What up, white supremacists?

Leaving aside the conspicuous white guilt, ethnic squeamishness and the Jane Austen-esque comedy of manners (how topical!), I think the rules changes are a good idea simply because they keep out-and-out arseholes away from this dazzling wonderbra of a forum. Common or garden arseholes are fine, but really if you're that worried about your son listening to Bob Marley or whether he might like nail polish, I hear Stormfront is ready and waiting, and just begging to hear you whine about your persecution complex.

Seriously though, given some of the unstable irony that gets used here, is there a 'Jonathon Swift' test in place? In other words, if the use of offensive material is plainly used for irony and to make a valid point, does it still get lumped in with the bonehead bigotry by default?

When I was about five, I moved to a new neighborhood. My mom left my dad. My dad called black people *******. Not out of hate, it was just the term they used back then. One of his best friends was black, a man I called Uncle George. My dad called him ****** George.

The neighborhood kids came to my house the first day, wanting to meet the new kids. "GET OFF MY PROPERTY YOU *******!", I shouted at the kids. They were black. My mom yelled at me, and invited the kids in. They gave me dirty looks, I was embarrased. I wanted my dad. My mom offered them cookies. They ate my cookies.

To this day, when I hear that word, I get a pain deep in my stomach.

I'd bet dollars to donuts that you're younger than 30, probably younger than 25.
Please, spare me the maturity attacks, your age deducing powers are way off.



I see a pattern. Younger posters tend to have a, "What's the big deal? It's just a word." attitude. Older posters who remember the civil rights movement seem to believe that hate speech terms, specifically the "n" word, are racist and should not be tolerated.

I don't have that attitude, I don't run around spouting off racial epithets because it's inconsiderate and unnecessarily inflammatory, I'm not a rude person. "Hate Speech" is a bullshit term, it's used to label anything that one group doesn't like. I've heard people use the hate speech card on people of opposing political views when there was nothing hateful in the speech. If I tell you that I hate you, is that "hate speech", how about if I tell someone I strongly dislike them? It's like "hate crime" isn't any unprovoked violent act against another person a hateful action?



You want to tell me that word has no power? Let me tell you a story about a 12 year old boy who wandered down an alley scrounging for "artifacts" one Sunday morning around 8:30 am in 1981. When he came out of the alley, he saw four drunken rednecks half walking, half staggering down the far side of the street. Shuffling toward them on the same side of the street was an old black bum who was talking to himself in a broken manner. The boy hid himself behind a dumpster to watch.

Once they noticed the old man, the rednecks began talking to each other loudly about how they hated black people. That's not the term they used of course. As they neared him, the hicks grew quiet. The lead one shoved the bum as they passed. The old man complained loudly. Another redneck exclaimed, "What'd you say "n"!" and they jumped him.

The old man went down. The boy watched as they kicked the bum unmercifully. All four wore cowboy boots. Two of them escalated the violence in a sort of horrendous competition.

Once the filthy sub humans had gone, the boy slowly crept across the street. The old man's face no longer looked human. His chest looked caved in and his breathing had a particular wheeze that the boy wouldn't hear again until his grandfather took a month to die six years later. "Death rattle" they called it.

Seeing the man there on the street, dying, was too much for a white suburban boy who had never seen true violence. He ran back from whence he came faster than he had ever run before.

Because he did nothing that day, the boy decided he would never tolerate overt racism again, regardless of the consequences. Nor would he ever use that specific racial epithet, in speech or in print.

To this day he can not tolerate the "n" word. If the word is overheard being spoken by a white person, he can chose to leave the room, or become physically violent.

So, I have been personally beaten by adults because of my race when I was 14, should I get all uptight when someone uses the words that my attackers used to describe me while they were beating my ass for walking down the street? Should I look upon every person of color who calls me "white boy" like they are a serious threat or become violent with them? I don't think so, that would be racist. I don't waste my energy crying over a damn word, I also understand that some people are too wrapped up in themselves to get past the words, so I choose not to use them. I never said it was acceptable to call anyone a name that they might take offense to, it's your right to do so if you wish, but I also feel that if you intentionally use words to piss someone off you shouldn't be able to file assault charges when they punch you in the mouth. On the other side, if you find yourself getting offended by some dumbshit's language that is not directed at you, maybe you need to try staying out of other people's business. It all falls under rule #1.

"Hate Speech" is a bullshit term
See, you do find some words objectionable.

I stuck 'hate speech' in the title for a number of reasons...
1] it worked as a contrast nicely to 'love'. Style is important.
2] it's the phrase used in the site's rules. Consistency is important.
3] it's a shitty term that I knew some people would fixate on.

