No, I’m not giving it power, I am recognizing that nigger is a hateful word. You don’t see Asians running around calling each other Chink as a term of endearment or Puerto Ricans calling each other Spics. Its about as useful as referring to black women as bitches and hos. There was a time when I was young when black men and women were brothers and sisters now they’re niggers and bitches and hos. You think the difference in terminology makes no difference?
How old are you? Because when I was young (I am now forty), we used the word nigger amongst ourselves. And as I’ve mentioned before, I know two women who use the word bitch as a term of endearment among themselves. Quoting a book I am too lazy to find the author of, they say it’s an acronym for Being In Total Command of Herself.
Anyway, my position is not that I should call the barista at Starbucks nigger for putting whipped cream on my hot chocolate despite my clear instructions not to. It’s that, if someone else did so and I were relating the story, it would be stupid to say n-word instead. This isn’t Narnia. Words are not magic.
The preferred term is Equine-Motivational-Percussion.
Context is everything and theres a reason hearsay isn’t allowed in court. Partial understanding can turn a Chris Rock schtick into a KKK speech.
Chalk me down as one who believes PR has gone too far, but we’ve come a long way in less than a generation and it wouldn’t have been possible if ‘nigger’ was culturally allowed in polite company.
Wow. I was actually offended by this. Briefly.
I am not upset now, but I had an internal knee-jerk reaction to this. It wasn’t honky, per se, it was being included in the group of (presumably) white people in this response. Odd, as I historically have not been bothered by other people lumping me in with other white people, even if I disagree entirely. I also think all of the supposedly offensive white-people slurs are pretty laughable, ‘honky’ among them.
36yo white male.
I don’t want to be placed in a social group arbitrarily.
I am rather odd, I think, and would be best classed with the misanthropes, even though I am extremely social. I just don’t ‘fit’ into any standard definition of anything.
I used to work hard at not fitting in, and now that has evolved into me fitting into so many social context groups that I am sort of ‘pushed-out’ of most, as being included in some automatically seems to discredit one…
ETA - Sitnam, I hadn’t thought about it that way, but you are right. We have come far, and that is a part of it.
What do you call the local sheriff’s department after a budget shortfall?
Niggardly police.