I never said you did
You’ve repeated that point several times. You haven’t explained why you feel that way.
Like I said, not taking the bait, nor do i plan to have a prolonged argument about this. I already answered your question. You seem to either not get it, or to not agree. Either way, I am not particularly interesting in working through this with you.
Tranny is not the same as kike, spic, or nigger for many of the same reasons why Hussein is not the same as Mussolini, Hitler, or Stalin. Equating the two is a false analogy used to appeal to emotion rather than making a valid, coherent logical argument as to why it’s bad in a of itself (of which there are many). If you do not get this, I doubt any explanation from me will make this clearer for you. Regardless, making this argument in essence, debase both currencies because they fundamentally misunderstand the people they are speaking to, and the baggage each word brings to the table.
I object to your use of the word bait. That makes it sound as if I’m trying to set you up for some trap.
Honestly to me nigger, kike, spic, and tranny are equally offensive. I can’t understand why you disagree.
.
This is the second time you’ve used this analogy. It wasn’t true the first time either.
I’m ashamed to say that I recently used the word tranny, not knowing it was offensive. I was corrected, and I don’t plan on doing so again.
As far as I know, the only proper use would be in relation to transmissions.
It is a trap. Specifically because it’s a bold faced appeal to emotion in which questioning the underlying logic makes you seem like a jerk. Not necessarily saying you are doing that, but this is not my first rodeo. Somehow the appropriateness of using the word tranny somehow gets rearranged as either being pro or anti nigger usage. Again, there are perfectly valid reasons not to call someone a tranny without having to re-frame the debate in a specious manner.
What about retard, jerk, or cunt? What about whitey, beaner, or illegal? Are all insults or derogatory comments the same? Is the proper way to get people to stop insulting others to do what Eve did?
Of course not. More importantly, it’s not effective at all. If you hear someone call another person a Chinaman, you tell them that’s not the preferred nomenclature, you don’t draw a false equivalence by actually using others slurs. Slurs can’t just be your cudgel to bludgeon people into compliance. That sort of thinking very easily gets distorted into others using them to make, “that spic stop acting like a spic”. It’s not just the good guys that get to carry guns, and as much as I think you are trying to fight the good fight, you are failing miserably. And to be honest with you, few things bother me more than bad arguments for things I agree with.
Secondly, I really don’t mind you thinking that. Reasonable people can and do. Just don’t pretend it’s based on any logic, or understanding of history or semantics. I can imagine a slur like that affects people like Eve in a visceral and understandable way; perhaps even just as deeply as every other slur you listed. That said, one’s personal perspective does not always align with our collective global perspective. Expecting to is not really fair. Most people will not agree with you, and you should be more understanding of why they don’t.
Third, I should not have to explain to you why different things are treated differently. That’s not my burden of proof. This is really pretty basic, and your repeated question makes me think you really don’t care to justify your opinion, or have a reasonable discussion; you just want to pick apart any argument I make in a weasely way. As I said before, not gonna take the bait.
True? It’s not true that Hussein is not really comparable to Hitler? What would you say if people started calling 9-11 the 9-11 Holocaust? What if I referred to the innocents killed during the Afghan war are the Afghan Holocaust victims? Do you think that would be appropriate or logical? Or is it just an attempt to poison the well, and squelch any reasonable discussion?
The really sad part about this is that all of this arose as a result of a story whose “humor” does not really rest on denigrating or even specifically mentioning transsexuals. I am not even sure how we got here to be honest.
No, but you still haven’t proven that tranny, kike, and nigger aren’t equal.
Ah, so now I don’t understand history, logic or semantics.
So the analogy you used sucks. That’s not my fault and you still have not explained just why tranny is not the equal of nigger or kike.
How exactly would I prove it? More importantly, why is that my burden to prove?
It would seem so.
I’m curious about that myself
Because you made the claim that they are not equal. You make a claim. You back it up.
I agree and you’ve made this point better than I could have. I’ve always found it really annoying when people say “if [slur #1] is okay, then how would you like to hear [slur #2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]?” (this is usually coming from people who consider themselves very enlightened hipsters and not at all racist).
That type of response is not part of the solution. Preferably, people shouldn’t have this kind of stuff bouncing around in their heads in the first place.
This thread’s fulla pazoozles. And I mean that in most offensive possible sense.
Nice try. You, and those of your ilk, made the claim they should be treated the same, I disagreed. Given that they are different things, they default should be to treat them differently. That’s why it’s YOUR burden, not mine. Regardless, whatever you are looking for from me is not forthcoming, so take what you will from what I have already said on the matter.
