BeerUser...You're my favorite poster now!

The BBQ Pit
21

I take offense to that statement, Beeruser. I live in Baltimore, about five minutes outside of the city. I am in the city frequently, since all the good stuff happens there, and many of my friends either live or go to school in the city. Yes, I see panhandlers that are black. I see white, Asian, and Hispanic ones too. I never bothered to do a survey, but I’d be on target saying that many of the ones who beg for change or cigarettes are black.

But it never occurred to me until I read what you wrote.

I have one friend, Esther, who is homeless, and black as well. Everytime I park on Broadway, she comes up and asks for change for food or a smoke. I always give her a few bucks if I have it, and in return she will buy some food and sit on a stoop watching my car to make sure no one messes with it. Sometimes when I park in a spot that’s not technically a spot, or if I don’t pay the meter, she will tell the patrols or the meterman that I just ran inside for a second, so they leave my car alone.

The moral of the story is, if you expect a person to behave a certain way, no matter how they actually behave, you will see what you want. If you expect all black people to beg for money, than of course that’s what you will see, because it’s what you have already decided to believe. It’s stereotypical, nonsensical, and pointless. What are you doing to change this “pattern”? What action are you taking? Do you volunteer to help at homeless shelters? Do you make it open season and shoot all black beggers? Or do you just ineffectually bitch and moan about all the “niggers” ruining the world? I’m guessing it’s #3 - I see that sort of behavior much too often.

That sort of one-mindedness if ridiculous, and scary too. We don’t need such ignorance at all, let alone on this board.

Since you seem to be so sure about your little hypothesis, I don’t think anyway will ever be able to change your mind. Therefore I’d advise you to keep quiet about your racism in the future. It’s very unbecoming. :rolleyes:

22

Since when is racism grounds for being expelled from an open forum? I’m not racist (not because it is considered evil) but everybody’s entitled to an opinion, even retards. It obviously is a social problem not a genetic one. I could go on about this but let just stick to bashing beeruser.

23

Dear Johnny,

BeerUser has not been banned for his cock-eyed racist rantings. He has been warned about spreading his misbegotten racists ideas on this message board, but he has not been banned.

I, for one, have always been in favor of letting this kind of language expressed. It is much better to let the world (or in this case, this message board) see and respond to his kind of retarded viewpoint. How else can it be exposed for the unsubstantiated claptrap that it is?

The people who run this board feel that this kind of inflamatory statement as no truck on this board of mostly free expression. This is to their merit. I, however, think that the only way to fight it is by refuting it.

I am glad to say that this kind of speech is refuted roundly, loudly and emphatically here at the Straight Dope. Kudos to the vast majority of posters here.

24

This isn’t actually an open forum. This forum is provided by the Chicago Reader, and we’re all here on its sufferance. While the Reader is remarkably easy-going, not EVERYTHING is allowed here. Moreover, not everyone is welcome here. Some people have managed to get themselves banned for life. And anyone who feels that s/he MUST express an opinion about something, after being warned about it, is free to go elsewhere to express that opinion.

In other words, act like a jerk and you’re OUT of here.

Lynn
Administrator
For the Straight Dope

{Note: corrected typo. Lynn}

[Edited by Lynn Bodoni on 01-02-2001 at 01:01 AM]

25

Damn straight. You can talk about cunnilingus, smoking pot, and popping gigantic pimples, and all the fun stuff in between. If the subject you want to express opinions about doesn’t lie in there somewhere, then you’ve got problems.

26

There is no doubt, beeruser was “just a bit outside” by that comment. You can use the “N-word”- but civilized folk do not use it, or any other term as a racial or bigoted perjoritive word.

Thus, if you want to debate the use of “the word” in Mark Twains works- you certainly can say: “I do not think Huckleberry Finn can be condemned as racist because it uses “nigger””. But no calling folks that. That is what bigots do.

There are other words only bigots use in that way.

27

I’m trying to decide if you are being sarcastic or not, DITWD. I actually wrote a paper on that in college, and I maintained that in the time period of the book, “nigger” was a socially acceptable word. It was common and percieved as an adjective, not a racial slur.

But society changes, social mores change. A word that was one acceptable no longer is. On the same token, Flaubert, Dickens, and Tolstoy showed prominent, wealthy women in society being subjugated. Will reading about this make it happen again, even though it is no longer reality? No.

