The story that refuses to go away, Is Obama a US Citizen?

A spade was a shovel, as it is to those of us who do NOT play the race card even now.

The phrase simply means "To speak plainly - to describe something as it really is." You know, just as it would mean if someone with whom you agree used it.

If I used the phrase "call a bigoted idiot a bigoted idiot," would you assume I were speaking of you personally?

I don't know if it is racist, biggoted, or just juvenile ha-ha, but the best way I can think of to describe O bummer is he is just like a newspaper...black and white and red all over.
Other than being foolish, there is no hate in this or whatever, merely frank reality.

Of course this pillar of his community was referring to a shovel. He couldn't possibly have had in mind the refereance to "spade" which has been recorded since 1928 in the Oxford English Dictionary as an offensive reference to a black person. That would never have crossed his mind.

Any more than it would occur to Michelle Anderson to be civil rather than insulting.

Hey AJ, if you want to play cards, the "truth card" of calling a spade a spade dates back to around 1547. (Google the saying, add the word "origin"). Which is by my calculation, a "few" years prior to your 1928 reference. Your use of the term is kind of like calling the "Gay 90's" the "Homosexual 90's". Both your statement, and the comparison I made as an example, are invalid. The "truth card" trumps your "race card".

Well said, Cuz.

Like I always say, where would liberals be if Right-minded folks weren't here to teach them everything...
An earlier expression of the notion, albeit in different form to that which we now use, comes from Nicolas Udall's 'Apophthegmes, that is to saie, prompte saiynges. First gathered by Erasmus' - translated in 1542:
"Philippus aunswered, that the Macedonians wer feloes of no fyne witte in their termes but altogether grosse, clubbyshe, and rusticall, as they whiche had not the witte to calle a spade by any other name then a spade."

Looks like I was off a few years...Erasmus left the neighborhood before his works were translated....seems the older I get, the harder it becomes to remember clearly what happened a mere 470 or so odd years ago.

I didn't even think of Ave. Joe's "spade=black" till he said it. Guess I missed that "racist" conservative talking point memo....

Keep us on our toes, Joe! Automatic racist thoughts don't come regularly to most of us....

Be nice... it's only a matter of time before liberals are covered under ADA...

Yep, you've convinced me -- people always default to the archaic definitions of terms before reverting to the more modern usage. And I'm absolutely sure that this car dealer who obviously hates Obama was invoking the spirit of Erasmus when he said "call a spade a spade" in reference to a black man.

fullseptic wrote this about his recent posting: "Ironic, this cartoon came out when 1984 was also written. I guess they knew better then what they were up against and weren't afraid to call it what it was..." I wonder if he was tempted to "call a spade a spade" or did he simply use better judgment?

Tell you what...if this is such an innocuous phrase, why don't you go into Harlem and start proclaiming your desire to "call a spade a spade?" In fact, please do so.

I typically call a spade a shovel, and when necessary, use it to get BS out of the footpath. Others, I notice, use it to dig themselves a deeper hole.

Joe, the phrase is used regionally here regularly with the meaning "calling out someone on their bullsh*t."
Just calling a spade a spade, Joe.

(under first def.)
—Idioms5. call a spade a spade, to call something by its real name; be candidly explicit; speak plainly or bluntly: To call a spade a spade, he's a crook.
6. in spades, Informal. a. in the extreme; positively: He's a hypocrite, in spades.
b. without restraint; outspokenly: I told him what I thought, in spades.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/spade

nothing "archaic" there.

But keep the rest of us up on the racial stuff no one else notices...

I recognize that there are certain words and phrases that offend black people. So I don't use them and am surprised when others do. That makes me a bigot?

But let me dial back a bit on my annoyment at being called a bigot, an idiot and disabled by the polite, open-minded and tolerant folk here. Yes, "calling a spade a spade" means "telling it like it is," as Howard Cosell used to say. But the key word in that phrase, "spade" is also a documented and recognized pejorative term for a black person.

I think I'm being accused of finding bigotry where none exists. The car dealer's calling "a spade a spade" in reference to a black person is either a racial epithet or incredibly stupid. Although I believe it's the former, I guess I could accept the latter.

Good grief! Average Joe, can't you just appreciate a good play on words and let it go? You don't enjoy much humor in your life, do you? The comment could very well have been made "tongue in cheek" ya' know. Get over it.

I think guy knew that the PC crowd would howl and since just by putting the billboard up he was going to be called a racist, redneck, teabagger, birther so why not really wind them up, besides maybe he was talking about the Ones white half.

Just be sure to send your postcards from Harlem...if you can. I'm sure the residents will enjoy your clever play on words.

Average Joe really is unaware or ignorant of his own ingrained racist tendencies, like those who support affirmative action.

Enjoying the music of Bob Marley is not enough to erase your racist karma.

There's a big difference between recognizing racism and being racist. But that's a distinction that apparently is too subtle for The Distributist to understand.

I didn't know Bob Marley could sing.

Joe, I don't want to start another thread on homosexuality, but I think Marley sings something call Ray-Gay (?)

Joe Do you think Obama recognized racism while sitting in the rev. Wright's church all those years....or was it another case of him not being informed??

Reggae

When you allow political correctness to rule your thoughts and your speech, you enslave your mind and limit it's potential.

“None but ourselves can free our minds.” - Bob Marley

Re: Ray-gay... if liberal thought allowed the connection of dots they would suffer great angst at the stridently anti-homosexual dictum of Rastafarianism. Their rather colorful language has never been shy about calling a spade a spade.

Which is worse going to Harlem and calling a spade a spade or going to a homosexual marriage rally and saying you are against it?

Pastor James David Manning of ATLAH Ministries.org is at ground zero of Harlem, NY and is a black man. He says that he is not an African American, he knows no one in Africa, was not born in Africa, and sends no money to any cause in Africa. He points out the blaring shortcomings of the black man in our society and is not well received by the ones who refuse to see his words as a heads up and provoke them to change into valuable citizens in this nation. Pastor Manning has in fact never called any black man a spade, but has articulated the "N" word in his video presentations.

I'm sure Pastor Manning can get away with while I doubt I could. There's political correctness and then there's self-preservation.

Spades, hoes, rakes....all those garden tools confuse me.

"I'm sure Pastor Manning can get away with while I doubt I could. There's political correctness and then there's self-preservation."

So what exactly are you saying? Do you fear black people? Are you saying that, as a group, they're violent, even murderous? Sweeping generalizations like that smack of racism. Shame on you.

What I'm saying, and you know quite well what I'm saying, is that certain terms are acceptable within a group, while those outside the group will suffer sanctions if they try to use the same terms. Sanctions are not necessarily violent but may consist of total loss of credibility and ostracism from further communication.