Lawyers for Christie administration seeking documents, interview with Hoboken mayor

[Demit]

39. My mother used the phrase 'pot calling the kettle black' and she was from Australia.

The variation you cite, that adds the word 'ass', is not a phrase familiarly known. I grew up in a fiercely white neighborhood, in a large east coast city not known for serenely untroubled race relations, and I never heard your variation. I grew up ALWAYS understanding that 'pot calling the kettle black' was an example of laughable hypocrisy. 'It takes one to know one' doesn't say exactly the same thing.

I think it's generally accepted that the word 'black' can describe things other than skin, or people. Whoever the people are who mistakenly believe the phrase is racist because it includes the word 'black' should have it explained to them that no, it isn't, and there's no need to pressure people to stop using a perfectly good metaphor just because of their own imperfect understanding of it.