screentime.

The ClearSpace app

ClearSpace forces you to take a breathing delay before using a distracting app. It also asks you to set a time limit and allows you to set a number of visits to the site per day. If you eclipse the number of visits, it sends a text to a friend saying you exceeded your budget. This can help people be accountable for one another’s screentime goals.

Don’t sleep with your phone

Ambrosi says to charge your phone far away from your bedside stand when you sleep and use an alarm clock to wake up. If you do have an alarm clock on your phone, set up an automation so that as soon as you turn off the alarm, it opens up an app like Flora or Forest and starts an hour-long timer that incentivizes you to be off your phone for the first hour of the day.

“In my experience, if you can stay off screens for the last hour and the first hour of the day, the other 22 hours get a lot easier because you get the quality rest and sleep that you need to wake up fully charged, and now you're more capable of being intentional because you are at your best," Ambrosi told Upworty.

Keep apps in one place

Ambrosi says to keep all of your social apps and logins on one device. “I try to designate a specific use for each device as much as possible,” he told Upworthy. “I try to keep all my social media time and all my entertainment on my phone as opposed to my computer because I want my computer to be a tool for work.”

Even though there are significant challenges ahead for young people as they try to navigate a screen-based world while keeping them at a healthy distance, Ambrosi is optimistic about the future.

“I'm really optimistic because I have seen in the last year, in particular, that the receptiveness of student audiences has increased by almost an order of magnitude. Kids are waking up to the fact that this is the problem. They want to have this conversation,” he told Upworthy. “Some clubs are starting to address this problem at several schools right now; from the talks I've given this semester alone, kids want to be involved in this conversation. They're creating phone-free spaces on college and high school campuses by their own accord. I just think we have a huge potential to leverage this moment to move things in the right direction.”

For more information on Ambrosi’s programs, visit ProjectReboot.School.

Family

Harvard psychologists have been studying what it takes to raise 'good' kids. Here are 6 tips.

Help unlock your child's best self with a few tried-and-true strategies.

Kids playing baseball with a slide into second.

A lot of parents are tired of being told how technology is screwing up their kids.

Moms and dads of the digital age are well aware of the growing competition for their children's attention, and they're bombarded at each turn of the page or click of the mouse with both cutting-edge ideas and newfound worries for raising great kids.


But beneath the madness of modernity, the basics of raising a moral child haven't really changed.

Parents want their kids to achieve their goals and find happiness, but Harvard researchers believe that doesn't have to come at the expense of kindness and empathy. They say a few tried-and-true strategies remain the best ways to mold your kids into the morally upstanding and goals-oriented humans you want them to be.

kids, toddlers, pacifiers, parenting

Entertaining the toddlers.

Cartoon by Sara Zimmerman/Unearthed Comics.

Here are six practical tips:

1) Hang out with your kids.

parenting advice, healthy habits, teachable moments

Cleaning the hands.

Image by Cade Martin/Public Domain Images.

This is, like, the foundation of it all. Spend regular time with your kids, ask them open-ended questions about themselves, about the world and how they see it, and actively listen to their responses. Not only will you learn all sorts of things that make your child unique, you'll also be demonstrating to them how to show care and concern for another person.

2) If it matters, say it out loud.

teamwork, educational games, Harvard

Teamwork in process.

Image by Steven Bennett/Wikimedia Commons.

According to the researchers, "Even though most parents and caretakers say that their children being caring is a top priority, often children aren't hearing that message." So be sure to say it with them. And so they know it's something they need to keep up with, check in with teachers, coaches, and others who work with your kids on how they're doing with teamwork, collaboration, and being a generally nice person.

3) Show your child how to "work it out."

sports and exercise, team exercise, building confidence

Playing soccer.

Image by susieq3c/Flickr.

Walk them through decision-making processes that take into consideration people who could be affected. For example, if your child wants to quit a sport or other activity, encourage them to identify the source of the problem and consider their commitment to the team. Then help them figure out if quitting does, in fact, fix the problem.

