I’ll note again that it was Clothy’s justification of using an ethnic slur that was trolling – his original usage of the ethnic slur, which I think was years ago, was (I assume) his genuine sentiment.
Generally how do I post in the pit? Do I string together sentences full of vulgarities and profanities on a regular basis? No. Sometimes I do, but it’s not common. So I am cognizant of the impact words and tone have. Slurs are a subset of hateful speech. I’m not really a fan of restrictions on speech hateful or not. Why? Because I believe that that is too much power to delegate. I’d rather hear hateful speech than have powerful entities control speech.
It’s funny how the real liberal position is attacked by so-called modern liberals as bigoted and racist. Orwellian.
I could have posted without the addenda. Sure. But that would have been a simple “me too” or “+1” type post. Clothahump got warned, properly, and why post merely to pile on?
If you took my post as an endorsement of censorship, it’s absolutely not – I would strongly reject any attempt to outlaw hate speech of any kind. I do, however, believe that individuals in society should harshly criticize hateful language, up to publicly criticizing or organizing boycotts, and the like, for public figures who engage in such hateful language.
It seems pretty clear that for a long time Clothy takes much of the political content of this board as a personal affront, and his inability to anything significant about it must be very wearing. In the end, however, I’m thinking the end game is Suicide by Mod. Like Mr. Trump and his Twitter account, Clothy simply can’t restrain himself from counterproductive posting and probably realizes the only way he can stop is to get himself kicked off the board.
If so, good riddance. Easily in the top three most useless posters in the history of this board, frankly.
The strangest thing about Clothy’s supposed plan is that it says nothing about his initial (and hateful) usage of the ethnic slur – it was all about his attempted justification. Is not justifying or explaining one’s usage of racial/ethnic slurs somehow superior to explaining it?
The funny thing was, was up until this post, you actually had some of your ideological allies defending you.
Now that you have admitted that you were trolling even them, I doubt they will have your back in the future.
When members of a group who may be referred to by an ethnic slur use that term among themselves, it has a completely different meaning.
A large part of the reason to use it in that context, is when someone does use it do denigrate you, it doesn’t have as much sting. If the only time you are called a nigger is when a white guy is screaming at you, it can be intimidating.
If you use the word, and you and your friends call each other such slurs all the time, then when a white guy tries to intimidate you with his slurs, it loses the effect.
Do you see the difference in usage? One is an attempt to hurt other people, and one is defend oneself against said attempt at harm.
Nowadays, I doubt that much analysis is put into it. I’ve lived in predominantly black areas and little kids saying racial slurs as commonly as the stereotypical frat guy saying “dude” or “bro” is not some linguistic vaccination.
I grew up in Texas, where there are legal and illegal Mexican immigrants. “Wetback” has always been a racial slur, used even when the immigration status of a Mexican is unknown. I’ve never heard it applied to any nationality other than Mexican.
(Bolding mine). It all comes down to what you mean by this word “applies.” As in, about 95% of those who hear it will assume it was meant in a derogatory fashion toward a large group of people (certainly including all undocumented Mexican immigrants, and quite possibly sometimes including other groups, such as legal American residents of recent Mexican origin, or undocumented immigrants from other Spanish-speaking countries) with no actual dorsal moistness implied? That’s what “applies.” The OP is right on about this.
People often do not put much analysis into the way they act and live.
They still act and live in ways that are rational, they still have motivations that can be analyzed.
It is not a word that they would have not been able to avoid. It is quite likely that they have heard it used denigrating towards them from a very young age. I have personally witnessed grown white adults screaming at black kids on the playground that they were a bunch of worthless niggers. As I live in a fairly decent suburban area, I assume that this occurs in other places as well, with more or less varying frequency.
It does not require rigid social analysis in order to come to the conclusion that if you take the words, then you take their power. That’s really almost instinctual.
I happen to agree with you that the knee-jerk response to any “slur” is ridiculous, ostentatious and, in my opinion, counter-productive. I am also a “liberal.” In fact I’m pretty left-wing by Canadian standards so I’m likely off-the-charts liberal by your standards.
All I’m saying is that just because one is liberal does not mean that they share the antiquated and distracting fear of words that you are suggesting all liberals do.
You seem to have not noticed that this is literally all Clothahump does. It’s his entire MO. Post incredibly stupid bullshit, then complain when people call him a troll (which they do because his posts are fundamentally indistinguishable from someone who is trolling). If I wasn’t convinced he was a troll who has basically gained seniority status, I’d say he makes your side look bad.