I already said “is a derogatory term that reduces some one to a kind of subhuman other.”
Kike, nigger and tranny all fit into that blank. Frankly, I could go on like that. Unless I specify just what the word I’m defining is a derogatory term for, they all keep fitting equally well.
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
There is a category of “words generally considered to be offensive enough that you should avoid their use.” This category includes words such as: nigger, kike, and tranny. Obviously these words are not exactly equivalent, or they would be the same word, which they are not. But if someone attempts to argue that one of them does not seem all that offensive, it may be helpful to use other words from the same category as an example of the category. “Ah ha,” this someone may think, “I thought that this word was in the category of ‘generally descriptive but non-offensive words’ but now I see that it is in the same category as these other words that I already understand to be offensive.”
Then again, this person may then throw a semantic hissyfit about what constitutes an appropriate comparison and what the definition of “equal” is. But you can’t win them all.
Christ on a popsicle stick. Whitey is offensive now? And Paki? Jon Stewart said Paki! I won’t say the T word anymore now that I know but I can’t promise not to be surprised at the next word I can no longer say. The T word just sounded inoffensive and syruppy cute but then, I not only don’t know any transvestites, I don’t know any tansvestite haters either. Now that I know it’s hardly an imposition not to say a word which never came up anyway and I’ll even point out it’s bad to others who use it. What a bewildering world though. Haters screw things up so bad you can’t even talk to people without a thesaurus.
What single word is the most offensive descriptor for black people? Nigger.
What single word is the most offensive descriptor for a trans person? Tranny.
Seems a pretty apt comparison to me.
I’m familiar with the slurs “spic, beaner, greaser,” and I was aware these were derogatory terms even at a young age. I noticed old people back off from confronting users of these slurs, and I gathered it was because they were used to being humiliated and degraded by far worse forms of racism.
When I allow others to define who I am with a slur, I either accept it with a lump in my throat, or I can be strong and stand up against it. IMO it feels way better to stand up, and I also learned that surprisingly the user of slurs may not even realize the terms are offensive or hurtful, so I am doing them a favor by letting them know what’s up.
I have heard people make excuses on being confronted: “spic is just short for Spanish” and “beaner simply means that your people like beans” or the ever popular “all in good fun, don’t take it so seriously, lighten up” response.
All of these excuses might be well and good if I really believed the disrespect ends there, that people would not continue to walk over me aside from the slur, but I know better, and apparently so does Eve.
IMO she was standing up against not only the slur, but all that goes along with it in terms of disrespect; no different from my experience with racial slurs.
Would tranny be an acceptable word to describe straight men who pretend to be women on internet messsage boards?
To me “tranny” will first and foremost mean “transmission”, since I first heard the word used when talking to various car guys.
Actually, unless some additional context specifically suggested someone wearing the clothes of the other gender, or wanting to physically transition to the other gender, the phrase “Jimmy was seen with a tranny” makes me picture a guy carrying around auto parts. A tranny is something you periodically check the dip stick of, occasionally add oil to, and get annoyed with because you keep forgetting you need a funnel to do the latter.
As an incidental note, my Army dress uniform has pins on the shoulders that says TRANS, but that’s neither here nor there.
Going way back to the OP, can we get a derogatory term for valet car attendants? They essentially hold your car for ransom; you arent even paying rent for space in their lot since they often park on city streets in parking spots they monopolize via rotation; they assume no liability for any damage they themselves don’t do while your car is in their possession; and, reading the blog in the link, sit in judgement of peoples’ sex lives and fart in their cars if they aren’t treated with the proper level of respect.
In the Third World there are people who make their living by sitting on public toilets all day. You have to pay them to get up so you can shit. They kick back to the cops, so there isn’t much you can do but pay. Valet parkers are their First World equivalent.
But it’s not really a helpful comparison. It just gets the other party to shut up (generally). If that’s all you want to do, then fine. But you those terms are apples and oranges. Yeah, they are both roundish fruits people make juice out of, but they are not the same.
More importantly, where does it stop. Is every derogatory term just like nigger? Is retard just like nigger? What about jerk, homo, dago, gringo, gyp, or injun?
Except that if you feel you can’t convey that without such a facile, inaccurate analogy, then you either don’t respect the listener’s intelligence, or you lack the ability to articulate yourself. Either way, it’s a poor analogy that doesn’t help the dialogue.
Hissyfit? All this arose from a story that had nothing to do with transsexuals. It was from you guys bitching about the use of a word not said with any particular malice. This is your crusade not mine. The only think I am arguably throwing a “hissyfit” about people not using really stupid arguments even if the conclusion is sound.