4) Make helpfulness and gratitude routine.

problem solving, gratitude, healthy

Ingenuity for cleaning up.

Image by David D/Flickr.

The researchers write, "Studies show that people who engage in the habit of expressing gratitude are more likely to be helpful, generous, compassionate, and forgiving — and they're also more likely to be happy and healthy." So it's good for parents to hold the line on chores, asking kids to help their siblings, and giving thanks throughout the day. And when it comes to rewarding "good" behavior, the researchers recommend that parents "only praise uncommon acts of kindness."

5) Check your child's destructive emotions.

negative feelings, emotional intelligence, honesty, understanding

An automatic save.

Image by Thomas Ricker/Flickr.

"The ability to care for others is overwhelmed by anger, shame, envy, or other negative feelings," say the researchers. Helping kids name and process those emotions, then guiding them toward safe conflict resolution, will go a long way toward keeping them focused on being a caring individual. It's also important to set clear and reasonable boundaries that they'll understand are out of love and concern for their safety.

6) Show your kids the bigger picture.

empathy, families, researchers

A reflective moment by the ocean.

Image by debowcyfoto/Pixabay.

"Almost all children empathize with and care about a small circle of families and friends," say the researchers. The trick is getting them to care about people who are socially, culturally, and even geographically outside their circles. You can do this by coaching them to be good listeners, by encouraging them to put themselves in other people's shoes, and by practicing empathy using teachable moments in news and entertainment.

The study concludes with a short pep talk for all the parents out there:

"Raising a caring, respectful, ethical child is and always has been hard work. But it's something all of us can do. And no work is more important or ultimately more rewarding."


This article originally appeared on 06.16.15

Popular

Woman describes how Gen X did Halloween in the 80s and it’s so accurate

"Every single member of Gen X can smell this photo."

Photo credit: ~ tOkKa/Flickr

Halloween costumes in the 80s were terrifyingly terrible.

Halloween has come a long way since the 70s and 80s, when Gen X kids donned the worst mass-produced costumes known to man to go out and ask strangers for candy that we were sure was laced with poison or razor blades. Those sure were good times, though, weren't they?

Social media creator Kelly Manno shared a video describing what Halloween was like for kids who grew up in "the forgotten generation," and holy moly is it accurate.


First, Manno showed a photo of someone dressed in an "80s costume" for Halloween, with neon colors and legwarmers and big hair, and said, "Absolutely nobody looked like that in the 80s, especially on Halloween. We looked like this."

Then she showed a grainy photo of kids in the plastic masks and poorly printed costumes that were the hallmark of the age.

"Every single member of Gen X can smell this photo," she said. "It's like a vinyl, like plasticky paint smell."


Manno explained that our parents only took a few photos of us per year, and Halloween was always one of them.

"You knew, before you went out trick-or-treating, that you had to line up with your cousins in front of the fireplace, in your highly flammable costumes, with your mom chain-smoking Virginia Slims, like, 'Say trick-or-treat!'"

Oh, those masks were the worst inventions ever. The eyeholes never lined up properly, so you were constantly trying to adjust them to be able to see even a little bit. "We would push our tongue through the slit in the mask. It would cut our tongue, but then we'd keep doing it again because we were eaten up with OCD and ADD and nobody cared."

Then Manno described the "garbage bag costumes" we had, which were basically trash bags printed with whatever character it was supposed to be. So janky. So sweaty. So crinkly when we walked. But somehow still socially preferable to your mom making your costume from scratch.


"Look at us, we were terrifying," Manno concludes. "No wonder people tried to poison us."

Her descriptions of what it felt like to trick-or-treat in those costumes and haul our own bodyweight in candy are spot on, and people who lived it are feeling the nostalgia.

"So much truth in one video! 😂 I just saw, heard, and smelled my childhood."

"You are literally making me laugh so damn hard, cause you described it exactly as it was, but my mom smoked Winston's!"

