I think Simplicio is right
Yes, and his original username was Curtis LeMay.
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I guessed Chinese because he calls himself 秦始皇帝, First Emperor Qin.
I think Simplicio is right
Yes, and his original username was Curtis LeMay.
[/QUOTE]
I guessed Chinese because he calls himself 秦始皇帝, First Emperor Qin.
I’d give a Holocaust survivor a lot of slack; their great-grandson gets a lot less.
Using a quote by someone named Red Cloud about land and the Great Spirit could be interpreted that you think of Indians as people who still live in teepees and greet each other with “How” Someone could object to the use of outdated stereotypes about Indians instead of focusing on Indian culture today. Your professor was probably just making a point that there could be a judge who enjoys taking offense at harmless statements like your classmate does. It is sad that people like that get to define standards for the sane.
Also remember this is federal appellate practice not trial ad. You don’t have time for cute rhetorical flourishes and introductions that have no relevance to the law at hand. There’s no jury to impress. I’d have cut across you and asked straight off what the relevance was to the question at issue. And by then you’d have blown about a third of your time.
I don’t think it’s insulting, but it sounds a little tone deaf.
Similarly, if I were a white lawyer representing a consortium of black businessmen, I probably wouldn’t open with “Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”
I think a lawyer quoting the Bible to convince a court to allow a casino to be built might want to tread carefully.
A lot of good advice here. Thanks. I guess from now on when I decide to use a quote from a member of a minority group, I’ll run it past the chick who was offended. And I’ll try not to call her a chick. 
It’s possible you misunderstood the quote, misused it, trivialized it, or that its use was manipulative or irrelevant to your argument. Any of those are grounds for criticism, although I can’t see how any of them would apply in this case. “You don’t have the right to quote someone from that race or ethnic group” is not a legitimate criticism" - it’s pure bullshit and I find it offensive. The whole point of wisdom is that it’s available to everyone and that anyone can learn from a wise person. I would ask your professor what he meant because he might have seen things like this get misconstrued. Your classmate appears to be a complete idiot.
I judge this well put.
“Your Honors, my client’s intellectual property clearly has been infringed upon, and on my client’s behalf let me now assert that the Recording Industry Association of America will defend its rights – in the immortal words of Malcolm X – ‘by any means necessary.’”
Comments like this don’t belong in Great Debates (and I apologize to the OP for overlooking this the first time I read the thread). You should know better than this, Damuri Ajashi - you have been warned about it repeatedly. Don’t do it again.
The OP was opening his argument by contending “God is on our side.” That kind of sentiment belongs on the football field, not the courtroom.
On review, agreed. Using the quote isn’t offensive, but starting with it is probably a little thoughtless. I mentioned that one possibility is that you could be trivializing the quote, and looked at from this point of view, I could see how a judge might feel you’re doing that and where that would hurt you.
Next time open with a smallpox joke.
A man meets a woman at a bar and they go to her place.
They’re undressing and he drops his trousers. She points to his messed up knees and asks what happened. He says ‘when I was young I contracted kneesles’. She says ‘you mean measles’. He says ‘no, I actually got kneesles’.
She shrugs and continues undressing. When he removes his socks she looks at his sorry toes and asks about them. He says ‘shortly after the kneesles, I contracted toelio’. She says ‘you mean polio?’. He says ‘no, I got toelio’.
She shrugs it off, until he drops his shorts. She looks again and says ‘don’t tell me - smallcox’.
{not mine - from the internet}
Yes, I think in a broad sense you did. I live 18 miles from the Lakota Sioux Native American Reservation. Red Cloud (the area) is just north of here. From 25 years of retail experience in this area a Native American “quote” of any kind (unless you are also Native American) would be in poor taste, even if you are “representing” them in a mock trial. ( Much the same as telling an questionable joke about any ethnicity, to someone of that ethnicity. )
That being said (in my experience only) most people just want to be treated or talked to “normally”, “like anyone else”. (IE: as in not treated “differently”, good, bad, or otherwise).
But like every culture on earth, there are a few individuals who wish to be treated, expect to be treated “better” than everyone else because they ARE a specific ethnicity. Individuals who are overly-sensitive because of all the drama attached to the issue and they want “special attention in some way”. Isn’t that “reverse racism”? Didn’t we fight a war over racism? Thank goodness those “individuals” are few and far between. The majority of the time when I had a difficult Native American customer, two or three customers back in the line was another Native American customer who told me “don’t mind her, she’s always like that”. I need to clarify finally, that 80% of my customers were Native American. Through the years I’ve gotten to know many of them well, watched their children grow up, etc.