Do I think use of the n-word should be categorically banned by law as a carveout from First Amendment protections? No, I do not. Glad I could help.
If you want to reframe your all-lives-matter-natter as a generalized debate on socially permissible and impermissible uses of racial slurs, I suppose you could start a thread on it in an appropriate forum and see if anybody’s interested.
I wouldn’t want to count the number of times I’ve seen this in the wild,
“How come the blacks can use that word but I can’t call the blacks that word?”
Emphasis mine.
And you prove my point, people do not want to give straight answers to straight questiosn.
That wasn’t what I asked
No, I certainly wouldn’t. That isn’t helpful
I’ve never heard that said in that way, but I’ve certainly heard it said that someone who isn’t black can never actually use or mention the word under any circumstances. Which I think is a ridiculous statement.
ISTM that can is a perfectly good proxy for should. I’ve never had a problem with it, myself.
It is a terrible proxy in many, many situations.
“I can drink half a bottle of whiskey and drive a car”
Happy to have that “can” substituted for a “should”?
I find myself baffled by this, could you provide an example where you mention a word but not use it? Any word works, I just feel I need an example to grasp your distinction.
It would be the difference between telling someone that using “word x” to insult a person is not on, versus actually calling someone “word x” as a means of insulting them.
Or famously, on the BBC in primetime a respected newsreader uttered the word “cunt”. It was a slip of the tongue of course and very different from if he had actively directed that insult at a guest. It was judged accordingly and quite rightly very little fuss was made.
Yes: virtually all circumstances, with certain exceptions, including certain exceptions for government employees, small children, and folks in official proceedings like courtroom trials.
I also think that under most circumstances, folks who use the word can face pretty serious social consequences, and that those consequences should be considered permissible. Do you agree?
I think you mean “no” rather than “yes” Otherwise the rest of your post makes no sense.
But that’s fine, taking the spirit of the answer we are left in agreement that there are certain circumstances in which that language is permissible. I see no benefit in listing out in advance what all those circumstances are. Such a list will necessarily always be imperfect. I have no problem judging each case on it’s own merits.
I have no problem with there being social consequences for people who use the word in certain ways in certain circumstances. Whether that is “most circumstances” is something I couldn’t comment on. I hear it used so rarely that I’m in no position to judge.
I don’t think it is possible to know if it is warranted or not without knowing the context of the usage in the individual case. Again, I see no benefit in ignoring the context completely and according to your first comment above, you too think that it matters.
??? You asked “Do you think that there are any circumstances under which using that word could be considered permissible?” and I absolutely meant “yes.” Not sure how you’re reading otherwise.
“Permissible” implies that someone is able to permit a behavior, and that implies that they’re able to forbid it. It suffers from the classic passive voice problem: who’s doing the permitting? You don’t specify, but in general, that’s the government. I don’t think the government should outlaw the use of the word under most circumstances.
If you mean something else by “permissible,” you’ll need to clarify your meaning, and ideally avoid any relatives of the passive voice.
You followed the “yes” with this sentence.
Which from your previous posts didn’t sound correct and I assumed you’d misread my question or typo’d. I’ve no problem in helping to clarify.
As it stands your answer reads as though you think that the word is permissible in all circumstances apart from government employees, small children and courtrooms. (where the implication is that it is not permissible).
Is that an accurate reflection of what you think? If it is then I apologise for getting your previous stance completely wrong but it certainly reads completely differently from what I’d previously understood your position to be.
That’s correct. I interpret “permissible” to mean that nobody is effectively withholding permission. That’s true in most cases, but government employees (teachers, DMV workers) may be sanctioned by the government for using the n-word, and small children may have the permission effectively withheld by parents or other adults, and folks in courtrooms can be charged with contempt for their speech.
In other words, first amendment protections extend to the n-word just as they extend to everything else. I think this is a distraction of an argument: not many folks believe otherwise, I think, and so by moving the discussion out of “should folks face social consequences for using hateful language” and into “WHY DO YOU WANT THE GUMMINT TO BAN THE WORD???!?!!?” you’re asking folks to defend a position they never adopted.
If you somehow derived, from my previous posts, a belief that I think the word should be forbidden by authorities, that’s on you.
I’m not asking you to do that. By your own admission you’ve taken “permissible” to be a legal term when I think clearly the discussion has been much more about social acceptability and permissibility and the world’s reaction to various usages. I don’t think I’ve strayed into the area of legally enforced hate speech to any great extent.
Well clearly I’d derived no such thing, hence my complete confusion when you suddenly started responding in that way.
Then what on earth do you mean by “permissible”? This is why you’re not getting straight answers: your questions are too vague to get the answers you want. You clarify that by “permissible” you mean “social acceptability and permissibility and the world’s reaction to various uses,” which is just as vague.
Are you trying to ask whether I think people should accept the use of the n-word under most circumstances? Can you please avoid the passive voice in your answer, as well as the “-able” or “-ible” suffixes, which are essentially passive in construction?
It is a difficult question to pin down, that’s fine.
clearly not, that’s not even remotely what I’ve been asking.
There are people who are extremely dogmatic that under no circumstances is that word acceptable (and feel free to imagine for yourself what “acceptable” actually means)
My question, in whatever form it takes, is aimed at understanding whether you take that view yourself.
Perhaps it is easier to consider it in the reverse. i.e. do you think that there are some circumstances in which the use of the word is acceptable, by that lets assume I mean that that particular usage should neither be particularly remarkable nor attract any substantial degree of social attraction.
i.e. like the “cunt” example I previously mentioned.
I’ll try. The important context is what “use” means here.
My friend Bob almost got in a fight last night, he said “I shoulda killed that epithet!”
That’s me mentioning a word, but not “using” it.
My friend Bob almost got in a fight last night, I said “You shoulda killed that epithet!”
That’s me using a word.
I’m sure that won’t clear this up.
And the other problem is we, generally, have an expectation that certain words are simply not used by certain people in certain circumstances.
So, maybe no one would be outraged if coach said, say, “fuck” in the middle of the game on the field but if coach says in the post game TV interview . . . that’s different.
The hell it’s fine.
The fuck? Why would I feel free to imagine what “acceptable” means in your paraphrase on what you think other people are saying? You’re repeatedly unwilling to explain your own words, and want me to imagine what they might mean, and then say whether I agree with my imagination of the meaning of your paraphrase of your interpretation of an unnamed person’s posts?
There’s a reason why you’re not taken seriously.
Okay, this edit clarifies your meaning a bit, although “social attraction” is gibberish, and there’s no need for “assuming” what you mean by words, just goddamn tell us.
When a person against whom the slur is historically directed and who is the target of the historical and systemic oppression uses the word, I don’t find need to remark on it, and I’ve got no interest in censuring the word, barring other factors.
Under very limited educational settings, the word must be used. (One of my daughters asked me what the N-word was, and I prefaced it by explaining that it made me uncomfortable to say and that it was a word with a really terrible history and that it didn’t need to be used, and then I told her what it was, so she’d know).
There are a few other circumstances where I won’t object to the use of the word.
But I’ll object to most uses. And if folks find that their use of the word turns out badly for them, I’m pretty okay for the most common examples of “turns out badly.”