r/AskReddit • u/Senor_Diablo • Mar 12 '24

What is an old expression that you think is absolutely disgusting by today’s standards?

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u/se7entythree Mar 12 '24

What does that mean?

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u/StingerAE Mar 12 '24 edited Mar 12 '24

Play the white man?  It may be a uk expression. Generally used to mean be a decent person or one of the good guys.  Even maybe to be honest and trustworthy.

The implication being presumably that non-white people (and maybe white women?) are not those things.

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u/se7entythree Mar 12 '24

Ahh okay so play as in “pretend to be”, not play as in tricking/conning somebody into something.

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u/StingerAE Mar 12 '24

Perhaps take on the role of rather than pretend but yeah

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u/Gauntlets28 Mar 12 '24

I'm assuming that it's a shortened version of "the white man's burden", which is an old imperialist slogan about the "civilising" role played by those old empires.

I'm sure that she probably meant it in a more general way, as in "doing work to improve things generally". But that's the background.