Ok, now that you’re (mostly) arguing on topic, I’ll give you the courtesy of a real response. Yes, I know what it’s like in the deep South. See response to emeraldia in post 257.
And yes, I’m perfectly willing to admit that there are much, much worse racists than you or, possibly, the OP. But being a less-racist-than-average white Georgia cop or a southerner who only says “nigger” in private is like being the richest man in the poor house. I’m not saying it ain’t something, but it sure ain’t much.
Gosh, is that anything like the rush you get when you imagine you’re bravely standing up to an Internet mob in support of Truth, Justice, and the American Way? :dubious:
And here we go with the hating on the rural South.
Look, unless you want to start donating your time and money to the school systems in these areas, kindly let it go. These are most poor, ignorant people without resources, and their schools (because of a lack of resources) fail them, and so the cultural racism doesn’t change. Stop holding people responsible for the cultures and situations they are from.
It’s like holding Loretta Lynn responsible for her thick accent. You can, but you’re an asshole if you do.
6 or 8 kneejerk PC crazies does not a mob make. LOL
and I’m not standing up for anything except keeping it factual. That’s the difference between you people and me. I’m interested in fact. YOU are interested in blindly toeing a line. That’s why YOU’RE part of a group, the dogpiling group, to be specific, and I stand alone.
Even when I think someone needs to be shut down on a thread, I desperately try to avoid participating in a dogpile. Why? Group behavior is an intense thing, there’s a lot of power in it. It needs to be wielded very gently, when it is wielded. It’s like Mark Twain said about taking a moment to reflect when you find that you’re on the side of the majority.
It’s not so much being on the side of the majority as it is YELLING and SCREAMING about the majority’s point of view.
The issue was, and still IS, IMO, the OP’s racism. You first have to convince me that it’s virulent (which I am on the fence about), and THEN you have to convince me that my OWN supposed “racism” is virulent. That’s going to be impossible, because you have no facts to back you up. Using the N-word is not evidence of racism. If it is, then you better talk to several thousand black comedians before you come to me. LOL
She did stop. Then he came screaming at her. Why was he screaming? It was his fault the dog was in the road. Either by luck or by her efforts, the dog was not killed. So why was ducati screaming at her?
I live in the rural South, BTW, and I don’t think you’re doing us any favors with this kind of talk.
I am so sick of hearing this argument. No one cares that he used the word “Negro”. We are bright people with a sense of history. We know when and how and why the terms “black”, “colored”, and “people of color” became so … debatable. We remember our parents or grand-parents using “Negro” because it was the polite term.
But people believe the OP is a racist because he referred to the man as a Negro, but did not refer to the woman as Scots-Irish.
On the other hand, I sort of agree with you. I have known decent people who used “nigger” in the same way they used “bitch” and “dick-head”. (I know they were decent because after I said, “You can’t use that word,” they didn’t.)
However, the most racist person I’ve ever know well never used an ugly racial descriptor (at least, not in polite company), and never used one unnecessarily. (Never used a racial descriptor, I mean.)
I am not accepting the use of words like “nigger”, “kike”, or “slant”; I am just pointing out that … actually, what I am pointing out is that decent people don’t use them once they are aware that are not acceptable.
I disagree with your version of events. I seriously doubt the OP is fast enough to get outside in time to yell at someone in that situation, before they’ve already burned rubber out of there. You could be right, but I see no evidence that he’s lying about that.
I think he MAY be understating how threatening he came across at the woman’s house. However, the LAN still overreacted, based on what I’m reading.
What part of the South do you live in? If you are sufficiently well-travelled, then you know that the Deep South is tremendously more racist than the Virginia mountains, for instance, and also that parts of Appalachia are still desperately, desperately poor, Third-World poor, especially West Virginia and east Kentucky.
I don’t want to contribute to “seeing racists under every rock and behind every tree”, but,it’s very true that some racists never use the N-word, or any other epithet.
The leader of the KKK in NC back in the late 80s was a high-level executive with a large grocery store chain. I doubt anyone ever heard him use the N-word at work.
It’s people like that, powerful, wealthy, and educated, who STILL are racist, that are much more dangerous than the OP.
I agree that you can be a racist and never say “nigger,” but I don’t think you can say “nigger” (or “negro” as a substitute for it) and not be considered a racist.
My antenna would have gone up if the OP had said “Large Angry Black Man” or “Large Angry African American man” instead of simply a “Large Angry Man.” However, by using the term “Negro,” instead of black or African American, he removed any doubt I may have had about his character.
Remember, he wasn’t giving a description for the police to go look for someone (where race may have been important identifier) He was telling a story on the internet. The only reason to mention race is because he felt that an angry black man was someone more (interesting)(frightening)(annoying) than an angry man of a different racial background.
This depends on the age, and possibly the sub-culture, of the person. I had relatives that would have choked on their own tongue before they would have been so crass as to call a person of color a “Black”. I still know people who just do not get the difference between “colored” and “person of color”. I am totally clueless on “Hispanic” versus “Latina.”
I have lived through colored, Negro, black, Afro-American, person of color, African-American, and “Is he Black enough?”. Frankly, if some-one older than I am reverts to the polite term of their youth, I will cut them some slack.
Remember the United Negro College Fund? The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People? DO you know the historical difference between “colored” and “black”? Negro was a fine word in its day; I will not condemned a person for using it.