"It was always freezing on Halloween that the vinyl/plastic suit would crack and tear halfway through the night."

"Or the rubber band breaking at the second house and you had to hold it up on your face at the door the rest of the night. 😂 Good times."

"The tongue thing is on point. I can still feel it. 😂"

"I can totally smell that picture lol. I remember the steam from inside the mask would have your lashes and eyebrows covered in dew then after a couple streets of running house to house the crotch would tear out. We would stay out until everybody turned their lights off and the pillow case was full."

"Yes!!!! And we used a pillow case for our candy. And no adult supervision."

"My mom made me really nice homemade costumes, but I remember begging for the plastic Strawberry Shortcake garbage bag one. So, she bought it for me one year. That was a terrible, sweaty experience. 😂"

"Let’s not forget having to inspect every piece of candy for razor blades. I swear I lost half my haul to my father in that clean up. 🍬 🍫 😢"

Kids these days have no idea, with their official city trick-or-treat hours and their parents walking around with them and their costumes that actually look like the thing they're trying to be. The 70s and 80s were a wild time, and as funny as it is to reminisce about those Halloweens of old, most of us would agree that the experience has been much improved for our own kids.

Pillowcases still make the best trick-or-treat bags, though. Some things do not change.

Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Van Gogh’s Starry Night.

Van Gogh never got to enjoy his own historic success as an artist (even though we've been able to imagine what that moment might have looked like). But it turns out that those of us who have appreciated his work have been missing out on some critical details for more than 100 years.

I'm not easily impressed, OK?

I know Van Gogh was a genius. If the point of this were "Van Gogh was a mad genius," I would not be sharing this with you.

But I found this and I thought, "Oh, what a vaguely interesting thing." And then I got to the part about the Hubble Space Telescope, and, let me tell you: Mind. Blown.

We've got the set up here, but you have to watch the video for the full effect. It's all the way at the bottom.

Get this: Van Gogh was a pretty cool artist (duh), but as it turns out...

painting, science, psychotic

What’s the truth behind when you take off an ear?

assets.rebelmouse.io

...he was also A SCIENTIST!*

*Pretty much.

Here's the story.

While Van Gogh was in an asylum in France, after he mutilated his ear during a psychotic episode*...

(*Or, and I'd like to thank the entire Internet for pointing this out, there's a theory that his friend Paul Gauguin actually cut off his ear, in a drunken sword fight, in the dark. The more you know!)

science, premonition, predictions

Animated a thinking one-eared Van Gogh.

All Van Gogh GIFs via TED-Ed.

