Lib, at first I thought you were doing a clever bit of satire. Once again, you have saddened me.
Being a nice Southern boy myself, I sometimes say “Ma’am” out of old habit – even though, these days, it’s often to a woman younger than I am.
Not a great deal, no. As this appears to be part of your endlessly tiresome game of trying to paint people as hypocrites by conducting every part of the conversation in your head, the fact that you chose an example of innocent conversation between African Americans to do it merely makes the whole thing slightly funnier.
I see you’re even still trying to claim that you’ve demonstrated something here. What’s wrong with you? You’ve picked a stupid example that’s not comparable to the golfing incident (which I assume this is about). You’ve missed a major fact that, even were the comment not completely innocent to start with, renders the whole exercise futile. Then, you’ve assumed that everyone responding to you thinks the lynching comment was inexcusable, you’ve assumed they’re all leftists and you’ve assumed they’re all only excusing the “southern boy” comment because it’s CNN, none of which you’ve even remotely justified.
There can hardly be anything left up your ass to pull out save that stick, and yet you’re still acting as if you’ve struck some rhetorical blow for right-thinking. It’s utterly inexplicable, it really is.
The phrase “southern boy” isn’t a racial perjorative, any more than the phrase “good ol’ boy” is.
It wouldn’t have been even if Malveaux was white.
I really don’t get this at all.
I’m a liberal, and I think all that Golf Channel nonsense is egregiously stupid, so I don’t appreciate being lumped in with those folks.
Which Dopers would you have expected to express outrage? I admit to not participating in every thread, but I don’t recall their being a huge outcry about other news reporters and previous slips-of-tongues. I have noticed a lot of Dopers–including black ones–downplaying the “lynch Tiger Woods” remark. So I’m just curious which principles you’ve seen being displayed.
The Pit thread is dominated by the Anti-Offenderati League, who’s sole purpose is to slam Dopers down for inappropriate whining. If I had started a thread pitting CNN for this, do you honestly think there would be a huge chorus of Dopers who would be chiming in agreement?
Perhaps elucidator has better things to do than nailing you up on that giant cross you carry.
A simple “Never mind” would be all it takes, Liberal. Everyone makes mistakes, and this would be a small one. It’s actually kind of funny. This place has a pretty good record of self-correcting, and this thread is a perfect example.
Wow, this is twice in as many months that morons have come in here all up in arms because one African American called another African American “boy.”
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=9238107&postcount=302
Dumbassery appears to be sharply on the rise.
Lib, why is it that you always go ballistic when the Left doesn’t prove itself as dogmatic, literal-minded and context-free as you assign it to be in your head?
There is a qualitative difference between calling a black man “Boy” as a personal epithet and using a racially-universal phrase with the word “boy” in it to refer to a black man. If Malveaux had said, “Boy, you better stop calling me ma’am!” then it would have been a racial epithet. But she didn’t. She referred to him as “a nice southern boy”, in much the same way I refer to myself (ironically) as “a nice Catholic boy”…it’s a descriptor, not an epithet that reduces him to an innately inferior position vis a vis the speaker.
If I didn’t know that the utter lack of recognition of context was a situational condition for you, I’d wonder how you manage to navigate through human society each day without literally “taking a hike” or “going to fuck yourself” when people tell you to do so…
Yeah, I was just about to say that parody threads in the Pit should be indicated as such. But, incredibly, he seems to have been serious.
It would have been pretty hilarious if it had been intended as a parody.
This thread reminds me a bit of that one Daffy Duck cartoon, where he totally loses it and starts begging Elmer to shoot him. “I enjoy it! I love the smell of gunpowder and burnt feathers and cordite! I’m an elk! Shoot me, go on, it’s elk season!”
Which in turn reminded me of this modified clip– actually a swipe at the Governor of New Jersey, yet weirdly apropos here.
