You haven’t explained why, given the historical context, intent is important here. What intent could the coach have plausibly had that would make it okay for him, at his workplace, to say the n-word (apparently multiple times)? You’re just twittering about irrelevancies and then scolding people for not taking your silliness seriously.
Well, either we give some consideration to the context in which a word is used (me)
Or we don’t (you)
I think the former is a better approach.
no, I don’t think racism, prejudice or bigotry of any kind is a good thing. But nor do I think attempting to create a blanket ban an any usage of a word goes any way to combatting it.
We shouldn’t ignore the fact that there are a number of words the coach could have said with no bad intent that also would have resulted in his lose of his job.
How ridiculous: of course banning derogatory terms from polite-society usage goes some way towards combatting the bigotry they represent. It’s part of the message that polite society is sending about that bigotry being unacceptable.
I think I actually made only one comment about that case, certainly far less than others did and it is absolutely true that none of us have the full story.
I did however very quickly move from talking about that particular case to a more general discussion about a culture of suppression in general and very real examples that I myself have seen.
such as?
Apparently, plant based sausage.
Or are we still in ignore the last 50+ years of right-wing outrage over people saying things mode?
Now I’m very confused. I think this is a reference lost on me.
Why you showed up at all is the question. The “banned” word you’re obsessed with tells us a lot about you.
I think the message that bigotry is unacceptable can be spread just as easily without the outright banning of words.
Why did anyone at all show up in that thread? Is that not a valid question? Why is every other poster not labelled as “obsessed” with it as well?
The actual alleged slur is actually unimportant, the wider point to be fought against is that there is such a thing as an unsayable word, that is offensive and proscribed regardless of the context in which it is used. I disagree with that.
My original point that was always that there is a difference between mentioning a word and using a word. In any case context and intent matters very much indeed. (as indeed does the historical power of that word).
It could necessarily be any word but seeing as this is top-tier problematic territory it is unsurprisingly the one that gets the most attention and if the case can be made for this, then it certainly stands for anything else.
If you want to have a general discussion of “cancel culture” or an alleged “culture of suppression”, based on “very real examples” that you yourself have seen (or what RitterSport in the other thread called “vague references to non-verifiable personal experiences”), you have all the freedom in the world to start a thread on that subject.
If you decide to stick your generalized lamentations about “cancel culture” into a thread about a specific situation where all we know for sure is that a college football coach resigned over an incident that somehow involved his saying the n-word and his superiors accepted and endorsed his resignation, then yeah, it kind of makes you look like you’re trying to excuse or defend the use of racial slurs.
That’s a classic “All Lives Matter” type of response—"I as a white person have decided that this specific question about impacts of anti-Black racism needs to be diverted right now into a discussion reasserting the importance of more general rights of the white majority all people, and if you object to my changing the subject like that THEN YOU’RE THE REAL RACISTS!" An old, old song that gets less charming with every repetition.
Nobody is advocating “outright banning” of any words in terms of legally prohibiting them. But culturally banning them from use in polite society does help spread the message that bigotry is unacceptable.
C’mon, it’s not like the coach did something totally unforgivable . . . like kneeling.
The content of the thread up to the point I first posted was not merely concerned with the detail of that specific incident. You don’t get to police how a discussion progresses, it quite often ranges from the specific to the general without any problems.
No, but you (generalized “you”) certainly do get to express an opinion about how other posters choose to “progress” a given discussion in a specific direction.
If you want more vituperative scope for expressing that opinion, you can start a Pit thread about it, which is what happened here.
Others have made the point explicitly or implicitly that there are no circumstances under which the such words can be uttered. Or perhaps even worse, that there are only certain groups who can use certain words.
I don’t know if they would choose to enforce that under the threat of law.
Correct, and If I think my points are valid then I will make them.
I absolutely do not, I have nothing to say that could only said in the pit.
I suppose it’s no use my suggesting, again, that we could reasonably defer all the performative worrying about potential disastrous societal implications of such a possibility until and unless we find out whether it’s actually true. This appears to be a chicken you are very determined to keep fucking.
Hard to be quite sure what people actually think when straight answers are hard to come by.
You might help a little on this.
Do you think that there are any circumstances under which using that word could be considered permissible?
If so, we are in agreement but I find there are some very wary of committing to taking a “no” position on this, even though the comments they make dancing around the subject would imply that that is indeed what they think.
Well, we certainly wouldn’t want to limit ourselves to the circumstances in the case being discussed would we.