http://www.citynews.ca/news/news_9559.aspx
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| Racial Slur On Couch Tag Has Buyers Enraged Friday April 6, 2007 Buying a couch should be no more complicated than picking out a style and colour you like, and deciding whether it's comfortable. But for one Toronto family, the process was nowhere near that simple. When Doris Moore's new couch arrived, her young daughter Olivia made a shocking discovery: printed on the couch's tag as the description of the colour was a racial slur that hit a little too close to home. "N---er brown" is what it said. "I was in the kitchen when they were delivering it, after they left my daughter came to the kitchen to me and told me, 'Mommy, what's n---er brown?'" "I see n---er brown," recalls Moore on the shocking discovery. "It says right here, n---er brown, I thought maybe they spelled it wrong." But that would be a pretty major spelling mistake, and it's not one Moore or her family is prepared to accept, especially considering her young daughter had never even heard the word before. "I didn't even know what that word was, I'd never even heard of the word," seven-year-old Olivia said. So Doris made several calls to the furniture store where she bought the couch, but didn't hear anything back. When CityNews finally caught up with one of the retailers, they were quick to pass the buck to the supplier. When we contacted the supplier, they did the same. "I'm just a trader, I bring from China and I sell to the stores," Paul Kumar said. The supplier followed up with a promise to stop selling the controversial item, but that might not be good enough for Moore and her family, who feel their expensive new furniture is a little tainted, even if it did provide a valuable lesson. "It teaches me that that word is a bad, bad word," said Olivia. Even though the couch was made in China, Moore says she has every intention of logging a formal complaint with the Ontario Human Rights Commission. |