I think the context makes even your hypothetical not necessarily racist. An older African-American woman calling a younger African-American male “boy” (in the context of not wanting to be called ma’am) is altogether different than a White person doing the same. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
You mean there are losers who spend all day watching TV looking for stuff to complain about? Who’d be lame enough to do that?
I’ve always felt that the whole “African-Americans can call African-Americans anything they like” trope was iffy, thought. Although I obviously can’t dictate what is acceptable in that context, it still feels uncomfortable to me as an observer. Not to the degree that a white person using the “n” epithet does, but the word itself is kind of squicky to me, no matter the context. “Boy” is definitely more neutral, especially in the generalized context of a phrase like “nice southern boy”.
Incidentally, my objections to the above extend to my own “tribe’s” use of words like faggot and cocksucker as “jovial insults”. I kind of hate that, too…
I hear Suzanne Malveaux really digs Andrew Jackson, too.
No, but you’d get a lot less grief. Why? Aside from Liberal"s pit posting history, you’re black and a lot of us whites have been conditioned to believe we are not qualified to judge the feelings of blacks, not having experienced your specific perspective in American culture.
There’ve been threads about this. How high up will the arms be raised over the fact that Africa Americans routinely call one another “niggah” ? This has been done to death and yet it appears to be fresh fodder for some every time an incident ( or supposed incident ) arises.
I had the hip hop star Ja Rule walk up to me a long time ago, and because he recognized me from previous projects, threw an arm up over my shoulder ( I’ve got at least 6 inches on him ) and yelled out, " Hey Niggah, how you been? " I cracked up, he cracked up. His bodyguards? A bit wary but amused. I’m as whitey white as they come. Yet like most adults in this country, I was able to process context and INTENT and laughed.
Why is it a problem when someone uses language that THEY are comfortable with and it’s clearly NOT demeaning.
If Ms. Malveaux wished to commit career suicide, I think we can rest assured she would have done so in a blatant manner.
ETA:JayJay and I clearly disagree on this in-culture name-calling. However, you don’t see me calling JayJay names. 
Cartooniverse
Lib being true to his word about no longer posting in the pit? Not a chance. He’s too bent.
BTW, Lib, now that you have dragged the CNN reporter through the mud, will you do the honourable thing and send her a written apology, or will you just weasel about a little while longer and sweep your turd under the rug?
Okay then, nevermind.
But you have to say it in an Emily Litella voice.
It’s not like you showed any deferrence in this. If you’ve been conditioned, you certainly don’t post like it.
Anyway, being black does not mean being an alien from a different planet who operates on a different emotional wavelength than the rest of the universe. Only a lunatic would get offended by what Malveaux said. If I posted a “I HATE MALVEAUX AND CNN!!” thread, there would be no one coming to my defense. But many people would surely be citing that thread as evidence of “hypersensitivity” among blacks.
Liberal obviously hates it when people don’t behave in a formulaic, non-nuanced, predictable fashion. But instead of blaming his erroneous thinking for his disappointments, he places the blame on others. What kind of intelligent person does this?
- Calling someone a “southern boy” is on par with someone saying someone is a “good ol’ boy” or “country boy.” Hardly offensive and a term of endearment…
- Suzanne Malveaux - I’m checking Wikipedia as I write this - is from the South, or for certain has Southern lineage. (I suspect Louisiana.) Yep, she was born in Michigan but her family is from New Orleans.
- A Southerner, or someone with strong Southern roots can make that statement with impunity. A non-Southerner could say it as well, and it might be viewed as overly familiar, but hardly offensive.
- Suzanne Malveaux is one fine woman, who happens to be African-American. Like Julianne Malveaux (commentator, economist, and her cousin). Folks from the South are familiar with light-skinned Black folk like Malveaux - I expect she has Creole heritage.
Given the fact that even if a White Northerner reporter made the comment it would be less than spectacular, the fact she shares a regional and racial heritage with the “Southern boy,” I think this is simply a case of a reporter being jocular and friendly with an interviewee.