Y’all are young and strong. I often sit next to the big black guy, or the really fat person, because those seats are available. (Okay, i perch on the seat next to the really fat person. It’s open because there isn’t really room to sit in it.)
(As an old lady, i doubt anyone finds me terribly threatening. At least, not sitting on a subway.)
Here’s another example of a microaggression I’ve caught myself before committing more than once (and probably missed other times): Shopping in a mostly white neighborhood, i see the black guy in a polo shirt and assume he’s an employee, not a customer. I try to check the logo on his shirt before asking him where the widgets are. But my implicit bias is that he’s out-of-place as a customer.
Yes. Probably another thread, but this kind of joking, even in a ‘good natured’ way, is inherently an exercise of power/dominance. The idea that ‘ball busting’ is inherently benign is… incomplete.
And more than a few of us must have cringe-inducing memories of trying to join in on the fun and inadvertently crossing the line into “dude, not funny!” territory.
Really? That’s very strange. My experience is the complete opposite: I don’t think I’ve ever heard it to describe physical violence. It’s 100% used as a euphemism for “giving someone a hard time,” as far as I’m aware.
Googling, the top results are for pornography (“cock and balls torture” is another term for it in a sexual context) and genital piercings. I’ve also seen it used to refer to a castration fetish.
The slang term for teasing is very US northeast centric. If you’re not from there & don’t deal with people or online sources from there you’ll literally, not figuratively, never hear it.
But it’s universally known where it’s commonplace.
IDK about that, I’ve heard it in California, and only ever in the figurative sense. (Well, I read about the pornographic meaning on Urban Dictionary or the like at some point, but I’ve never encountered that meaning “in the wild”).
For the record, it has nothing to do with being a balabusta.
…though…
Due in part to the coincidental similarity of the word to the English colloquialism “ballbuster”, defined as “a person who is relentlessly aggressive, intimidating, or domineering”,[2]baleboste as used by English-speakers has taken on the connotation of assertiveness or bossiness.[3]
It’s play. Yeah when I’d play fight with my big brother as kids sometimes one of us got hurt, but it wasn’t the intent, and it wasn’t reason to not do it. Usually he was the one who got hurt trying hard to make sure I didn’t, FWIW.
Is it a form of aggression? Sure. But ritualized with rules to reduce risk of harm. Less aggressive than trash talking even. Given immature male posturing behaviors in young men better verbal sparring with attempts at humor than many other options?
The country has enough East Coast bias that most will have probably heard the term. But I also agree that giving your buddies shit can be bonding and sometimes a gentler way of trying to criticize someone’s behavior or words. Sometimes it’s even a way of trying to help a guy out where direct comments (say about a bad girlfriend) may not work and get a defensive response.
I suppose my question is as self-described “bottoms of the social totem pole”, how would you advise people (race-based or not) to climb the totem pole?
A big factor of racism or any social hierarchy for that matter is excluding people from climbing the social ladder. Or providing them limited ladders for climbing the social ladder, which then become associated with those groups. For example the “black athlete” or “Asian math wiz”.
In terms of power/dominance, there’s a piece of it that is true, but it’s more about belonging. It’s about maintaining your own status in the group. Good natured ribbing is how some groups of immature males bond.
It isn’t about establishing dominance over others, it’s about elevating your status so that you’re not excluded as unworthy. If you want to be in the group, you need to be cool, and tough, and funny, you play rough and tumble games, make fun of each other, and as long as you’re all good in the end, you’re worthy.
While i think ball busting is a form of … Let’s call it status-seeking-behavior, i think that jostling for status is a normal part of the behavior of all herd animals. And humans are herd animals. Are there downsides? Sure. But it’s not evil, it’s just something humans do.
And (here I’m speculating) because we evolved in small groups where most “social mobility” happened between childhood and adulthood, we are programmed to do a lot of it in our teens. That’s why teenage girls are horrible to each other. That’s why teenage boys wrestle and insult each other, too.
(Oh, add me to the list who has never heard the phrase “ball busting” in the wild used for anything other verbal teasing. I may have read about a more literal meaning in a Dan Savage column or something, i wouldn’t swear to it either way. I don’t think I’ve ever heard it used to describe nonconsensual violence.)
Brought this to the Male Inequality thread. Other than if we respond to these behaviors differently if they are Black kids doing the Dozens or white kids busting each other’s balls …
And not sure about that since neither bother me at all.
I’ve known a few people who were Racists with a capital R.
My ex-BIL was smart enough to not actually say he despised blacks and other minorities but it was obvious.
I’m aware of subconscious bias I have concerning race and try to challenge these thoughts, but I see a fundamental difference between Racists and people like me.