# Is 'liberal' the new 'nigger'?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-liberal-the-new-nigger/534534
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [April 1, 2010, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-liberal-the-new-nigger/534534 "2010-04-01T03:51:02Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2010, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-liberal-the-new-nigger/534534/21 "2010-04-01T11:26:16Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Liberal’s black?
No, they’re suggesting “left” is the new “black”
---
### Author:  [@Laudenum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laudenum)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2010, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-liberal-the-new-nigger/534534/22 "2010-04-01T11:47:47Z")
> [@tomndebb](#):
>
> Quite disingenuous.
>
> The slavery that existed in Africa prior to the arrival of Arab and European raiders (and that continues today) was and is not a good thing, but it was of a completely different sort than the ethnic based chattel slavery imposed by the outside groups. Zinn’s errors are not well offset by making claims as silly as his.
Slaves were forceably taken and used for labour, and were sold on if needed.
Normally, people were made slaves by other tribes who would have considered themselves ‘different’ from them.
What is the big difference?
---
### Author:  [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2010, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-liberal-the-new-nigger/534534/23 "2010-04-01T11:52:07Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> No, they’re suggesting “left” is the new “black”
Ah, I see where this is going - _black and to the left, black and to the left…_
---
### Author:  [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2010, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-liberal-the-new-nigger/534534/24 "2010-04-01T12:32:49Z")
> [@Laudenum](#):
>
> Slaves were forceably taken and used for labour, and were sold on if needed.
> Normally, people were made slaves by other tribes who would have considered themselves ‘different’ from them.
>
> What is the big difference?
Slaves were taken as the result of warfare for other reasons, which is different than starting wars solely to acquire slaves.
People could bond themselves as slaves to repay debts, which differs from being held as a slave purely based on the color of one’s skin.
Slaves could buy their way out of slavery and could rise in rank ands social class among the people who enslaved them; they were not held as chattel with no possessions of their own and no right to purchase their freedom and no social mobility once they achieved freedom. (A limited number of slaves in the U.S. were able to buy their freedom, but those rare events were based on the “largesse” of the owner, not enshrined in culture.)
This is a hijack, but one can discover the differences by looking into the issue of chattel slavery.
---
### Author:  [@The\_Facts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Facts)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2010, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-liberal-the-new-nigger/534534/25 "2010-04-01T14:21:10Z")
> [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](#):
>
> Did you know that racism as it existed in the US was effectively invented by the elites as a way to sow disunity among the lower classes to hemegonize their power? Consider a quote from chapter 2 of Howard Zinn’s ‘A People’s History of the United States’:
>
> Why did it happen? Because it could. Our Founding Fathers were not the types to leave an unexploited opportunity.
>
> But later came rules to separate the races and the classes, the ultimate motive of which was to prevent any solidarity among the greater part of the population which might threaten the elites’ power. Miscegenation laws were passed for this purpose. Racial hatred was intentionally stoked. Face it, when some of the poor are niggers and some are decidedly not, the poor will not rise up en masse against their oppressors. They are too exhausted from conflicting with each other.
>
> But today racism has been all but discredited. Even its most fervent adherents must recognize this, for a new form of social division has been spawned: the Liberal! Don’t ask me to define it, I didn’t make it up. Far as I can tell, a ‘liberal’ is a target of aspersion. Talk show hosts and propagandists are free to correct me, but I predict that the definition will consist of a list of accusations rather than a definitive statement about the essence of a ‘liberal’.
>
> Like race, I doubt ‘liberal’ has a solid definition. It has become an epithet, a way to cast aspersion. A word that is said in a nasty tone against a ‘mark’. A way to divide certain classes into separate, opposing groups.
>
> What do you think? Has the word ‘liberal’ taken on the old social function of the word ‘nigger’?
When people can’t win, they call names. No different from the schoolyard. The pugs have had their asses kicked in the realm of ideas, and all they can do is throw out scary words like socialist and liberal. If they called them “progressives” it would make the truth obvious – they oppose progress, and basically want to take us back to the 50’s at least, if not the middle ages.
---
### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2010, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-liberal-the-new-nigger/534534/26 "2010-04-01T14:23:28Z")
> [@The\_Facts](#):
>
> When people can’t win, they call names. No different from the schoolyard. The pugs have had their asses kicked
I assume this irony is intentional?
> [@](#):
>
> If they called them “progressives” it would make the truth obvious
Sounds like Glenn Beck uses that word all the time.
---
### Author:  [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2010, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-liberal-the-new-nigger/534534/27 "2010-04-01T14:24:55Z")
This is all another cycling of the false consciousness myth. Communists and socialists need an answer to why the working people are not lining up behind their natural leaders. The answer can never be ascribed to the failures of their ideology so they invent fanciful mental contortions whereby the ruling classes fool normal people by inventing other things to be mad at instead of what they are supposed to be mad at.
Leftists in this country started calling themselves progressives, until their actions discredited that label. Then they started calling themselves liberals until their actions discredited that label. Now some liberals want to claim that labels mean nothing even though everyone knows what liberalism stands for. Since wide pluralities in this country reject liberalism, some want to pretend that what is being rejected is the word and not the ideaology.
---
### Author:  [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2010, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-liberal-the-new-nigger/534534/28 "2010-04-01T14:27:40Z")
> [@puddleglum](#):
>
> This is all another cycling of the false consciousness myth. Communists and socialists need an answer to why the working people are not lining up behind their natural leaders. The **answer can never be ascribed to the failures of their ideology so they invent fanciful mental contortions** whereby the ruling classes fool normal people by inventing other things to be mad at instead of what they are supposed to be mad at.
