A stock photo doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not manipulated. An editorial photo, though, would not be manipulated. The wording of the caption, though, does make it sound like an editorial photo, and looking at the photographer’s other images, and the fact that it is in the editorial photo category, I would be inclined to agree with you. If I saw something like a 20th Century Fox credit, I would think it’s a promotional photo and who knows what’s been done to it.
However, it does not necessarily follow that they filmed two versions. They may have just filmed the “I Hate Everybody” version and CGI’ed out the “Everybody” into “niggers.”
I posted links in this thread on that very subject. Although it was about white people using the word in rap or in general and not the specific case of Bill Maher.
Not that what black people think matters more than what any other arbitrary group thinks.
When it’s a word targeted negatively at a specific community, of course it matters more what that group thinks.
Words have multiple meanings that evolve over time.
I’d be the last person to argue about that.
The worst part of the whole business is that Sasse was making some EXCELLENT points (even though I disagree with him in general) and coming across as one of the most informed Republicans in a long time. I’m not that familiar with him but I found myself thinking “This level of thought is what we need in D.C.”. Unfortunately, that will be lost because of Maher’s dumbass ad lib.
Emphasis added. We are straying into GD territory here, and so I’ll just tell you what I think is “dumb”: Straw man arguments. Feel free to open a GD thread if you really want to debate this further.
+1
This isn’t as much of a rebuttal as you seem to think it is.
Actually, it’s more than sufficient.
You folks make it seem like there is one monolithic language/thought control board. There is no such thing. Listen to some rap music, check out some videos on WorldStar, watch some primarily black movies, play some sports in an “urban” environment and you will learn that language is far more nuanced than you are making it out to be.
Furthermore, restricting actions and language and acceptable ideas as a function of so-called race or so-called gender is bigoted. Either words and actions are acceptable or they are not.
The idea of labeling something or someone racist or sexist or whatever is an obvious attempt to demonize and control. “Oh no! So and so said something racist! Fire him!” Well, when calling someone a racist is used as a weapon by the internet outraged mob and what can be the trigger for someone to be called a racist is consistently expanding in scope I find the most useful counter tactic is to reject the premise outright.
I agree totally!!
And in regards to how the Nanny State “enters into all this.” Simple.
Tis da Nanny State that is the purveyor and the enforcer, and often the legislative body, of all things that demand political correctness. Tis the Nanny State that says, “Look, you’re stupid. You’re just a common citizen. You need us to tell you how to act and how to behave and how not to offend anybody. Even those, like the lazy and stupid and mean and selfish and greedy, that deserve insulting.”
Tis da Nanny State who is responsible for my Little Leaguer son, whose team went undefeated and won the entire league. getting the SAME exact trophy (“participant”) as the last place kids. Because, god forbid, the little darlings who finished last don’t want to be chastised and termed as being “less than” for not playing better and winning all the games.
Hey, it’s not their fault! Says the NS. Just like its not a person’s fault who sits at home and drinks and drugs and eats all day and won’t work. So we will give them a monthly check every month for the rest of their lives because we deem them disabled.
And, whines the NS…still…don’t call them disabled, either. Or handicapped. They’re special needs. As in everybody is special. And whoever dares say somebody is perhaps not as adept at something as somebody else, or that an illiterate, drug addicted, homeless guy with a criminal history doesn’t deserve from the NS exactly as much as does somebody who has worked hist entire life and raised a family and pays taxes…welll, that person is a bigot. A fascist, and is callous and unsympathetic and, gosh darn, it…we will not allow him to do that to our special consituents.
Puke.
That’s my take on it, as well.
Getty is a graphics licensing business, not a news service. They have tons of manipulated images.
They do, but they also handle and directly assign news editorial photos (I used to work in the business and have some of my photos on Getty’s website, and I know Getty shooters) and this does seem to be an editorial photo from everything I can tell. Being from 1994, this photo would not have originated with them (and it looks like it was acquired from Corbis’s archives, from what I can tell.)
I thought the “nanny state” was excessive government action. What does any of the stuff you describe have to do with excessive government action?
This all sounds about as hysterical to me as the insistence that these words used in any context are wrong. Labeling things racist and sexist may in fact sometimes be used to demonize and control, but most of us would just like people to stop being assholes to each other. I’m just as fed up with the internet outrage mob as you are, but words mean things, racism is still a thing, and we have a long way to go toward expressing empathy toward people who have been historically oppressed. That’s why I’d rather this conversation be less about a bunch of white people trying to decide what’s correct and more toward listening to what the people most likely to be affected by this actually have to say. Your insistence that a black person’s view about a word historically used to denigrate black people is not more important than yours is the reason the outrage mob exists. You have absolutely nothing to lose with your own assumptions, but they very well might. They are the stakeholders.
