Ha! 
Congrats but stay safe and take it easy.
Let the castigation begin…
Naah, good call, thanks for taking the time to listen. Rest well.
Thanks much for rethinking this and having the integrity to recognize and admit your thoughts needed to change.
Hope you rest up over the next couple of days. Feel free to ignore us. That second dose can be a bear,
I feel we white, hetero sexual folks can take care of ourselves. The rest of the world is allowed some catching up; they can call me anything. It is not possible to offend me in that manner.
However it might be a good idea to avoid such terms anyway to pre-empt “offended” white people insisting they respond in kind. On the other hand; are those people worth engaging with at all?
In my circle I have two siblings and several friends who are Asians (Indian, Filipino, Vietnamese) who are married to white people. They are among the most openly racist people I know (the Asians, not the whites) out of some protective overreaction feeling for their spouses. In some cases their spouses are perfectly fine hearing “white privilege” but the Asian half will go ballistic.
The words “cr——”, “red——” and “wh—- tr—-” when used to describe the capitol insurrectionists have all set one or more of these people off on a rant that included racist epithets for Black or Hispanic people.
Some of us don’t have any choice about engaging with these people because we share parents or workplaces or custody of children. But that’s in real life. On these boards, I guess it’s the age old dilemma of engaging with the deplorables or letting them have the last word.
It’s just the way Michael Harriot writes. He takes some getting used to but he’s quite sharp. (Oddly, the only thing about that article that got my dander up was the claim that “white people don’t season their food”. I season the crap out of my food, but Harriot’s specifically obsessed with Lawry’s seasoned salt for some reason.)
Back on topic: while I’m not generally offended by being called a “cracker”, “honky”, or even “wypipo” (because “punching up” yadda yadda), I’d rather whatever degree of bright line there is be on the side of discouraging their use as race-based slurs. Just because they’re toothless doesn’t mean they’re okay. So I applaud this new approach.
Yep, it’s his style (as well as other Root writers). I do find that when he goes easy on the sarcasm, though, it can hit like gut-punch.
Justifying it by saying that it’s just sauce for the gander is a further insult because it implies that the recipients have done something equally bad to deserve it. (And that’s without getting into the baggage of the word “privilege” which implies something which is jealously guarded and/or provides actual benefits to those it legitimately applies to, instead of something that everyone ought to have and wouldn’t hurt the recipients if it didn’t exist.)
This goes pretty far afield from ATMB, so I’ll just say I think it’s an unnecessarily defensive response to the point the author was making, and leave it there.
Ditto. Moderna. But all I experienced was sleepiness - I was dragging ass all next day.
Feel better soon, @Miller . I think you do a fine job moderating the Pit. You’re allowed the occasional misstep.
I thought the author did an excellent job of driving the knife home. I applaud the author. You do have to read to the end of the piece, however.
Exactly. I’ve read his stuff before, and he’s not especially concerned with protecting readers’ feelings. He’s wicked sharp. You can’t take it personally.
What he said. Thank you.
I’m… not sure this is the right take away. The converse of [bad thing] should not be that [second bad thing] is acceptable.
The converse of me calling someone a n###r is them calling me a cracker (kaaskop actually)? Those two are not even in the same universe.
I still agree we should avoid all such terms, but not because they are somehow the same.
What made this all worse to me, as has been pointed out, is the way cracker was used. Yeah, it’s a creepy slur, but it was used to deliberately stereotype Black people as people who would use that slur.
If he had called someone a cracker, that would have been lousy. To paint a picture of Black family members using cracker that way, was not only insulting the White target, but the hypothetical Black people who he gleefully imagined talking that way.
That’s what we’ve been saying. Cracker doesn’t have anywhere near the same vicious malice as the N-word; I’d say it’s equivalent to colored or Negro on emotive force. But it is a racial slur, nonetheless.
This. Great summation. The fact that some didn’t catch that it was a slur wrapped in a slur surprised me.
You’re absolutely right, and I missed that. Which just shows I haven’t yet eliminated all my unconcious racism.
My opinion (not that it matters) is that damuriajashi’s post does not rise to the level of hate speech. Here is the excerpt,
damuriajashi's post (click to expand/hide)
“[…]I seem to recall you being racist. Are you the white dude that uses his black in laws as rhetorical human shields and try to be offended on behalf of your non-white relatives (who probably think you are a racist cracker)?”
There are a number of things going on here. MrDibble is accused of
- being racist
- being a white dude
- having Black in-laws
- using Black in-laws as a rhetorical shield
- being offended on behalf of non-white in-laws(, as opposed to sincere offense?)
MrDibble’s assumed non-white in-laws are accused of
- thinking MrDibble is “a racist cracker”
Of the direct accusations, I don’t think any of them amount to hate speech. Jerkish behavior, but not hate speech.
Of the last item, damuriajashi did not, in my opinion, disparage a person or group of people based on any protected trait. My opinion is that the insult comes from the accusation of racism, not the mere presence of the word “cracker”. The following sentence could, in my opinion, be uttered in relatively polite conversation,
‘I bet your Black in-laws think of you as a misguided cracker’
Merely adding the word ‘racist’ does not make it hate speech. Pit rules do not ban racial slurs, they ban hate speech and say some slurs will be considered hate speech. This is not such a slur.
That being said I think a ban on all racial slurs is quite reasonable, if the moderators/administration wish to impose one.
My opinion only,
~Max