Mea Culpa

[qthewetsprocket]

A couple posts back, I used an idiom ("kicking a tar baby") which I have since been informed that many people find genuinely offensive, no matter the context. (Note: those of you on my f'list can read the post, but if you're not and you can't, then you'll just have to take my word that it was ill-advised

Comments

[qthewetsprocket]

Yeah...as I said to another commenter above, I'd intended the idiom to be incendiary towards a certain group of Doctor Who fans who have a tendency to take innocuous things and turn them into 'omg you racist!!' accusations. My two mistakes there were that a) that intention was not at all clear in my original post, which b) didn't matter anyway, because it turns out that the idiom itself isn't quite as 'innocuous' as I'd thought (I'd understood the phrase it contained to have been misappropriated a long time ago for hurtful use, but had thought said misuse was archaic, and had always understood the idiom itself to be inoffensive - clearly, I was wrong).

In short: I'd meant the idiom to be annoying to a certain group of overreactionary folks (whose annoyance wouldn't have been quite as overrreactionary as I'd thought, in this particular case), but not genuinely hurtful to anyone. So, yeah...my serious bad there.

As for the grudewank...yeah, it's a bit hard to let go of the bitterness when there's history involved. *makes an effort to try, though*

Btw, I totally don't blame you for not wanting your name associated with this, but if you feel like talking about it further in private, my email/PM is always open. I'll understand if you want to remain anon, too; but I feel that stuff like this is always best discussed instead of shoved under the rug.