Accused of racism on door

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It's a breed of cat, that's absolutely ridiculous for someone to complain about!

by golly

is the place you are in a registered care home? if it is you have quite a lot of rights, and places you can complain to. and you can demand advocacy to help you make those complaints. i think you can even complain direct to the social care inspectorate, but its best to complain to the home first, they will probably back down when they realise they are in the wrong.

if all else fails, i'm sure the Daily Mail would love this story

Offense is often used as a tool humans use to control one another. Oh, I am offended, therefore you must bend yourself or your way of thinking so as not to offend me. You must do this, right? My offense trumps everything else you've got, right? As often happens with cases of control via offense, it doesn't even matter that the source of the offense is an ignorant misconception; all that matters is that the offense is, and must be dealt with.

[satire]KingdomOfRats, change your user name. The idea of monarchy (and therefore a kingdom) as a form of government is offensive to me; my people were once oppressed and enslaved by a king (which is actually true - not the offense but the oppression). And I find rats offensive also; when I was growing up, this was a slur used against people who are mentally different from others (this I just made up - but offense is such an easy thing to pull off). Clearly you are racist against Scots and weird people. Therefore, you must change your name to something less offensive to redress the situation.[/satire]

Or not. Resist the control, KingdomOfRats, insofar as you are able. That is my pull for you.

Call me insensitive and even archaic if thoust liketh, but if someone else perceives offense when I meant none, that is their problem, not mine; I have vivid recollections of some people I’ve stunned with this little revelation about how I work, because I do know how to give offense when I mean to, and the contrast between the inadvertent and the purposeful giving of offense is illustratively striking.

"Worth dying for. Worth killing for. Worth going to hell for." - Marv, Sin City

Good fortune,

- Icarus has little patience for nonsense...

I can see how someone who didn't know anything about cats might misunderstand, but it's ridiculous for anyone to make an issue of it after being informed that it is a breed of cat. Does anyone even use the word "coon" in a racist way in England? I think it originates in America and I've only heard it a few times here.

Maybe you could take down the "Maine Coon C. C." sign and replace it with one that says "Maine Coon Cat Club". You could also put up a short description of Maine Coon Cats in order to educate anyone who takes interest in your door.

By the way, I love Maine Coon Cats. They're beautiful, soft, calm, and friendly.

Wow, people who accuse others of racism are so immature. They'll take even the smallest issue as evidence of racism, and then when they're proved to be wrong, they'll throw a tantrum like a 2 year old about how they have to be right. Or even if they aren't right, it's a part of some bigger conspiracy.

They do disservice to themselves when they run around claiming everything is racist. Maybe if they focused on real racial issues, then they'd be more respected.

You might try making "Maine Coon Cat" very prominent on that pic. I see nothing racist about it. Perhaps that breed of cat is not familiar in the UK.

I hate people who will go to any lengths to feel important. That's what this is all about. They hate themselves, hate their jobs, hate their lives, and so they go making high drama of some minor issue, in order to feel powerful.
Maine Coon cats rock! I had a cat once that had some of the Maine Coon in her ancestry, and she was so gorgeous! BTW, if this person thinks the shoe fits, then they ought to wear it, by all means. Go and steal garbage from back yards, and then run up a tree, or something.

What Alex said...explain a Maine Coon is a kind of cat, not a racial slur.

That's PC gone wrong, really.

I think the person was silly and ignorant. It was obvious that it was a very beautiful breed of cat.

Sometimes now I see it spelled 'Mainecoon' and I wonder if people who find offense in the name prefer it spelled this way for some reason. Or maybe a person with poor reading skills would less likely notice the 'coon' part.

I once knew someone who had Coons for their last name. I wonder if people gave them a hard time.

Of course it was not racist in the context in which you used it, but I would still just take it down. The person who filed the complaint turned this into a racial issue. Maybe he was offended or maybe he was angry and wanted to take out his anger on someone else at random. The word is offensive in certain contexts, and your manager has asked you to remove down. The sticker is now racist whether you like it or not. It has taken on meaning beyond the meaning you intended, a meaning that has been defined by the person who filed the complaint. This meaning was reinforced by your manager. Unless you think you will have anything to gain by standing up to this manager or the filer of the complaint, I would just take it down.

Next time be more careful and research what you put up on your door!

I didn't see anything racist in the picture. If someone is offended by it, f**k them, it's his problem.

Absurd. You should counter-complain that you are offended by the complainer's ignorance.

I once had a co-worker, who owned a beautiful black lab dog. She bought it to work one day - there was something going on like Pet therapy day, for residents of the nursing home we worked at. Anyway, when she told us that her dog's name was Gemima, several black people got offended, assuming that the name was intended as a racial slur, because the dog was black.

For those who don't know, the name they were confusing the dog's name with, was Jemima. There is a line of breakfast products, called Aunt Jemima. the logo is a picture of a black woman garbed like a kitchen slave. When I was a kid, if you wanted to fling a racial slur at a person of color, you would call them Aunt Jemima. My co-worker explained that the dog used to belong to a gemologist, who had named the dog the reverse of the phrase, "I'm a Gem." (I forget what you call it when someone does that). But the offended ones refused to believe her. They figured she was just trying to cover up a racial slur. Which goes to show you that people are always going to believe their version of reality, no matter what you do.