TORONTO - Doris Moore was shocked when her new couch was delivered with a label describing the brown shade of the upholstery.The situation was even more alarming for Moore because it was her 7-year-old who pointed out that “Nigger Brown” was on the tag.
“My daughter saw the label and knew the color brown, but didn’t know what the other word meant. She asked, ’Mommy, what color is that?’
Moore, who is black, complained to the store, which blamed the supplier, who pointed to a computer problem as the source of the offensive label. Kingsoft Corp., a Chinese software company, acknowledged its translation program was at fault.
“I know this is a very bad word,” Huang Luoyi, a rep for the Beijing-based company’s translation software, told The Associated Press. He explained that when the Chinese characters for “dark brown” are typed into an older version of its Chinese-English translation software, the N-word pops up.
“We got the definition from a Chinese-English dictionary." Huang said.
Romesh Vanaik, owner of the store Moore went to, said that this sofa has been a best seller. A check of his stock did not find any other couch with that label.
He added that he had not known the meaning of the N-word. “I’ve been here since 1972 and I never knew the meaning of this word,” said Vanaik, a native of India.
His supplier, Cosmos Furniture, denied responsibility and refused to give the name of the couch’s Chinese manufacturer.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson has an interesting take on this here.
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