I hear “I know five black people. Four of them are so exceptional that I forget they’re black. But that other one is true to form.”
For fuck’s sake, don’t call Black People niggers. Are we really debating this? Does this really need a seven page thread? Have I stumbled into Stormfr*nt by mistake?
Have you read the thread? There’s been surprisingly little acceptance of calling all black people niggers, but a surprising amount of claiming it’s ok to call some black people niggers. I’m not sure why, but it seems to be Chris Rock’s fault.
Can you direct me to some posts in which people have claimed “it’s ok to call some black people niggers”? I don’t recall any and am skeptical as to whether anyone at all has claimed this.
ISTM that confusion over things like this, both deliberate and genuine, is the root of the trouble with threads like this one.
Aside from Annie’s original comment upon which this thread is based, I don’t know that anyone is saying it’s ok to call anyone “nigger”. As MaxTheVool has been trying to say, as hateful, vile and wrong as it is, it does supply meaning, and not just “about the speaker”. Right or wrong, I think most people, at least in the rare instances I actually hear someone say it, really mean something like “ghetto”.
[Quote=John Mace]
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Two unemployed black people, each with children from previous marriages. There are constantly people showing up at their house in the middle of the night and she thinks they might be drug dealers. They’re constantly complaining about how they’re trying to get more money out of the government, and playing loud profanity-laced-rap-music, and she really kind of hates them.
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Two unemployed white people, each with children from previous marriages. There are constantly people showing up at their house in the middle of the night and she thinks they might be drug dealers. They’re constantly complaining about how they’re trying to get more money out of the government, and playing loud profanity-laced-rap-music, and she really kind of hates them.
Notice any difference between the two couples?
[/QUOTE]
I see what you’re getting at and I think anyone who is the type to incorporate race into the insult would call the second couple “white trash”.
Apparently there is no way to distinguish thinking ‘that person fulfills the worst stereotypes that racists can come up with’ from putting a sign on your front lawn saying ‘Obama is a nigger’.
Regards,
Shodan
I think it’s more like “that person fulfills the worst stereotypes that racists can come up with and therefore it’s okay to think of them as a nigger” – and IMO, the difference between “one should never think of anyone as niggers or any other racial/ethnic slur” and “that person fulfills the worst stereotypes that racists can come up with and therefore it’s okay to think of them as a nigger” is utterly huge, and much, much bigger than the difference between the latter and “it’s okay to think of any black people I don’t like or am angry at as niggers” which seem pretty damn close to me.
I disagree. But again, say that you just convinced me. What is the relevance?
The relevance is in whether or not you can infer that the thinker is someone who has negative thoughts about all black people.
Anyone who goes to using n*gger in any capacity (even if they think the person they are directing it somehow matches a stereotype and/or just represents a subset of black people) likely carries a predisposition to think less of black people in general.
Decent people do not think/call any black person that word.
Simply that some people do make a distinction and while the use of a racial slur may signal to you (the general "you’ in the context of this thread) certain things about the speaker, sometimes it’s just a descriptor. I’m not saying by any means that dragging one’s race into an argument or insult is right; just that’s it’s unfortunate, ugly but easy shorthand to some people.
You’re entitled to your opinion that such a person “likely carries a predisposition”. But that’s at best a much more tenuous judgment than if the word had no connotations which distinguished by anything other than skin color.
Which is exactly why people have been arguing this issue in this thread. Because if you want to castigate all such thinkers as racists it’s much easier if you can simply deny that the word has any connotations other than color than would be the case if you accepted that and thus had to fall back on much shakier claims that such people “likely carr[y] a predisposition”
The user may justify or explain its use because of “additional reasons” but as been shown time and time again, simply being black is necessary and sufficient to be called it.
Everything else is just hand waving.
Nigger is a racial slur used against black people. If some of the black people being slurred are doing things that the user of the word feels justifies/explains their choice of words, that’s on them. The fact that on rare occasions a white person gets called it, well, that’s the exception that proves the rule.
You’re just repeating an argument that has been made and refuted many times in this thread. I don’t think I’m getting back on that merry-go-round at this point.
The specific question asked at this point in the thread is not whether this argument is correct or not, but rather what’s the relevance of the entire issue altogether. I addressed that question. Now you’re just retreating to a reiteration of why you’re correct about that underlying issue. OK.
You stated above that “the subject of this thread is whether there are also other people [who use the term “nigger”] with a different mindset than the people” who believe that all blacks are inferior. I don’t believe anyone has put forth any evidence that would suggest that’s true. All that has been shown is that there are some users of the term who believe certain blacks are better than other blacks. There is no evidence that people who use the term believe some blacks are equal to them.
The relevance is that if a person is employing a racial slur against someone of another race, it demonstrates that the person has a negative view of that race. I am not seeing anything that anyone has said to refute that. Evidence of differences between individuals of the target race is not evidence that the slur-utterer doesn’t see all individuals of the target race as lower-tier humans compared to themself.
Well, we do have:
That’s all fine. But there’s no reason the shoe has to be on the other foot here. This - what’s going on in people’s hearts and minds - is not something that really lends itself to evidence, especially of the type you can post on a MB. Ultimately it’s a judgment call, based on each person’s experience with other people’s attitudes, ways of thinking, and use of language. So saying “there is no evidence that people who use the term believe some blacks are equal to them” is completely inconclusive.
So it remains relevant. To the extent that you accept that there is no connotation of “nigger” other than “black”, then the notion that people like the subject of this thread must necessarily have negative views of all black people becomes that much more compelling. To the extent that you don’t accept that premise, then it’s much less compelling. Hence the dispute over this point in this thread, and the relevance.
So yes, you can say that “yeah, it may have a more specific connotation to some people but such people are probably racists anyway”, as ITD is saying. But it’s not as compelling as if it didn’t have that more specific connotation, which is why that point is relevant here.
Again, I don’t know what kind of evidence you think there exists to prove what’s in another’s mind.
[QUOTE=Asimovian]
The relevance is that if a person is employing a racial slur against someone of another race, it demonstrates that the person has a negative view of that race. I am not seeing anything that anyone has said to refute that.Evidence of differences between individuals of the target race is not evidence that the slur-utterer doesn’t see all individuals of the target race as lower-tier humans compared to themself.
[/QUOTE]
Nor is it evidence that they do.
Funny how this non sequiterish reference to OJ is totally unsurprising from this poster.
I can’t even make out what wackadoodle idiocy is being hinted at here. That the trial somehow represented some watershed moment in the history of “nigger” usage, whereby the term came to be only associated with the most niggerish of the niggers?
I don’t know either. Though I suspect it has something to do with the Fuhrman tapes.