Well, okay, but nigger toes are pretty hard to train.
C’mon, Liberal, you had to know this was hyperbole even as you typed it - I’m pretty sure you’ve seen this assumption being corrected with reference to DT’s CS posts on SF and the like. Just like I know that you don’t just post on religion and politics, because I’ve seen you in AI threads.
I think you’re both in the same boat, though - it’s like the joke says…“Do they call me McDonald the carpenter? No! Do they call me McDonald the Postman? No! But you fuck one sheep…”
Anyway, as to the OP - I kinda-sorta agree with you about bringing racism out into the light, sunlight being the best disinfectant and all that, but I think the ranting about “RACIST NIGGERS” crossed my signal-to-noise threshold. I can see others think that this happened a while before that with the insane Koppel rants. I guess I’m agreeing with those who already said that the principle sounds fine, but the racist has to engage in actual debate for it to work.
What is about people expressing racism or any other -ism or whatever you decide is hate speech that so inflames you? It typically derives from either ignorance or the innate drive we all have to protect our own interests first and blame bad things on everyone else. Regardless of motivation, surely the best way to propogate and promote hate-mongerers is to give their views traction, even if what you are doing is yelling the opposite. It’s still a screaming match with invectives and vulgar language that diminishes both parties and–however inadvertently–advances notions better left to wither on their own.
When I hear that word, it generally identifies “a particular cultural subset.” (Yes, I know it is used by some within the African-American community.)
But, in my experience, it signals “White Trash.” In big, flashing, neon letters.
GuyNBlueJeans displayed other qualities that made him suspendable. (Suspendible?)
But there are plenty of places to argue with un-subtle racists. On the web & in “real life.” Surely, you can find some! Perhaps at some site you find less “left leaning.”
I’m quite happy they have to tone it down a bit here at the SDMB. Let them talk about immigrants who “fail to assimilate.” Or come up with other hi-falutin’ ways to camouflage their bigotry.
What experiences brought you to this conclusion?
From where I sit it looks more like Der Trihs occasionally pauses in between sheep to offer something generally worth listening to on the subject of books and films. But that might just mean that he’s perfectly OK as long as he’s confined to someone’s imaginary world. Real world, whether here or GD… eh, not so much.
I do understand that SDMB isn’t exclusively an intellectual board, and that many (maybe most) are here to have a tea party. But racism is often born of nothing more than ignorance, and it cannot be eradicated by suppression. And I would add that bigotry goes both ways: there is the bigot who, because of race, calls out someone; and there is the bigot who, because of race, refuses to call out someone.
The best? I asked some young men whom I’d heard using it to talk about people who weren’t there at the bus stop how they’d react if I’d used the word in the same way.
Reading things like a recent OpEd piece after some athlete (sorry I barely pay any attention to sports at all, so I have no idea who it was, nor even which sport it might have been. I thought the editorial was at SI.com but I can’t find it.) suggested that using the word, even by black athletes to refer to themselves is doing more harm than good. Reading lyrics of some of the more shocking (to me) gangsta artists. Seeing the flap that happened last year when it was announced that Sen. Allen had used the word during his college years.
I can’t say that I’ve got great gobs of experience, I’ll admit. But that I’ll stand by my impression.
But there are still whites who comfortably use the word, so obviously they can just as much as those young men can - despite either of their opinions.
That seems to point to “nobody should use the word”.
Conclusion: a lot of people expect and accept more trashiness from young black men at bus stops and rappers than they do from white politicians. But turning that into blacks “can” say “nigger” while white people “can’t” is like saying black people can skip school and white people can’t.
That’s my opinion.
I certainly didn’t mean to give my support for any use of the word. I’d meant to criticize the one argument that I’ve heard for allowing the word to be used: reclaiming it. I don’t mean to say that I think blacks can use the word without consequence. I’d meant to get across that I’ve heard some blacks say that they should be allowed to use the word in order to reclaim it. And that I have grave reservations about that, both as a goal and as I’ve seen it in action.
IOW, I agree with your conclusion 100%. I’m sorry if I gave the impression otherwise.
And to stretch that analogy further, imagine a white kid getting reprimanded for skipping classes offering “well black people do it” as an excuse. That how all “well black people do it” excuses sound to me.
Oh ok. Sorry.
But I still wanted to get my thoughts out there.
No worries, pizzabrat.
and you can’t spell cerveza?
I’m of the opposite opinion to the OP. I think when racism is loud and proud, it gives the impression that it’s acceptable. Forcing people to “hide” their racism is a reminder to those people that it’s unacceptable, and it also keeps others from having their racist leanings reinforced.
I used to think that it was better in the open. Now I think it’s better as a dirty, shameful secret that people are forced to conceal in order not to be shunned and mocked.
who says he swam from a spanish speaking country? 
Yeah. God knows people have always avoided whatever is mysterious and forbidden. :rolleyes:
Well, golly! You used a rolleyes and everything! I’m convinced!
With powers of persuasion like that, why, no one could ever withstand you.
Well, it ain’t rocket science. In fact, it’s cigarette science. Cigarette makers love stressing how cigarettes are “for adults only”. The usual idiots in government, aside from letting them pass their fines through to their consumers, have given them a whole marketing campaign.