In my view, by insisting on use of the word, you’re insisting on running the risk of entrenching racist views and rubbing salt in the psychic wounds of racism’s victims. Why would you want to run that risk?
Because I’ve listened to their show enough that I think I’ve got a pretty good handle on his mindset. Having grown up and lived in most of the states in the SE US helps also.
Remember the Chris Rock bit that I linked to earlier? (Yeah, I don’t doubt that Chris Rock doesn’t like that bit because racists have used it as an excuse to say mean things, but that doesn’t detract from its validity.) I believe he was only referring to one of the two types of people that Rock was describing.
I think your view is invalid because you act like using words in wide common usage like animal / savage is “insisting.” A word that is not in wide usage at least publicly / in nice circles, and which is strongly condemned anytime a public figure says it (like nigger, or faggot) you have to insist on using, because it really isn’t part of casual conversation. If it is, you’re far removed from the social norm. But calling barbaric, evil people animals or savages, or even just referring to a slovenly person half-heartedly in that way is widely common and there is no intrinsic racism to it.
You can choose to view anything you want as racist, and people can choose to be offended by whatever they want, but people can’t sacrifice the entire language just because of the views of an ultra-small minority of persons. Largely, the view you express has little traction in wider society.
I see nothing in Cumia’s tweets to support this. In fact, it appears to be the exact opposite. Rock was making the point that not all black people act like street thugs. Cumia seems to feel that all black people are street thugs. I understand you’re claiming that Cumia only meant that some black people act that way - but the reality is that there is no point in any of his tweets where he says or implies any limitation like that. Based on what he wrote, he’s expressing his feelings about all black people.
Why are people trying to reason with Rucksinator? What is to be gained from this fruitless exercise?
No, that’s not true at all. I used the word “insisting” to characterize your and Guinistasia’s explicit insistence on using the words. Some other people in the thread said you shouldn’t, and you insisted that you will.
Anyway, I think you’re wrong about whether it’s just “an ultra small minority of people” who either have racist views entrenched by hearing the words used, or else have psychic wounds as victims of racism who find those wounds reopened on hearing the words used. I rather think this is a widespread phenomenon, not just something that happens to “an ultra small minority of people.”
But that’s an empirical question and I’ll be the first to acknowledge I haven’t provided evidence for my claim.
Of course, neither have you.
You’re going just on his tweets, apparently. (And I strongly suspect that he was getting drunker and angrier thinking about what happened as the night went on.)
I am not a personal friend of his, nor do I have the chance to listen to all of their shows every day; but I do listen semi-regularly. He is way to the right (politically speaking) of me and most people. He is constantly bitching about how much he has to pay in taxes (from a job that pays him enough to buy a huge mansion for talking for 4 hours a day). He gets along fine with the black guests that they have on the show, and I think that he had genuine affection for Patrice O’Neil.*
I think that his beef is more with poor people than with black people. Obviously, there is a good bit of overlap with those groups. I think that a lot of people are making the same mistake with Cumia that Kanye West made about G.W.Bush when he said “George Bush doesn’t care about black people”. It’s actually poor people that Bush and Cumia don’t care about. Because of the overlap, this gets confused.
- Damn I wish Patrice was still with us to give his opinion about this. If he said “Yeah, that was some racist bullshit that Anthony said” then I would retract most of what I’ve posted here.
How convenient. You’d believe one black guy, who happens to be dead, in his opinions about what is racist, but barring his miraculous return, you’ll keep arguing that gosh, nothing this guy said was racist.
Sorry, black people and non-racists everywhere. Your appointed spokesperson has died, so you’re out of luck.
There are many black comedians that have visited their show. I’ll await their opinions as well. (Patrice is just the one that I liked the best.) I’d rather hear the opinions of blacks that know them than people who only know what they have read from a night of tweets.
Yeah, we should just shut down the GD forum. People like me can’t be reasoned with, so there’s no point in having a civilized discussion, right?
You’re not supposed to call black people or (non-white people in general) savages or animals unless you’re posting on Stormfront or /pol/. Even if they made dresses out of human skin. Might as well just call 'em jigaboos and get it over with.
Because?
Should a jury be made up only of people who know the defendant?
Just. Choked. On. My. Coke.
You guys are cracking me right the hell up.
Please don’t stop.
Oh, good God, yes. You have some fuckwad whose apparently only good sense is in realizing he shouldn’t actually use the word “nigger” in his insanely racist rant (while every other euphemism under the sun is okay), to keep from appearing like a racist to his fellow Klan members, and you’ll always have the Contrary Wonder Twins of the Dope here to blow them and say, all disingenuous like, “But really, they’re honestly not a bigot!” because… they weren’t bigoty enough?
Some of the SDMB’s membership, astounding me since 2001.
Don’t be ridiculous. It’s not at all rude. Is the gas station rude? The bank? The traffic cameras? The thought that having your picture taken in public without your knowledge is somehow worthy of anger or rancor is ridiculous because even people who say what you say don’t actually care 99.99% of the time that their picture is taken in public without their knowledge.
And sometimes it’s necessary for the proper functioning of our society, no matter what Mr. Policeman might think to the contrary.
Also, one other thing… I forget who said where (and it’s hard to decipher on my phone), but if that piece of shit was calling out the “black community” for fitting his stereotype of them as, say, lowlife thieves and druggies on welfare, etc., where’d he get that idea? I mean, how would you conclude that in such a (short?) encounter? If most people were supposedly attacked in that way, is that one of the things you’d speculate on? If not, why was that one of his go-to insults? Could it really be because he was a racist, you think?
Let’s see if you can find the GIANT OBVIOUS FUCKING DIFFERENCE between an inconspicuous surveillance camera that takes footage of all customers but is rarely reviewed, and a single person that singles out another person to take their picture for personal use, a picture that will almost certainly be reviewed. Take your time.
I never listened to his radio show if that’s what you’re asking.
But I can imagine how I would react if this was some celebrity who I was familiar with. Let’s say, for the sake of example, author Lois McMaster Bujold (I was re-reading one of her books earlier today). Let’s say she got liquored up and posting a string of rants like Cumia’s.
My response would not be to try to defend her rants and deny their meaning. I would just be shocked to discover that somebody whose work I enjoyed was a racist. I’d be questioning whether or not I should continue to read her books, knowing now the character of the person who wrote them. (This is, incidentally, the reaction fans of Marion Zimmer Bradley are having to the recent revelations that she abused her daughter.)
Because they know him and his character.
No, but don’t you think that a jury would hear more than just one night of drunken tweets?
Somebody not only doesn’t understand what racism is, but also apparently hasn’t heard the phrase In Vino Veritas.
Why are you assuming that Anthony Cumia singled this woman out to take her picture for personal use? Oh, that’s right, he’s a racist, ergo he must be deficient in every other category. He’s probably also bad at radio. He’s also never been funny. Because he’s bad, we can’t say anything good about him. That would be like admitting that Hitler was a good public speaker.