Your Bedroom? Racist!

See original article: Everyday words and phrases that have racist connotations

Here’s a per­fect exam­ple of how to snap your fin­gers and make some innocu­ous phrase racist:

CNN “reports” that the real-estate term mas­ter bed­room is racist. How? Let’s hear their expla­na­tion:

“The phrase “mas­ter bed­room” first appeared in the 1926 Sears cat­a­log, accord­ing to the real estate blog Trelo­ra. It was a fea­ture of a $4,398 Dutch colo­nial home, the most expen­sive in the cat­a­log, refer­ring to a large sec­ond floor bed­room with a pri­vate bath­room.

“‘Mas­ter bed­rooms’ were more wide­ly imple­ment­ed in Amer­i­can homes after World War II, intend­ed to give work­ing par­ents a pri­vate space with­in their own homes, Trelo­ra notes.

“While it’s unclear whether the term is root­ed in Amer­i­can slav­ery on plan­ta­tions, it evokes that his­to­ry.”

Okay, lemme get this straight: There’s no record of the term mas­ter bed­room appear­ing before 1926; its first record­ed use and every use since has been a real estate term refer­ring to the biggest bed­room in the house, often with its own bath­room.

But that does­n’t mat­ter. There’s no evi­dence link­ing it to slav­ery or plan­ta­tions, but it does­n’t mat­ter. The word mas­ter is here­by brand­ed racist and noth­ing but racist. Retroac­tive­ly, even.

The term mas­ter bed­room does­n’t evoke slav­ery. CSS evokes it.