> Leftists in this country started calling themselves progressives, until their actions discredited that label. Then they started calling themselves liberals until their actions discredited that label. Now some liberals want to claim that labels mean nothing even though everyone knows what liberalism stands for. Since wide pluralities in this country reject liberalism, some want to pretend that what is being rejected is the word and not the ideaology.
I assume this irony is intentional?
---
### Author:  [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2010, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-liberal-the-new-nigger/534534/29 "2010-04-01T14:33:06Z")
So then, is librul the new nigga?
---
### Author:  [@enomaj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enomaj)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2010, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-liberal-the-new-nigger/534534/30 "2010-04-01T14:45:20Z")
Never been called a liberal by a bunch of conservatives in a passing car. Just sayin’.
---
### Author:  [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2010, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-liberal-the-new-nigger/534534/31 "2010-04-01T16:10:02Z")
I don’t think Liberal is the new nigger, but I do think that socialist is the new Liberal
---
### Author:  [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2010, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-liberal-the-new-nigger/534534/32 "2010-04-01T16:21:22Z")
> [@kayaker](#):
>
> So then, is librul the new nigga?
Librul, _please_!
---
### Author:  [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2010, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-liberal-the-new-nigger/534534/33 "2010-04-01T16:22:29Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> No, they’re suggesting “left” is the new “black”
We’ve got rhythm. Also, this thread is stupid. Is liberal often used as a pejorative? Sure. Is it in any way similar to nigger? No.
---
### Author:  [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2010, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-liberal-the-new-nigger/534534/34 "2010-04-01T16:26:01Z")
> [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](#):
>
> Consider a quote from chapter 2 of Howard Zinn’s ‘A People’s History of the United States’:
Yeah, but Charles Manson disagrees with that assessment, so it’s a stalemate.
---
### Author:  [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2010, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-liberal-the-new-nigger/534534/35 "2010-04-01T16:28:00Z")
I thought atheists were the new niggers?
---
### Author:  [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2010, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-liberal-the-new-nigger/534534/36 "2010-04-01T16:33:23Z")
> [@tomndebb](#):
>
> Quite disingenuous.
>
> The slavery that existed in Africa prior to the arrival of Arab and European raiders (and that continues today) was and is not a good thing, but it was of a completely different sort than the ethnic based chattel slavery imposed by the outside groups. Zinn’s errors are not well offset by making claims as silly as his.
True. Slavery that predated the slave trade to the west was often one of the spoils of war, where either side might have found themselves slaves. It was also used, and still is in some parts of the world, as a way to pay debts through free labor; a form of extreme indentured servitude. Again, where either party could find himself on the losing side. The chattel slavery in the U.S. and the west was based on one group viewing the other as less then men.
---
### Author:  [@Blaster\_Master](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blaster_Master)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2010, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-liberal-the-new-nigger/534534/37 "2010-04-01T16:42:53Z")
I think the OP is off his rocker. Yes, some people use liberal as a pejorative, but nigger is several magnitudes worse. Moreso, how many people actually get offended by being called liberal? I know plenty of liberals, who self identify as liberal, and yet somehow they should be offended by being called something they call themselves? The only people I see use it as a pejorative are conservatives, who perhaps see it as a pretty serious insult, but people they would call that probably don’t take them seriously anyway.
And just to give a comparison, I see pretty much the same from the other side, with liberals using conservative, or Republican, or pub, or whatever as a pejorative and it has absolutely no sting on them either.
I do think terms like socialist, communist, fascist, nazi, etc. might actually carry a bit of a sting, but it’s difficult to use those terms without it looking like you’re exaggerating, and they’re still miles away from nigger.
---
### Author:  [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2010, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-liberal-the-new-nigger/534534/38 "2010-04-01T17:09:47Z")
> [@msmith537](#):
>
> “Liberal” is the new “nigger” like Oasis was the new Beatles.
>
> Really, does anyone besides me find the OP disingenuous and a bit offensive? People use words to label and paint dispersions on other groups all the time. But it is ridiculous to equate being called a Liberal with the 400 years of racial oppression the word “Niger” invokes.
>
> You are not oppressed for your Liberal beliefs. You aren’t prevented from living in certain neighborhoods or taking certain jobs or marrying certain women. You aren’t taken out back and beaten or killed for being liberal. You might be ridiculed or disagreed with, but get over it.
>
> This whole line of discussion strikes me as nothing more than an attempt by the OP to lend weight and validity to his beliefs by casting himself as an oppressed minority.
Nitpick. The word is not quite that old. From the OED:
> [@](#):
>
> nigger, n.
>
> (ˈnɪgə(r))
>
> Also niggar.
>
> [Alteration of neger. Cf. also niger and nigre.]
>
> 1. a.1.a A Negro. (Colloq. and usu. contemptuous.) Except in Black English vernacular, where it remains common, now virtually restricted to contexts of deliberate and contemptuous ethnic abuse.
>
> 1786 Burns Ordination iv, How graceless Ham leugh at his Dad, Which made Canaan a nigger. 1811 Byron in Mem. F. Hodgson (1878) I. 195 The rest of the world—niggers and what not. 1818 H. B. Fearon Sk. …
---
### Author:  [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2010, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-liberal-the-new-nigger/534534/39 "2010-04-01T17:23:28Z")
Fo sheezy, ma lizy!
What I want to know is why is it okay for liberals to call other liberals “liberal” but it’s not okay for conservatives to call them “liberals”!
---
### Author:  [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2010, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-liberal-the-new-nigger/534534/40 "2010-04-01T17:46:10Z")
> [@msmith537](#):
>
> This whole line of discussion strikes me as nothing more than an attempt by the OP to lend weight and validity to his beliefs by casting himself as an oppressed minority.
Yeah, no fair. That’s the conservative game plan! 😉
[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-liberal-the-new-nigger/534534.md?page=1)
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-liberal-the-new-nigger/534534.md?page=3)