To be clear, I was reacting to Bricker comparing the exchange to being called a “house n-word,” by which I assumed he meant THE n-word, not “negro.” That what I was referring to when I said the comparison didn’t work. There’s almost no circumstance where one poster refers to another poster as an n-word that wouldn’t immediately draw a warning at the bare minimum, and more likely an insta-ban.
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Also, the topic of whether or not Bricker has a top secret plan to fight hate speech on the SDMB is not germane to the topic. Let’s drop that - he raised a valid question about the application of board rules, and is not required to further justify himself for asking the question in this thread.
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I also reported Huey’s post.
Miller has explained why he thinks Pocho is not hate speech. I found his later elaboration helpful, although I still don’t agree.
As readers of the posts in question, many of us (most of us?) feel that Huey intended a racial slur AKA hate speech.
On re-reading the posts in question, what drove it home was the context of the long Malcolm X quote. It was clear that the point that Bricker was a traitor to people of color, specifically Mexican people of color. The commentary was also sprinkled with phrases about lying down at the altar of whiteness. It was very evident that Huey was using “pocho” a racial slur. He was not describing someone who merely assimilated. He was describing Bricker in the vilest terms that Huey could imagine.
Further, it’s clear from the mere existence of this thread that Bricker considers the slur to be hate speech. I consider his opinion important.
I think there is a difference between allowing debate of something, and using derogatory, racist names against a poster. In this instance, the debate here would be what, exactly: whether some minorities are more integrated in mainstream culture? What is mainstream culture? Do you betray your “race” when you relate to more than one culture? None of those topics in any way translate to calling Bricker the names he was called in that post.
One standard would be nice. Maybe it needs to be that no racial terms are allowed at all if we can’t handle soft lines.
But it does work. The n-word is a slur on its own, same as “poncho” when referring to a person. It is not like the term “Uncle Tom” where the word Tom is not a a slur. It is not, as you have presented, merely stating a racist belief. It is a slur used against a person. The adjective is just that–an adjective modifying the slur, like saying “stupid [n-word].”
Multiple posters all agreed that it was hate speech, and you admit you aren’t familiar with the term. I think it makes more sense for you to go with what they say rather than your own opinion in that case.
It is a racist slur used against a poster. It is not merely a term for a racist concept, like “Uncle Tom.” If not all racist slurs are hate speech, then what does count as hate speech?
It makes it seem arbitrary.
OK, that makes sense. I still think it’s a slur, irrespective of the severity of the slur.
And again, as pointed out, Bricker’s not even Mexican, so it’s like, “Oh, who cares, aren’t all Latinos the same?”
But hey, whatever.
It’s definitely a slur - a reduntant slur, I think the “house” sense of “house-nigger” is already there in the derogatory usage of “pocho” - but a slur nonetheless, and should be modded as such. It would certainly meet the standard to get prosecuted as such in my country.
TIL some new hate speech. 
No, pocho seems more like calling a black person an oreo or an asian person a banana.
Oreo (or coconut, the local equivalent) and house-nigger are close enough in sense to me.
I mean, I appreciate that there is a difference, but not a difference that matters to the fact that “House pocho” is redundant - all pochos would be house-<Mexican insult> when used in that particular pejorative sense, I think (I’m given to understand there’s also a non-pejorative usage).
All oreos are house-niggers or Uncle Toms, might be be the Black equivalent. But not all Toms would be oreos.
I don’t think so. An oreo is a black person who acts white. An Uncle Tom or House Negro is a black person who is on Team White. Just because a black person likes Dungeons & Dragons and can’t dance doesn’t mean he agrees with stop and frisk.
That’s a nice distinction, like I said I’m aware of the difference, but the kind of Black person who thinks that a fellow Black person playing D’nD is “acting white” is also the kind of Black person who doesn’t recognise such finer distinctions. “Acting White” is “Being on Team White” to them - I’ve been called coconut often enough to know - for liking the music I like, speaking like I speak, marrying who I married and, yes, for playing D’nD.
