Potential racism of "auction block"

[Dave Wilton]

> A second reason that "auction block" is not a taboo term is 
> that its use does not necessarily have racist overtones.  If 
> you say "We're going on a picnic," and it's understood that 
> "picnic" can be a synonym for "lynching," the problems are 
> self-evident.  "Spade" is a well-known racial insult, as is 
> the supposed root of "niggardly."  "The company has been put 
> on the auction block" does not necessarily share these 
> overtones, although it could if the company in question were 
> perceived to be a primarily African-American institution.

I don't know about supposed overtones. It certainly is possible that
somewhere, sometime back in the 19th century someone used "picnic" as a
synonym for lynching. But no one uses it with racist overtones today and it
was never widely used as a racist term. Those who object to it don't even
claim that people are using it in an offensive manner; rather they claim
that the (supposed) origin is what makes it offensive, that people are
innocently using an evil word.

Another term that doesn't seem to raise racial ire is "grandfather clause"
(at least I've never heard of anyone objecting to use of the term). This has
a distinct racist origin--the original grandfather clauses were laws in the
Southern states that exempted people from such restrictions on suffrage,
such as literacy tests and poll taxes, if their grandfather had the right to
vote. This meant that these measures excluded African-Americans, but not
whites, even if the whites were illiterate and too poor to pay the poll tax.

I am of the mind people postulate origins based on phonetic and orthographic
similarities. Both "picnic" and "nitty-gritty" have syllables that begin
with "ni-." And of course mistakes and confusion over "spade" and
"niggardly" are legion. But terms like "auction block" and "grandfather
clause" don't raise any red flags in this regard.