Now that I see several of the most respected black SDMB posters are all in this thread, I’d like to invite you all to my Pit thread about the term wigger.
Thank you
Beeble,
Your theory is proven with this adendum. Geri Halliwell is Evil Spice.
You’re getting all pissy because he mentioned vouchers in a thread regarding funds for education? How is that “another thing entirely”?
If that’s typical, you need to find more significant things to complain about.
Regards,
Shodan
december is needin’ him some mint flavored shoes. absolutely brilliant meltdown of the first order.
he appears to have no shame, however, so he won’t slink away with his tail between his legs like he should. get lost, pops.
Shodan, why don’t you look at the linked thread in the OP? Then you’d find that in a thread discussing the Nickelodeon program about gay parents, December posted this:
This is his standard MO.
Shodan that was an example albeit a poor one, you need but do a search on december to find more egregious examples of the behavior I wrote about, for instance did you even lookt at the linked thread?
That’s okay, december, you just know that Stuffy and the other posters “of color” have to hire white people to type coherent arguments for them. So it’s only natural that they’d sometimes seem white to you.
As a blonde female, myself, I’ve had to hire a brown-haired man to come argue in my name when I go to the serious forums.
And when I told you the check you wrote me bounced, you said “I can’t be out of money, I still have checks in the check book!”
Wonderful Cranky!
Not only did you let the cat out of the bag about them having to hire white people to write for them you told everybody about the blondes as well?
I think the union will have to look into this matter.
I’m curious how our “posters of color” feel about december’s (and some others’) capitalization of “black”—as in Black people. It seems somehow wrong to me, and smacks of racism, but I’m not sure exactly why. Any thoughts?
First off, I’m a white guy and I realize this is only armchair psychology. OK, now the disclaimer is out of the way, I believe december’s capitalization of the word “Black” indicates a kind of inherent racism, but I don’t think he’s even aware of it.
When the rest of us type “black”, we are using an adjective in the same manner as “blonde”, “brunnette”, “redhead”, etc. It’s a simple descriptor. When “Black” is capitalized it becomes a proper adjective in the manner of “American” or “Christian”. Proper adjectives such as “Brazilian” can be one of the defining characteristics of a person, while common adjectives such as “hazel-eyed” usually aren’t. This is a very important distinction and indicates that december puts a great deal of weight on race.
By using proper adjectives, he is subtly (perhaps even unconsciously) stressing the belief that race is one of the defining characteristics of an individual, rather than simply a skin color. This viewpoint dovetails with his apparent “white man’s burden” attitude because it stresses the races, and by extension, the differences between the races.
I never thought I’d find myself in a position to defend december, but pushing the brown-haired man away from her keyboard I’d thought that capitalizing “black” was a convention that showed respect, maybe for the idea that it was a culture and identity instead of just an adjective. I can understand why it might seem to some that it is overemphasizing a characteristic that shouldn’t matter that much. I’d always thought it was the other way around, though. Not sure where I got that impression, or if it’s defendable.
Ferrous, I hadn’t actually thought about it until you mentioned it, probably because anytime december uses the word “black” the remainder of the sentence is likely to piss me off. I’m not sure what to make of it, so I’ll defer to the posters who beat me in answering your question.
Thanks all.
I have to say, my feelings are similar to Beeblebrox’s, although Cranky may have a point, too…
Perhaps I’m reading too much into it. If Stuffy doesn’t have a problem with it, I guess there’s no reason for a white boy like myself to get hot and bothered by it.
After going back and looking at some of december’s posts, I noticed an interesting thing I perhaps should have mentioned in my earlier post. december will capitalize "Black’, but he will not capitalize “white”. Again playing armchair psychologist, this seems to indicate to me that he is subtly implying that there is something fundamentally special about being black, while there is nothing fundamentally special about being white. Special isn’t always a good thing.
However, and this is important, the dangerous thing about armchair psychology is that I may be reading far too much into something so small. december doesn’t capitalize “white” and he capitalizes “Black”, but he also capitalizes “Asian” and “Hispanic”. The practice may mean something, but it is just as likely it doesn’t mean anything at all.
don’t forget he also doesn’t capitalize “december”…
How I feel about “black” being capitalied or not depends entirely upon context. In december’s case, the capitalization becomes yet another item on the list of things about the sentence that pisses me off.
What I love is when he defends himself by explaining he’s old. Turns out, he’s 59.
Sorry, that ain’t elderly, december.
I like these let’s-talk-shit-about-december threads. Reminds me of the gossip here at work.
I have to be honest; it never bothers me when people capitalize “black” or “white”. If you open up any Ebony magazine, you’ll see the same thing.
I think december has a crush on his sister-in-law, who he’s always holding up as an example of a “good” black person. So yes, the man has jungle fever.
And how does jungle fever relate to the rockin’ pneumonia and the boogie woogie flu? Just curious.