The problem with saying something is “code” is that implicit in the whole concept of a code is that some people will not understand it. If the term admitted of only one meaning, clear to everyone and undeniable, it wouldn’t be a “code,” it would be a just a word, a synonym for the offensive term it’s standing in for.
So if you’re going to assert that something is “code” for something else, you must admit that some people genuinely will not get the coded message. And if you admit, as you must, that some people will neither see nor understand the code, then you really can’t insist that everybody knows what it means. Not everybody knows what it means, that’s the point: that’s what makes it “code.”
Hell, I’ve just given up and started using a word I swore I would never use. As an Obama man in a red state I feel the need to face some of my more um… rednecked… neighbors with language they understand.
Red: “Is that an Obama sticker on your car?”
N8: “Um… yeah.”
Red: “But you know he’s one of ‘them’ right?”
N8: “What do you mean?”
Red: “He’s not like us, none of ‘them’ are. Look, they’ve already taken over the whole town, you can’t shake a stick without hittin’ one of 'em. They’ve already got the Black Expo, what do you think will happen when one of ‘them’ gets in the whitehouse?”
N8: “Um… people will have to start looking at people for who they are and what they believe instead of what color they see?”
Red: “Dude, you just don’t understand how ‘they’ are, they’ll just take over the place.”
N8 (doing best fake southern accent with thumbs in fake suspenders while bobbing his head.): “Well, all I knows is I’m votin’ for me a nigger for president cuz alls the white peoples done fucked dis shit up and if you’ens got any brains you’ll vote for him too.”
Red: (looks very confused, shocked to hear that come out of N8’s mouth, walks away muttering “They just ain’t like us you know.” / Red never brings up the subject again.)
Lord I wish this conversation was fictional. Heartfelt apologies to any african-americans offended by my use of this word. I’m just tired of the ignorance.
It really scares me that you might actually be involved in the education system. My mother was terrible by the way not that it has anything to do with anything. I am getting tired of you tighty righties screaming sexism, the fact that Palin is unqualified has nothing to do with her gender and just because someone criticizes a woman does not make them sexist and just because you can find some dumbass saying some dumb shit is not the same as an elected representative of a party saying something incredibly stupid. If you weren’t dumber than dirt you would know these things.
I am so stealing this. My town is so conservative you wouldn’t believe it. I’ve already had parents calling the school about the “balance” of my Government classes because I dared say that Obama was a better speaker than McCain. :rolleyes:
Some people are not familiar with the history of words. I was out to dinner with my ex-roommate some months ago and she used the term “porch monkey” in conversation. I gasped and shushed her, explaining that using racial slurs in any context when we are both so white you can practically see through us would get both of our asses kicked and she should never, ever use that term again. She freaked out, having no idea that it was a racial slur. I bought a copy of Clerks 2 on the way home that night so that she could better understand the situation.
I know that sometimes people don’t know they are saying racist things. However, I seriously doubt an elected official in a southern state is not aware of the racial overtones of what he said.
Here is the exact quote from the OP link, and I find it very interesting:
I don’t think this guy even knows what the word means. They think they’re uppity?? They think they are acting above their station? I always thought the term meant you are acting as if you belong to a “higher level” station than the person commenting thinks you’re entitled to. People demonstrating upity behavior, I thought, did it more or less unconsciously. Except in pretty rare circonstances, like me going to a Porsche dealership and wasting a saleperson’s time when we both know I couln’t afford one in a million years.
Does this guy think the Obamas are acting like, er – educated and articulate – simply to annoy people like him?
I think if you were in the same room with a certain kind of racist and heard firsthand the inflections and emphases used with certain words, there’s no way you could not get the message loud and clear.
“That . . . [significant pause] boy does not need to have his finger on the button.”
“What I don’t like about the Obamas is they’re just a bit . . .[pauses, nods head a bit and look at you over his glasses] uppity.”
There’s more to communication than just what’s written down on a page, though what’s written down can lend plausible deniability. That’s what I think of as “code”.
Yeah, and coon is just a shortened word for a raccoon.
I’ve grown up in the south…call a white person a boy and you are just reffering to someone younger than you. Call a black person boy, even a a child, and you are making a racial slur.
However, the fact that Palin is being criticised for running for VP while having a four month old baby at home is sexist, in that if it was her husband who was running the subject would probably never come up. Not saying you’re saying this, askeptic, just that some of the criticism of Palin is coming from sexist grounds, IMO. I have heard nothing about Obama’s kids and in fact only found out recently (through a Dope post) that he even has any. I certainly haven’t heard any criticism of him based on the grounds that if he has young children, what is he doing running for office?
Calling a black man “boy” regardless of his age has a long history of being a term of racial condescension in the south.
“Uppity” is a term of southern racial condescension in the same way that y’all" or “you all” refers to a person in the singular… in other words, it doesn’t, but the misconception has now spread so far and wide that you can’t correct a northerner on it once they’ve decided they know what you really mean by it.
I used to work as a stagehand in Savannah, GA. There was a $5 fine for using the word “boy” on the job, because some of the white workers were so prone to addressing the black workers as that. We couldn’t even use the exclamation “Oh boy!” as I found out my first day there.
Off the subject, but a telling story all the same – the foreman needed some Riggers to go up in the cat-walks, so he was calling out for volunteers: “Riggers! Riggers! Riggers!” One of the rednecks on the crew admonished him, saying “They don’t like being called that! Say ‘Regroes’ instead!” That got a big laugh, even from the African-Americans – but not for long.