And your links to what rappers think about the word being used in the specific context of rap music are irrelevant. You keep saying words have context and meaning but you seem to refuse to accept the one meaning that is most hurtful.
Are you American? Have you lived in the US? I have found that people who don’t live in the US struggle to understand race relations here, as I’m sure I would for ethnic conflicts in their own respective countries. Some of the things you’ve said here just seem so disconnected from US experience, I’m curious – while also allowing that there is a world of experiences in the US that would seem foreign to me.
[QUOTE=octopus]
The idea of labeling something or someone racist or sexist or whatever is an obvious attempt to demonize and control. “Oh no! So and so said something racist! Fire him!” Well, when calling someone a racist is used as a weapon by the internet outraged mob and what can be the trigger for someone to be called a racist is consistently expanding in scope I find the most useful counter tactic is to reject the premise outright.
[/QUOTE]
Well let me ask you this, because this statement is getting under my skin:
Do you think I don’t actually care about racism? I’ve pretty clearly labeled some things racist in this thread. That would imply that my only intent is to demonize and control other people, not to actually make the situation better.
In graduate school, I studied the history of slavery in the US, our history of social policy and the disproportionate effect it had on people of color, I studied poverty and inequality, and I worked in one of the roughest areas of the country (Kensington, Philadelphia). I saw shit that pissed me off, that still makes me spitting mad. I learned that 40% of the people in that region have PTSD due to exposure to violence. The local elementary school has been shut down multiple times per year due to gun violence, and one of our ESL Teen Leaders was murdered a couple of years ago, her body found in a dumpster about a block away from where I worked. Then there was a shooting across the street while our students were on the playground. These kids are living a reality I cannot begin to fathom, and it’s evident based on the national dialog that nobody actually fucking cares about these kids. And when it comes down to it, though we might not use the n-word in polite society any longer, nobody fucking cares about them because they are poor and black. It’s easier to blame their parents and then turn our backs.
Eventually, I got the point of… holy fucking shit, enough is enough. How can we sleep at night, knowing this level of injustice exists and we did nothing to stop it?
One person’s ‘‘obvious attempt to demonize and control’’ is another person’s, ‘‘I can’t live on this planet and not speak out about this.’’ You may not see a relationship between language and violence in inner city neighborhoods, but I do. You may not see a relationship between language and sexual assault, but I do. I’ve studied social psychology enough to understand the power that language has to shape reality. Just by having an African-American kid write down his ethnicity at the beginning of an exam, you can lower his performance. As a writer, I love the nuance in language, but it’s a two-edged sword because it adds plausible deniability to any shitty thing a person feels like saying.
I don’t think Bill Maher should lose his job because of some careless thing he said. That seems counterproductive anyway, as it seems transforming culture vs. combating it is the best approach. I don’t think Bill Maher is a mustache-twirling racist. But you want to run to the opposite extreme. In your world, words mean nothing because they can mean anything. We have to find a way to have this conversation without demonizing individuals but it won’t work if nobody will meet us halfway.
I’ll be so thankful when society moves away from it’s pearl clutching obsession with this word.
Yes it’s racist. But there’s a big difference in spewing it at someone and using it in historical context.
Society is empowering this word beyond all reason. Giving it a venom today that it never had decades ago. Why provide the true racists and fascists with a word that wounds and provokes this deeply? Giving it this degree of shock value only encourages it’s use.
Bill made a joke in bad taste. He apologized. Let’s move on.
That’s all fine and dandy. But labeling things as “That’s Racist!!1!!” is no longer meaningful in my eyes because people have diluted the charge so much. Furthermore, I don’t mind if people say outrageous things. You don’t see me complaining about Kathy Griffin, now have you? As a matter of fact I thought the outrage directed her way was ridiculous.
And, no, since black folks are not a monolithic entity I give any particular black voice the same weight I do any particular white or green voice.
And finally, if people don’t want words to have different meanings they need to only use them precisely as they were meant when originally used. Since that will not and cannot happen then you and others need to accept that language evolves continuously.
But since you think a black person’s opinion matters more on this subject than I white person’s watch this. https://youtu.be/yyD3pomSxko
Just do a search on youtube. You’ll get a lot of actual black people talking for themselves instead of being white-knighted or whitesplained or whatever and these black people talk far more intelligently and nuanced about this subject. Here’s just one example out of many.
Now with regards to poverty and sexual assault and too much violence, those are all worthwhile topics to discuss in other threads. But when I’m playing basketball as a white guy in an urban Florida environment and a black guy says to me “nice rebound, nigga or nigger” depending on the accent, then in my eyes and in reality’s eyes the word has changed.
I’m sorry, Mr, Limbaugh, but the bar is closing and I’ll have to ask you to leave now.