...he was able to capture one of science's most elusive concepts:

~~~TURBULENCE~~~

research, studied, proof, genius

Animated "Starry Night."

assets.rebelmouse.io

turbulence, fluid dynamics, energy cascade

Turbulence expressed through art.

assets.rebelmouse.io

Although it's hard to understand with math (like, REALLY HARD), it turns out that art makes it easy to depict how it LOOKS.

So what is turbulence?

Turbulence, or turbulent flow, is a concept of fluid dynamics where fluid movements are "self-similar" when there's an energy cascade — so basically, big eddies make smaller eddies, and those make even smaller ones ... and so on and so forth.

It looks like this:

figures, explanation, education, community

Pictures explain science.

assets.rebelmouse.io

See? It's easier to look at pictures to understand it.

Thing is, scientists are pretty much *just* starting to figure this stuff out.

reference, research, wisdom

Animation of referencing art to science.

assets.rebelmouse.io

Then you've got Van Gogh, 100 years earlier, in his asylum, with a mutilated ear, who totally nailed it!

illumination, luminance, pulsing

Science studying Van Gogh.

assets.rebelmouse.io

The folks who noticed Van Gogh's ability to capture turbulence checked to see whether other artists did the same. Most impressionists achieved " luminance" with their art (which is the sort-of *pulsing* you see when you look at their paintings that really shows what light looks like).

But did other artists depict turbulence the way Van Gogh did?

NOPE.

The Scream, historical, popular, famous

Animated “The Scream."

assets.rebelmouse.io

Not even "The Scream" could hold a candle to Van Gogh!

technology, star turbulence, sky, astronomy

Capturing concepts of nature.

assets.rebelmouse.io

Even in his darkest time, Van Gogh was able to capture — eerily accurately — one of nature's most complex and confusing concepts ... 100 years before scientists had the technology to observe actual star turbulence and realize its similarity to fluid turbulence mathematics as well as Van Gogh's swirling sky. Cool, huh?

Watch the video below to learn even more:

This article originally appeared on 11.14.14




As much as we'd like to pretend every phrase we utter is a lone star suspended in the space of our own genius, all language has a history. Unfortunately, given humanity's aptitude for treating each other like shit, etymology is fraught with reminders of our very racist world.

Since I have faith that most of you reading want to navigate the world with intelligence and empathy, I figured it'd be useful to share some of the everyday phrases rooted in racist etymology.

Knowledge is power, and the way we use and contextualize our words can make a huge difference in the atmospheres we create.


1. Thug


According to Meriam-Webster's dictionary definition, a thug is "a violent criminal." Obviously, this definition leaves the word open to define people of all ethnicities.

However, given the frequent ways this word has been used to describe Black Lives Matter protesters, the 17-year-old murder victim Trayvon Martin, and sadly, almost every black victim of police brutality — there is an undeniable racial charge to the word.

When you consider the people who are called thugs — groups of black protesters, victims of racist violence, teenagers minding their own business, and flip the racial element, you'd be hard-pressed to find examples of white people being called thugs in earnest by the media (or really by anyone).

Several prominent activists and black writers have written about the phenomenon of thug replacing the n-word in modern culture. In a popular press conference back in 2014, the Seattle Seahawks player Richard Sherman explained his feelings about the word.

"The reason it bothers me is because it seems like it's an accepted way of calling somebody the N-word now. It's like everybody else said the N-word and then they say 'thug' and that's fine. It kind of takes me aback and it's kind of disappointing because they know," Sherman said.

If you're talking about an actual criminal, there are so many descriptive words to invoke besides "thug." Given its current use as a negative, racially-coded word, avoiding its use seems like an easy and obvious move.

2. Grandfather Clause


When most of us hear the term "grandfather clause" we just think of the generalized description: a person or entity that is allowed to continue operating over now expired rules. But the literal meaning reveals the "grandfather clause" was a racist post-Reconstruction political strategy.

This is the historical definition, according to Encyclopedia Britannica:

"Grandfather clause, statutory or constitutional device enacted by seven Southern states between 1895 and 1910 to deny suffrage to African Americans. It provided that those who had enjoyed the right to vote prior to 1866 or 1867, or their lineal descendants, would be exempt from educational, property, or tax requirements for voting. Because the former slaves had not been granted the franchise until the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870, those clauses worked effectively to exclude black people from the vote but assured the franchise to many impoverished and illiterate whites."

In modern speak, this basically meant the Grandfather Clause let white people off the hook for new voting requirements because their ancestors were already registered voters. Meanwhile, black people were required to fill out impossible literacy tests and pay exorbitant poll taxes to vote. This in turn, meant many black people were unable to vote, while white people weren't held to the same standard.

3. Gypsy or "Gyp"