I never said it was acceptable to call anyone a name that they might take offense to, it's your right to do so if you wish, but I also feel that if you intentionally use words to piss someone off you shouldn't be able to file assault charges when they punch you in the mouth.

I'm sorry, but that is just ridiculous. The escalation of verbal to physical is not something that you can excuse because of the type of words used in the verbal assault. Escalation for verbal to physical is the step taken by those who are unable to cogently state their responses, and the tactic of immature bully boys.


On the other side, if you find yourself getting offended by some dumbshit's language that is not directed at you, maybe you need to try staying out of other people's business. It all falls under rule #1.

That's also ridiculous. A person should take into consideration the perceived responses to words uttered before uttering them. It is not the place of the person hearing them to take themselves away, but the person uttering them to first consider what they are saying and who's company they are in. For example I would never call someone a dumb **** in front of my grandma, but am quite happy to do so here...

When I was about five, I moved to a new neighborhood. My mom left my dad. My dad called black people *******. Not out of hate, it was just the term they used back then. One of his best friends was black, a man I called Uncle George. My dad called him ****** George.

The neighborhood kids came to my house the first day, wanting to meet the new kids. "GET OFF MY PROPERTY YOU *******!", I shouted at the kids. They were black. My mom yelled at me, and invited the kids in. They gave me dirty looks, I was embarrased. I wanted my dad. My mom offered them cookies. They ate my cookies.

To this day, when I hear that word, I get a pain deep in my stomach.

I don't know why but I find that extremely funny. Especially since they still ate your cookies. I imagine your mom saying "Just ignore little johnny, he's a little retarded."

The word "******" comes from the word "niggardly." It means lazy, shiftless, etc.

Over time the word became one used as insult to Black Americans.

It is interesting to note that the book "Frankenstein" is NOT about brains and bolts in the neck. It wrestles with the mighty issue of what is a "monster."

I bring this up because the book "Huckleberry Finn" while about children, is not a book for children. The movies removed the issue the book wrestles with, to wit "what is a ******?" Mark Twain shows us that it is the people using that word, that define themselves. One of the few adult males in the book who is clearly not a ******, is the runaway slave "Jim" who just wants to get to his family to take care of them.

As such, the word it self is just that, a word. In that unpublished book of mine I have an entire page where the word ****** appears over 100 times. Reading that page does not compel anyone to burn a cross, or break out in a rap song.

However, if I point at a person and say "you ******," then I have crossed a line. I have defined myself, and in as much as the Courts hold there are such things as "fighting words" I am likely to have started a fight. But use of that word does not excuse murder, or getting away with one.

The words we use, tell people who we are; which is why I use some, and do not use others.

The fact that so many get so wound up over such trivial **** like who uses what word when and in what context while wearing what color skin just shows what a large bunch of fucking oversensitive, immature panty-waists exist in this world. Where I work, I am almost always in the racial minority, and I don't cry or get offended when someone throws a little word my way to get under my skin, it's usually the most insecure people that do it. Words only have as power as you give to them, if you are going to let some jackass get you all worked up with a word or two, you should probably seek counseling. When someone is obviously trying to start **** with you by running their mouth, you need to decide when it's worth it to give them what they are asking for, but engaging in a verbal or in the internet case, written pissing contest is just asinine, and makes you look like a complete tool. Oh, and nice to meet everyone.
In the very real world of PM shift at Pepperidge Farm, a fellow worker, ex football player (Black and powerful), was called ******. He told the guy, with a smile, you can say whatever you want, but the next time you'll be saying from your knees.

In the Wyoming oil field there was one Black guy, college grad, higher up job than most of us roughnecks. When he was around it was all polite. As soon as he drove off, it was ****** this and ****** that. Yippee...

In Monticello AR, back in my youth, when I was visiting my grandmother, I saw a karate dojo. So naturally I dropped in to see about working out. They were a group, mostly young, and all white. One of the senior guys said, "We don't like *******, do you?" Rather than argue the merits of Malcolm X and the Black Power Movement, and get killed, I left.

As the button on this desk right now says, **** RACISM http://www.kaboodle.com/hi/img/2/0/0/10d/2/AAAAAk3Qb4QAAAAAAQ0lZw.jpg

Racism of course isn't just for honkeys. Walking in Waianae I was telling the kids about how this is a kind of a rough area of O'ahu and haoles should be careful, specially after dark, and my daughter said, "Dad, you are the only haole here." Fucking haole was a term I heard often in my youth. Nowadays racism in Hawaii is much much less an issue. As one Hawaiian guy told me as we waited for a late inner Island flight, it's not like when we were kids; everybody has one, whatever it is, everybody has one in their family. Tutu has no haole grandkids. But they sure are good looking! When I was a kid interracial marriages were around 50%... So in a couple generations you get Fug's family being part halole, Japanese, Chinese, Hawaiian, Portagee.

