I reported this post a few days ago:
https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=22350930&postcount=23
wherein Mallard calls Clarence Thomas an “oreo”, ie. a black person who’s white on the inside. Before I reported, I did a little googling to see if his name was actually used in that sense but all I came up with was referring to his sexual harassment allegations. Even if it was though, you’re still call him an “oreo”. Why does this get a pass?
It totally should be modded, IMO, but there are like one and a half moderators active at any given time, it seems. A lot of stuff is going unmodded that seems obviously not great.
Well, following that thought I guess not too many people reported the post.
Oreo seems rather benign as racial barbs go because it seems more based on behavior, it doesn’t seem as offensive to me as say George Jefferson calling mixed people zebras, I took it as the poster giving an example of a person to whom the term Oreo could be applied, in a discussion about such terms.
Not my forum, but I don’t see Mallard calling Clarence Thomas an oreo, there. I see him saying that Clarence Thomas is a black person who acts white, and suggesting that his name, rather than “oreo”, be used as the general term for such a person.
Is that offensive? Probably. Is it hate speech? Probably not.
Uh, yeah. That is calling him an oreo.
If it’s offensive, it’s offensive because of its racist implications. The board doesn’t have to tolerate offensively racist posts, even if they don’t rise to the level of hate speech.
I wonder if things would be different if a description was substituted for an insulting term?
Imsult: “Senator John Doe may look like a Black American, but he’s a two-faced “oreo” through and through.”
Description: “Over time through his political rhetoric and actions, Senator John Doe has shown that, though he may have been born an African-American, his words and actions show that he supports the white power structure that runs this country.”
Though the former could and should be modded as an insult/slur, would the latter? Rather than being a personal insult, it is an analytical statement on what kind of politician he is. Opinions?
Read the thread. Many people have spelled out the racism in the term. It just occurred to me that it is quite similar to Biden recently having to recant on the you “ain’t black” if you support Trump.
My opinion is that discussing that is better left to another thread, as it allows a distraction from the main topic. Those types of distractions often result in a thread being closed without action by the mods because the thread has gone offtopic.
There’s no distinction there. If I say you can use one word to replace another, then I am saying those two words are the same. Thus saying that you can use “Clarence Thomas” instead of “oreo” only makes sense if one is calling Thomas an oreo.
Replace it with the n-word if you want. If someone said that Clarence Thomas was a black degenerate and you should use his name instead of [n-word], would it not be obvious they were calling him [n-word]?
Furthermore, looking at the full context, I do not agree with your analysis. The definition was specifically offered for the word “oreo,” so saying Thomas fits the definition given is also saying he is an “oreo.”
I also note that, beyond being racist as fuck, it’s also a political potshot in a thread that is not about politics. Those are usually against the rules in IMHO.
To be honest, this one just got lost in the shuffle. I am currently the only mod in IMHO. If the board was working properly it wouldn’t be much of an issue, but with all of the timeouts and such I’m having a lot of trouble keeping up with all of the post reports.
I can’t imagine why the latter would be modded. But IANAM and YMMV.