abbyr311: I have to agree with AslanTheBrave on this one. The expression you're complaining about has no racist origins. If it has been misused in the part of the world you live in, you can hardly expect the entire English-speaking world to view the word the same way you do. It's just a gardening implement. The playing-card suit which vaguely resembles such an implement happens to be one of the two suits traditionally colored black, which has led to some misuse of the word -- but that is not the fault of the original gardening implement. In Britain, some have misused the word "Frog" to refer to people from France. That doesn't make any reference to the word "Frog", anywhere on the planet, an ethnic slur -- sometimes it refers to an amphibian, or a garment closure, or a part of a music instrument, or hoarseness, or a variety of other things. While someone from France might take offense at one of the other usages, it would not be the fault of the person talking about the green creature they just saw hop across the road. Demanding an apology from the person who just mentioned a literal frog with no ethic reference in mind would probably come across as a bit hypersensitive... Please blame the people who misuse the word, not the ones who use it correctly.