But my kids got told that they weren't real Americans and Chinks here in Utah and my nephews got called haoles when they went to Kamehameha School (they were too pale for racist moron Hawaiians, what a fucked up world).

The word "******" comes from the word "niggardly." It means lazy, shiftless, etc.

No, that is wrong. Niggardly comes from Scandinavia and has nothing at all to do with with race.

Wiki: "Niggardly" (noun: "niggard") is an adjective meaning "stingy" or "miserly", perhaps related to the Old Norse verb nigla = "to fuss about small matters". It is cognate with "niggling", meaning "petty" or "unimportant", as in "the niggling details".

"******" derives from the Spanish/Portuguese word negro, meaning "black", and probably also the French nègre, which likewise has become a racist insult in American culture, deriving from negro (the ordinary French word for "black" being noir). Both negro and noir (and therefore also nègre and ******) ultimately come from nigrum, the accusative case of the Latin word niger, meaning "black".

No, that is wrong. Niggardly comes from Scandinavia and has nothing at all to do with with race.

Wiki: "Niggardly" (noun: "niggard") is an adjective meaning "stingy" or "miserly", perhaps related to the Old Norse verb nigla = "to fuss about small matters". It is cognate with "niggling", meaning "petty" or "unimportant", as in "the niggling details".

"******" derives from the Spanish/Portuguese word negro, meaning "black", and probably also the French nègre, which likewise has become a racist insult in American culture, deriving from negro (the ordinary French word for "black" being noir). Both negro and noir (and therefore also nègre and ******) ultimately come from nigrum, the accusative case of the Latin word niger, meaning "black".

Never said it had anything to do with race. Yes, stingy and miser are there too. I have old books where the word is used quite often in the usage of stingy and miserly as well as lazy.

Ok, whiteys. So I want to know what do you all think the word "******" means. Give me your definition.
What it "Means" and what it's "Definition" is are two very different concepts.
Therein lies the problem.


What up, white supremacists?
Again.....use "Nazi" it is much more weighty and much yes wieldy.

The words we use, tell people who we are

QFT

..

When the all else is exhausted, it's always easiest to retreat into a kind of cod-postmodernism. Redefine existing words because language is whatever you make it, right guys?

But outside of the internet, homie (everyone else) don't play that. We're talking about a word that was and still is used to define who is and is not human. Its use is exclusively to define that, and to contribute to an atmosphere where it is acceptable to degrade, hurt and murder people of a certain skin color. It doesn't have an alternative use, especially not coming from the mouths of white people. It's a cultural enabler for oppression.

I know some of you don't like to accept that you can't do certain things but you can't redefine the N word to mean what you want it to. It's not a subjective thing with a multitude of different viewpoints like the facets of a diamond.

But when I use it, I'm being innovative and promoting introspection in all the Bullies who use other bad words! I'm pointing out hypocrisy! I'm actually not being racist, because I'm being ironic!

Wait, no, that would be stupid beyond belief.

http://www.feministing.com/archives/014704.html
http://www.illdoctrine.com/2008/07/how_to_tell_people_they_sound.html

I'm sorry, but that is just ridiculous. The escalation of verbal to physical is not something that you can excuse because of the type of words used in the verbal assault. Escalation for verbal to physical is the step taken by those who are unable to cogently state their responses, and the tactic of immature bully boys.
I didn't say I would do it, but I do think that if you go poking at someone looking for trouble and you find it, well, you got what you wanted. I'm old enough to avoid being goaded into punching some jackass and going to jail because of his mouth, I have a lot to lose now. Some people don't have anything to lose.



That's also ridiculous. A person should take into consideration the perceived responses to words uttered before uttering them. It is not the place of the person hearing them to take themselves away, but the person uttering them to first consider what they are saying and who's company they are in. For example I would never call someone a dumb **** in front of my grandma, but am quite happy to do so here...


I don't run around spouting off racial epithets because it's inconsiderate and unnecessarily inflammatory

I am not arguing for the use of the word. I say if you want to call someone a ****** while hiding behind your keyboard, you should first let 5 people from this forum pick a black person for you to call a ****** face to face in a place you can't flee in a hurry.

Oh, and for the record, I would never curse in front of your granny. Well, unless we were at the nudie bar together, because then all rules and decorum are out the window.