No, of course they all aren’t. I’d even say the vast majority aren’t, and nothing else in this thread jumps out at me right now. However, when you use the phrase “I fully support driving them to the point where they’re afraid to act on their beliefs” as Little Nemo did, I find it hard to read that comment any other way.
I’m calling out the left in this thread for the over-the-top virtue signalling and thought policing, not bullying. I’m only calling Little Nemo out (so far) on the virtual bullying.
Since it’s apparently a poll of sorts now, no, I don’t remember thinking of black people as “niggers” even when I was a kid. My first memory of the word is my grandmother, who was raised in the segregated US south, spanking me for using it because it was a ‘naughty’ word and we didn’t talk like that in her household. (I didn’t know what it meant at the time.)
This isn’t necessarily a declaration of virtue so much as a data point that no, being white didn’t make me use that word or even want to. We’re not all secretly calling people that in our minds.
Something which is derogatory is something associated with negative aspects. You don’t need evidence or cites for this. It’s true by definition.
Your response earlier was that blackness itself was seen as the negative aspect associated with the term. OK. But I think that’s extremely dubious, and what’s left is that blacks were thought to be inferior in other ways beyond simply having black skin.
I’m finding it odd that people think Annie Xmas deserves credit for keeping her racism to herself…when she exposed it quite overtly on a public message board, almost apropos of nothing.
Conversely, it’s hard to take anything you say very seriously when you throw in right wing buzz words like “virtue signaling” and “thought policing”. As iiandyiiii says, point to the posts that are the problem. If you can’t, then you have no argument.
Of course widespread negative beliefs about black people were common. But blackness itself was enough to be inferior – a black person who was very obviously educated, erudite, peaceful, and intelligent would still have been considered inferior simply by virtue of being black. “Nigger” was about signifying that inferiority just by being black – it wasn’t about other characteristics. It was about putting down even the best and brightest of black people, and making sure they knew they were just as low as all the other niggers.
It’s funny to watch people desperately attempt to cast “nigger” as some sort of earned pejorative, based on completely rational judgments about the nature of black people.
I agree with this. I actually don’t care what people think in their secret in-brain thinking voice. I have no interest in policing peoples’ private shower thoughts. “Opening windows into men’s souls …” as a far more eloquent person once put it.
But Annie Xmas wasn’t thinking private thoughts. She straight-up volunteered that this couple she knows are niggers, only she tried to act coy and pretend that she’s too polite to use that word -
She just used it! In public! We all heard her! She tried to dance around it but she just totally wants us all to know that she knows people who deserve to be called by that stereotype.
That’s the virtue signalling part. She wants us to think she’s a good person, fronting like she doesn’t use that language, while actually promoting the truth of the stereotype behind the language.
I disagree. In my personal experience, I’ve known multiple people who have expressed that they are afraid to publicly state racist things due to a fear of criticism.
Look - you can’t change other people. That’s never works. Racists might grow out of it, but it won’t be because they have heard the music of sweet reason. If they were open to new and reasonable discourse, they wouldn’t cling to racism in the first place.
So I don’t care what people believe in their own living rooms. I can’t help that. What I can do is make sure that racist losers don’t air their racist loser bullshit in public where I can hear them.
If that means they’re too shy and delicate to come around me, I’m down with that.
Didn’t you get the memo? No one is supposed to judge you based on your internet speech. You should only be judged based on the words you literally say out loud to a flesh-and-blood person. Say “nigger” in earshot of a black person and of course you’re a racist jerk. Say “nigger” in a forum frequented by black people, and you deserve a pat on the head for being so honest and brave.
And they will continue to state that and even worse racist things in the dark places with other likeminded (racist) folk. This leads to everyone being surprised when a fucking tool like Trump ends up getting voted in as President, because they thought they lived in a different world than the real one.
Virtue signaling isn’t exclusive to either the left or the right. What they signal over is different, but the signalling itself is pretty much the same. Per wikipedia, it’s merely “the conspicuous expression of moral values done primarily with the intent of enhancing standing within a social group.” Both sides of the political spectrum do this, so I’m not sure why you’re trying to paint me as a right winger for using that phrase.
And again, I’m not playing the standard pedantic SDMB nitpicker game. This is a trend I’ve noticed on this board, it bothers me, I’ve made my argument and got it off my chest and now I think I’m done.