I dance like the Devil, though…
Part of the “Houser” sense is there, but not all of it. Calling someone a “Pocho” is or can be simply a cultural statement. That is, you may be Mexican by heritage, but your Spanish sucks (for example). Calling someone a “House-Pocho” adds a political dimension to it. That is, you’re taking political stances contrary to the alleged interests of your fellow Mexican-Americans. And you don’t need to be a “Pocho” (culturally) to be a “House-Pocho”. You might speak perfect Spanish, eat tortillas with every meal, revere La Virgin de Guadalupe, visit abuelita every weekend, but wear a MAGA hat, too.
I’ve never been comfortable with the entire concept of raza and such. Growing up in LA - I’m not latino - I’d here on a regular basis latino kids being questions on being raza. I’d guess that’s morphed into pocho now?
Anyway, those who use it presume that there’s one way to be something and it’s impossible for someone to be other. Or that somehow someone pursuing interests outside of that are somehow betraying everyone else with whom they share a genetic or cultural or linguistic background.
Which is, of course, bullshit. A person is entitled to pursue whatever interests and plans they want. If a person from Argentina wishes to get involved with Buffy and Skippy at the Regatta in the Hamptons than screw someone who wants to criticize them for it. Doing so it deeply focused on race instead of the individual. I tend to see it in people who are so ingrained in their points-of-view that they view everything through such instead of seeing the person in from of them. It’s hurtful to discussion and growth.
I am a free speech absolutist (that’s probably overstating it a little, but I’m pretty close to that camp). But my views on that have everything to do with giving governments the power to censor, and much less to do with views about the impacts and solutions to bad speech.
If you strip out the questions about government power, then I think decisions about speech restrictions get a lot harder to make. You still want private actors to facilitate free discourse, but there is also less downside to them trying, necessarily imperfectly, to restrict harmful speech.
If I were defining a hate speech prohibition for a private message board–especially for one forum of that message board when the rest of the forums are subject to a “don’t be a jerk” rule, making a hate speech prohibition utterly redundant outside that forum–it would be a very narrow restriction. I’d be looking to eliminate speech that facilitates or encourages hateful actions (stuff like glorifying KKK violence or the kind of thing they did on the radio in Rwanda) or speech that is so vile and such a transgression of community standards that allowing such speech even limited to a sub-forum has the effect of pushing away from the board certain groups of people based on their immutable characteristics. That’s a pretty tough test to meet, I think. I’m pretty sure the example in the OP wouldn’t meet it. But, for that matter, neither would a lot of the other examples offered in this thread of unambiguous hate speech.
I think it is deeply racist to say that someone has ideological or political obligations as a result of their race or ethnic background. It is not racist at all to say that it is bad for people of color to use their racial identity to further (or obfuscate or benefit from) white supremacy. (And I am not at all agreeing that **Bricker **does this.) Those two separate ideas are quite easily conflated, and conversation on this subject is not at all helped by terminology that combines both ideas, which is essentially what phrases like “Uncle Tom” do. If what someone means is the latter, they should just say the latter.
All of that is quite separate from whether it would be consistent to mod this particular example. I’m sure it would be. But I gather that is not the entirety of what you wanted to discuss in this thread.
What a Ruckus! Splunge!
Emphasis added. It appears that some ethnic slurs are bad enough to be hate speech, even if they are qualified so as to point to a specific subset of the group being slurred (house ngger doesn’t refer to all black people but only a subset). Correct me if I am wrong on this. And "pcho" doesn’t sink to that level. Thus “house pcho" is not as bad as "house ngger”.
That having been said, what about the “coonery” remark? Is “cn" bad enough on its own so that even specifying that Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell are engaging in "cnery” rather than all black people is actionable? Does it matter that neither Rice nor Powell are Dopers?
I know the reluctance to give a list of which ethnically based insults are beyond the fringe and which are deprecated but not outlawed, but if we can’t derive what the rule against hate speech means from first principles, I don’t see any other way to understand it except inductively.
Regards,
Shodan
I see that Miller has responded in the Pit thread. Not that it matters, but I agree.
Thanks for your response.
Regards,
Shodan