Just a little hijack. Please return to thoroughly and completely flogging Beeruser.

28

Damn straight. You wouldn’t say Tolkien is homophobic because his books use the word “faggot”.

29

nacho- nope, take my post as almost literal. However, perhaps you misunderstand me. 1. Only Bigots use that word nowadays (as a perjoritive)to refer to black folk.

  1. It is perfectly to discuss or use the word itself- but not as a perjoritive, especially if taken in context. Thus, if discussing the word “nigger”, say in the context of Twains works, you need not say “the N-word”.
30

From Beeruser’s response in the thread Andros started:

You see that in war movies because they are showing how American soldiers talked at the time. I would imagine that what may be excusable to use to refer to the people that are trying to kill you might not be so on a public message board.

Grown above it? I’ve never seen the moral high road claimed in defense of using the phrase “ignorant niggers” to describe black people. Most racists aren’t that stupid.

Again you seem to feel that you are somehow a better person for feeling free to use offensive language to express ignorant opinions. The word serves no other purpose than to offend. Why you feel that being offensive is a virtue is beyond me.

People should not use words that people of other races are going to find offensive. Is it unfair that some people do so without it being found offensive? I guess so. However, you cannot pretend that you don’t know that black people will take offense to your use of the word.

Exactly. I believe everyone should be free to use the word nigger when they want to offend black people. That’s what it’s there for. I generally can live my life without trying to offend black people, and it’s kind of puzzling why you can’t.

My heart goes out to you.

No. You were talking out of your ass and using hate-filled words to do so. The only message you got across was that you are and idiot and you hate black people.

31

…but Bwahahahahaha!!!

32

Dear Biggirl,

First I must say I did not read Beeruser’s post, which I should have done. I was guiding myself by JuanitaTech’s post because my concern was no so much the language but the the liberty to express different viewpoints, even racist ones. As a non-native english speaker, “nigger” to me only says he looks at blacks as inferior due to their race which isn’t worthy of comment, but that’s words were talking about, not ideas. As long as he doesn’t use unwarranted and/or excessive language (as was the case), is not doing propaganda, etc etc I think that this ilustrious gathering of intelectual minds should not forbid these arguments. But I don’t set the rules, I only follow them or go somewhere else like the rest. Still, it is my belief it would be more ilustrious (again) for this board not to impose these restrictions. If someone has valid arguments going in favor of racism I’d be more than glad to hear them, althought this may prove to be difficult.

I like to think that everyone with ignorance to be quelched is welcome here.

33

Before you pick on this, that should have been: but that’s the way you choose to express yourself, not the idea itself.

34

Everyone is welcome to read the message boards, yes. Not everyone is welcome to post here. We won’t put up with some behaviors. As a general rule, we’re pretty easy-going. But if someone persists in posting copyrighted material, for instance, that person will eventually be banned. Similarly, we are NOT an outlet for racist/homophobic/whatever propaganda, and anyone who wishes to post messages with that content can post it somewhere else. Nor do we allow advertising posts. (We’re perfectly happy to put up advertising BANNERS if we get paid to do so.) There’s other things, too, but basically it boils down to “Don’t be a jerk.” Take a look at usenet for the reasons why we moderate this board.

Lynn
Administrator
For the Straight Dope

35

First of all, I’m really shocked that Beer said this and more so that he believes it. (Drunk or not) But this is at the very heart of racism; we believe what we think we see. This is what he has seen therefore, he extrapolates it out to encompass ALL blacks. That is really sad. Because that isn’t the truth.

It breaks my heart to hear people talk that way but I do have to add an aside here. Some people do use the word “nigger” and not the way you might think. A friend of mine took me over to his brother’s house and greeted him by saying, “Yo, nigger, what’s up?” I about shit my pants. I was aghast and embarrassed. I hate that word and wouldn’t say it at gun point. But his brother clasped him in a great hug and said, “not much, what about you?”

I asked him about it later (oh, yeah, my pal is black, BTW) and he said that by using that word that way they took the power out of it. This I understood. I, as a white woman, couldn’t go up and say that to his brother (unless I knew him very well) but he could. I guess it’s like where I’m okay now with the words “fat chick” because by adopting them, I take the power away from them.

But I don’t think that’s what Beer was doing. He was using it in it’s most base form. A slur. And it hurts. I’m really saddened by this more than anything. Drunk or not he should apologize and refrain from such garbage in the future.