This is exactly what I was going to say. I’m 100% certain that if a German were to swim across the Rio Grande, not a single person would call them a wetback.
And, anecdotally, all of the racist from my home town refer to all Mexicans as wetbacks.
I’m seeing nothing whatthefuck about it. What’s surprising: that he’s an asshole, that he’s a bigot, that he’s trolling, or that he’s not clever enough to hide any of that?
So you wrote what some artist sang in a song that - well - what you said? You did that knowing it would mislead and provoke the members here? Then you cryptically try to cover your ass by going to listen to a song?
I am listening, well was listening, to the song. Stupid. And it was a good use. You can YouTube it. It’s a fine social commentary. Prepare to be offended, precious.
Sounds like you’re actually disagreeing with him, and/or didn’t understand him.
He is not at this point differentiating between Mexicans and Germans. He’s differentiating between brown-skinned Mexicans and black-skinned or white-skinned ones.
Do you mean “good” as in “this is the right and proper time to use these words, and it’s wrong to not use them in this occasion” or “I hear this all the time on the court and no one is offended”? Did you personally use racial slurs against black people in this (apparently jocular) manner?
I’ve heard a lot of racial slurs in my life (I grew up in Louisiana and Arkansas), some which was associated with sports. But the vast majority of the racial slurs I’ve heard were said by white people, to other white people, describing some third group. Most of the people I knew growing up were white, though, which undoubtedly affects my answer. But most of what I heard was real hatred, contempt, and dehumanization, very similar to Clothahump’s “Texas is being overrun by wetbacks” – equating people with pests, parasites, animals, vermin, etc.
Perhaps it’s reasonable to consider a discussion about the jocular use of racial and ethnic slurs among young men, but that doesn’t seem particularly relevant to this discussion, which started from Clothahump’s decidedly non-jocular usage and defense of his usage of the slur.
Since we’re on the topic of displaying stupidity, the word is “then.”
Yes, this is what I meant, and why I consider this so obviously an ethnic (and maybe racial) slur.
You want me to watch a YouTube video so I can “rise” to your level? I’m walking on the top of your level now, on my way to the porcelain defacatorium, to send you a BM, I mean PM.
I’m still baffled as to why a longtime member of this board, who has also been pretty open about his identity and business, would use racial slurs in such a way, even if it was simply trolling.
Do people seriously think of the Internet as some alternative universe where nothing they say can possible come back to bite them in the ass? The pure offensiveness of his comments, and the total lack of thought for the possibility that he may become publicly associated with those comments, with or without context, has my head spinning.
Seriously, are people that fucking stupid about Internet usage? Still??
Actually, even for Clothahump, this is entering new ground. This is like being accused of speeding and telling the cop it was because you were snorting cocaine.
Apparently jocular? I’d say in some cases it’s almost a filler word as opposed to having any real meaning. Did I ever use such words. Of course. But rarely and honestly even if it were pervasive in the environment I wasn’t comfortable with me saying it because of how I was raised.
Back to is it good or bad? It just is. It isn’t bad. Sometimes it’s good. Language is complex and full of nuance. That’s why I’ve never and will never agree that language or symbols mean only what some random offended person claims they mean. That’s too arrogant of a point of view. Other people’s opinions and perceptions matter as well. And you aren’t a mind reader. Nor is anyone else.
Dehumanizing people, even liberals, isn’t right. In the worst cases it leads to genocide.
I do need an editor.
Because he’s very stupid.
Yeah.
Yup.
But what does any of this have to do with Clothahump’s usage (IIRC, “Texas is being overrun by wetbacks”)? Wasn’t that, very clearly and obviously, dehumanizing, bigoted, and well worth harshly criticizing? Wasn’t his justification (which he now says was trolling) extremely weak?
I agree about the nuance. I make an effort in that, but I think this is a pretty clear example in which such nuance does not apply.
Put down the thesaurus before you sprain a muscle my simple coposter. And yes, you should watch some culturally relevant material. It’d do your simple ass good.
I said it was apparently a bad one. In the post that you quoted. Then you, according to yourself, derailed this lovely pit thread by asking what is the good as if it’s some profound “gotcha!”
Now, as promised, I want my liberal points.
Probably? Never thought I’d call an octopus a weasel.
Just drilling down – you didn’t derail it, and I didn’t either, but I don’t think there should have been any doubt as to where this example lay.
Perhaps the examples of athletes using ethnic slurs in a jocular manner are non-bad common uses of such slurs. But if so, they’re almost the only ones (unless you have many others up your sleeve), and unrelated to the vast majority of criticism of racial/ethnic/religious slurs, which mostly (by my judgment) are, in fact, related to hatred, contempt, dehumanization, and the like. And thus I think your criticism, which seems to be (somewhat broadly, if I understand it correctly) “ethnic slurs aren’t as big a deal as you’re making it” is thus incorrect – my criticism is about the hateful uses, and I think that’s most of them. Bringing in very occasional possibly non-hateful uses, to me, only seems to give cover to people who really want to use ethnic slurs for hateful reasons, while disguising their motives.
Sure, the usage of racial slurs isn’t genocide, and is rightfully protected by the first amendment, but IMO it’s a necessary part of the build up to atrocities, as well as being totally unnecessary for anything good (or for mundane neighborly communications).
It is weaselly, to a degree. But I am pretty reluctant to definitively declare what someone is thinking based on a word used. I have my suspicions but I don’t know.
Using it to troll? Is that bad? I know it’s against the rules. But it is the pit and pissing people off is a feature not a bug. Seems like one additional tool to use to piss people off.
For some reason it’s hard for me to get outraged in a forum where it’s ok to tell another poster that they enjoy relations, in the biblical sense, with petting zoo beasts.
As for points, octopus, you get a few, but then one or two deducted since you unnecessarily added a mention of supposed “good” uses of such slurs when you could have criticized it with no reservations or addenda.