It became obsolete before I ever heard it! That’s an achievement of sorts.
But seriously folks, I don’t see how it’s been established that this is a term separate from ‘white people’ rather than just phonetically spelling out that term in (perhaps stylized or exaggerated) African American dialect pronunciation. Which has become a bit of a trend.
As was mentioned earlier, you can express contempt with all kind of terms. Some have more historical weight than others but that doesn’t make the underlying feelings in the speaker’s heart different necessarily.
This isn’t new or an epithet. I keep shifting between chuckling at this thread and cringing in second-hand embarrassment. I don’t discuss white people enough to need an abbreviation for the group, so I don’t use the term.
In the interest of racial harmony, I would cooperate and be offended.
Obviously I prefer “United States denizen of primarily European phenotype”, because, yes, race is a social construct, and a rather silly and inconvenient one at that.
Are you saying the term is not meant to be insulting? Because I would say “niguswhoread” seems to disagree.
I mean the word carries no weight with me but if it was directed at me my first thought would be that they’re trying to get under my skin.* Or is it that it’s never directed at anyone usually, just when talking about white people?
Can it be used as an insult? Yes. Even saying “white people” in a certain tone can be insulting. Is it always meant to be insulting? No. Some guy on a random blog disagrees? Alright.
If someone used it to refer to me, I’d be so angry and offended, I’d probably commit some sort of hate crime in response…maybe a genocide if I had the weekend free.
I don’t read the facebook pages of neonazis to see what they are saying, but I can see how it might violate community standards if you keep saying “why do white people always do THIS?” like it’s some hackneyed 80s standup routine. Of course that’s for Facebook to decide.
The term is offensive because it’s intended to be offensive. It’s not a compliment. It’s not a neutral term of endearment. It’s an insult. Is it as offensive as nigger? No. So what? Nigger isn’t some kind of magic benchmark for offensiveness. It’s not like there’s some rule that says if a racist insult is less offensive than nigger you have to laugh it off or you’re a pussy.
On the other hand I don’t have to play along. I’m not offended and I don’t have to be offended because I’m not particularly concerned about what losers who can’t even come up with a good slur think.
