I don't think coal is actually a racial slur. It's more one of the things *very* dark skin people get called disparagingly.
Which would make it...a slur. Who cares if it's only some people within an ethnic group who get called that particular word? If it's being used to denigrate somebody because of their ethnicity, it's a racial slur.
All that aside, though, I don't understand why no one can ever use the term "coal-black" to describe something that's a matte black because the word "coal" is also used as a racial slur. Coal is an object, pretty darn common, that many readers can immediately relate another object's appearance to if it's described as coal-black. Describing shoes or a book's cover or whatever as coal-black...I guess I don't see how that's as offensive as referring to a PERSON (as in this book) as a Coal. I realize this is probably my white privilege talking. I'm trying to understand the difference better so I don't accidentally write something that will offend.
Let me see if I can try to clarify the difficulty I'm having in understanding the difference: I see calling a person "coal" as extremely offensive. I don't understand why "coal-black" as an object descriptor offends, because coal is always the word that's been used for this substance. It's not a word that was invented to segregate or harm people, although it has been co-opted for that use in addition to its still-legitimate use to name that stuff we burn for energy. I can understand why describing, say, a pair of shoes as "pickaninny-black" would be very offensive -- not only does it use an established slur, a word that can only be taken as offensive, but it lowers an entire ethnicity of people to a mere object descriptor, thus dehumanizing them even further, as if the word itself weren't bad enough. I guess I am not understanding why it's not okay to use one object to compare another object. Object to compare human being, I see the offense in that. Terrible word for a human being to compare object, I see the offense there, too. I guess I'm not understanding what it is about "coal" as a mere word that makes it de facto offensive in all adjectival uses.
Can anybody help me understand this better? I really want to understand this. I'd be mortified if I accidentally wrote something that could be taken as an offense to people.
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