The word "Gypsy" was (and is) a racial slur referring to the Roma people. The Roma people are descendants of Northern India who, due to severe marginalization and threats of violence by others, lived a nomadic lifestyle of forced migration for centuries.

During a fraught history, Roma people were taken as slaves in Romania and were targeted for genocide by the Nazis.

The word "Gypsy" is a slang word perpetuating stereotypes of Roma people as "thieves, rowdies, dirty, immoral, con-men, asocials, and work-shy" according to the Council of Europe.

In a similar vein, the term "Gyp" or "getting gypped" means to cheat or get conned, and many connect this meaning as another racist extension of Gypsy.

4. No Can Do

According to the Oxford Dictionary, the very common phrase "no can do" was originally made popular as a way to make fun of Chinese immigrants.

"The widespread use of the phrase in English today has obscured its origin: what might seem like folksy, abbreviated version of I can’t do it is actually an imitation of Chinese Pidgin English. The phrase dates from the mid-19th to early-20th centuries, an era when Western attitudes towards the Chinese were markedly racist."

5. Sold Down The River

Upon first hearing, many people associate the phrase "sold down the river" with the notion of being betrayed, lied to, or otherwise screwed over. While these definitions all technically apply to the origin, the root of this phrase is much more bleak.

According to a report from NPR, being "sold down the river" was a literal reference to slavery, and the families that were torn apart in the south.

"River" was a literal reference to the Mississippi or Ohio rivers. For much of the first half of the 19th century, Louisville, Ky., was one of the largest slave-trading marketplaces in the country. Slaves would be taken to Louisville to be "sold down the river" and transported to the cotton plantations in states further south.

This heavy connotation sadly makes sense, but also makes casual use of the phrase feel way more cringe-inducing.

6. Welfare Queen

The term "welfare queen" was first popularized by Ronald Reagan's 1976 presidential campaign in which he repeatedly painted a picture of a Cadillac-driving welfare queen.

This straw woman in Reagan's campaign served as a racially-charged exaggeration of one minor case of real welfare fraud used to pedal his platform for welfare reform.

Needless to say, the term has sadly lived on as a racially-charged vehicle used to undermine the importance of welfare programs, while peddling gross stereotypes about black women.

On top of all the other offenses, this stereotype is of course ignoring the fact that poor white Americans receive the most welfare out of any economically-disadvantaged demographic.

7. Shuck And Jive

The term shuck and jive is both common and very obviously rooted in the language of slavery.

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the phrase shuck and jive refers to:

"The fact that black slaves sang and shouted gleefully during corn-shucking season, and this behavior, along with lying and teasing, became a part of the protective and evasive behavior normally adopted towards white people in ' traditional' race relations."

Likewise, the modern usage of this phrase refers to pandering, selling out, or instances in which black people go along with racist white people's wishes. Again, not a phrase to be thrown around lightly.

8. Long Time No See

The very commonly used greeting "long time no see" first became popular as a way to make fun of Native Americans. The phrase was used as a way to mock a traditional greeting exchanged between Native Americans.

This is the official definition, according to the Oxford Dictionary:

"Long Time No See was originally meant as a humorous interpretation of a Native American greeting, used after a prolonged separation. The current earliest citation recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) comes from W.F. Drannan’s book Thirty-one Years on Plains (1901): ‘When we rode up to him [sc. an American Indian] he said: ‘Good mornin. Long time no see you’."

The act of committing genocide is not limited to human lives, but also translates to a normalized cultural violence. Deconstructing, mocking, and erasing someone's language contributes to this pattern of colonialism.

9. The Peanut Gallery

Most modern uses of the term "the peanut gallery" is in reference to a group of people who needlessly criticize or mocking another person. However, the historical roots of this term are much more racist and painful.

Originally, this term referred to the balconies in segregated theaters where black people were forced to sit. The nickname "peanut" was given due to the fact that peanuts were introduced to America at the same time as the slave trade. Because of this, there was a connection drawn between black people and peanuts.

10. Uppity

As of now, the word "uppity" is often used as a synonym for "stuck up" or "pretentious" or "conceited." But the roots of the word are far more specific and racist.

The word Uppity was first used by Southerners to refer to slaves who did not fall into line, or acted as if they "didn't know their place."

So, basically, any black person who overtly stood up to racism. Given the heaviness of this origin, it seems best to leave this word at home when looking to describe a pretentious acquaintance.

Sadly, given our ugly history, there are many more words and phrases I could add to this list. In the meantime, hopefully this list is helpful for navigating the racism innate in our language.


The article was originally published by our partners at someecards and was written by Bronwyn Isacc. It originally appeared on 02.04.19