I have a suspicion (but can’t fully remember and can’t find the post) that at some point in the past I have mentioned that I suffer from a degree of face/name blindness and personal info just doesn’t stick. I can remember my sister’s birthday because it is a week away from mine. My mother, father and two brother’s birthdays are in December, October, October, April respectively but as for actual dates I’d be guessing, and that’s the family that I know and love. Imagine how much brain-space I set aside for the minor details mentioned by posters.
Secondly I posted in another thread on religious indoctrination and over the course of that discussion I posted that the person I was responding to, and me, and *everyone *had “monkey brains” and were “stupid shaved apes”. Now, I have no idea whether that poster I responded to is black or whatever and even after being involved in this thread it didn’t cross my mind to worry about it until I read it back to myself after pressing “submit”. I immediately considered editing but thought, fuck it, I can defend the use and it is definitely non-racist regardless of any other ethnicity involved.
What to make of that? I was definitely insulting myself and the other posters equally, was I wrong to use those terms? what other terms could I have used to get across the point of restricted cognitive abilities?
So…you’re saying that despite the fact THAT all the other simian-adjacent terms are racist insults, you’re going to daintily exclude THIS one on some technical basis?
If you are white and male and the poster you are addressing is anything but, it impossible for you to insult everybody equally. Insults are the cherry on top of centuries of assholes insulting, murdering, raping, enslaving, and disenfranchising black people, women, LGBTQ folks, immigrants, Muslims, -------not to mention shaping the culture so the bigotry’s built and mixed in, like eggs in a cake, and only white dudes, for example, never get accused of lying across the board or being hysterical, like the women who are being accused of just having “bad dates.” Religion, culture, law enforcement, justice, all make white men the human against which all others are judged.
You can drop the sarcasm, it doesn’t work well when you’ve got the completely wrong idea about me. Obviously I haven’t been clear enough, let me try again. What I am trying to say is that while “primate” could be intended as a racist insult, there is also the possibility that it is not. Specifically, I think there are two possibilities here:
Zeke used “pestilential primate” as a colourful insult towards someone whose ethnicity he was unaware of, intending “primate” in its literal sense as an unusual, alliterative way to describe a fellow human.
Zeke was aware of the ethnicity of the target of his insult and used “pestilential primate” as a ‘clever’ way to insinuate they were racially inferior.
Note the absence of the possibility that Zeke knew the ethnicity of the target but didn’t intend or can be excused possible racism.
While I suspect number 2 is more likely, I am merely pointing out that I haven’t seen much evidence pointing one way or the other.
Novelty Bobble, meanwhile, is concerned that words used with no racist intent could be perceived differently by those who have a better knowledge/memory of the ethnicity of others on this message board, which seems a fair concern. Neither of us is suggesting that hate speech or racism is in any way acceptable.
What a confused, hateful, bigoted, prejudiced, blinkered, small-minded view of humanity. Try dealing with people based on what they do rather than the historical sins or imagined characteristics of the group you choose to put them in.
I apologise for the hijack and this will be my last post in this thread. In my defence, it was dead for over 8 months and then reanimated in order to continue a previous hijack, although since then other posters have returned to the original topic - I just assumed that had played out by now.
Bullshit. Conservatives love to pretend they are ignorant about things like racism and sexism.
And I get to be sarcastic when I’m dealing with the kind of disingenuous asshole who claims that----despite the fact that ALL simian terms are used as slurs against African Americans, somehow this ONE TERM is an innocent error. Despite the fact that he posted dozens of times in a thread where the poster so described discussed her race.
You lying sack of shit. You’re the cherry on thousands of years of other white dudes setting hatred in the cement of history, then whining when your racist ass gets called on it. Onto the ignore list you go.
Kobal2 quoted that Sartre explanation about Reicheingers’ lies. The defenders of “primate” exemplify it perfectly.
That’s of no comfort to me, I’ll still be seeing your hateful posts, I don’t use an ignore list.
You’d be much better off winding your neck in and learning to…
a) read what people actually say and comprehend the words they use, the meaning they convey. You really need the practice.
b) challenge them if you are bothered about what they’ve said, perhaps clarify if they have been unclear.
c) learn the difference between “doesn’t agree with me” and “must be a racist”. I know it is soooooo much easier to just bundle it all into one and you are an extremely lazy debater but…go on, push yourself.
The posts here show that I’m happy to accept that the “primate” insult might be racist. Only one of us has expressed broad brush denigration based on skin colour. White people do not suffer from huge amounts of racism in the west and your bigotry is water off a duck’s back to me, perhaps I’m lucky to have that luxury but it doesn’t change the fact that, other than the original post and warning, you are the only one spouting race-hatred. Whether the target can afford to take it on the chin or not it is a pretty bad look for you.
Look in the mirror pal, I don’t know what ethnicity you are and it doesn’t matter. The only racist in this discussion is you.
Bless your shriveled little Trumpie heart. I like myself just fine. It’s you whiny little gutless assholes that annoy me. Sad thing is, I can’t tell you fuckers apart; same lies, same Fox “News” lies, same propaganda, and all because you got snookered by an orange asshole who’s spent his life fucking over marks like you. Now you’re going to fuck over your kids because you Trumpies are so insecure and venomous.