# 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:** 3
### Author:  [@PatriotGrrrl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotGrrrl)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2010, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-liberal-the-new-nigger/534534/41 "2010-04-01T17:51:56Z")
Help, help, they’re being repressed!
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### Author:  [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2010, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-liberal-the-new-nigger/534534/42 "2010-04-01T17:58:53Z")
Come see the name-calling inherent in the system!
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### Author:  [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2010, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-liberal-the-new-nigger/534534/43 "2010-04-01T18:32:09Z")
There is a simple way to test this. As a conservative, go up to a bunch of liberals and say ‘What are you liberals doing around here?’. Then, as a white (for us non-whites, the best thing would be to hire a white person to do this test for you…heck, you might want to do this even if you are white) go into Philadelphia or LA or DC and go up to a group of blacks and say ‘What are you niggers doing around here?’…and see if you get the same reaction.
My guess is that, assuming you survive the second test, you will notice a subtle difference…
-XT
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### Author:  [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2010, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-liberal-the-new-nigger/534534/44 "2010-04-01T18:33:11Z")
No Viet Cong ever called me “liberal.”
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### Author:  [@Perciful](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Perciful)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2010, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-liberal-the-new-nigger/534534/45 "2010-04-01T20:02:12Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#):
>
> I thought atheists were the new niggers?
🆒
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### Author:  [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2010, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-liberal-the-new-nigger/534534/46 "2010-04-01T20:57:07Z")
I have heard someone say liberal in a way that I had to do a double take, thinking they said the other word.
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### Author:  [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2010, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-liberal-the-new-nigger/534534/47 "2010-04-01T22:19:41Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> No, they’re suggesting “left” is the new “black”
I thought ‘taupe’ was the new ‘black’.
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2010, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-liberal-the-new-nigger/534534/48 "2010-04-01T22:37:26Z")
What do _you_ mean, “you people” ?
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### Author:  [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2010, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-liberal-the-new-nigger/534534/49 "2010-04-02T00:46:25Z")
> [@magellan01](#):
>
> 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.
Err, I’m not sure the distinction is that clear cut.
> [@](#):
>
> Most slaves in Niger today are the descendents of slaves who were kidnapped in wars and raids centuries ago, and were simply born into their status.
>
> Many slaves in Niger are appallingly abused by their masters.
>
> Slave children are taken away from their parents before they are two-years-old, to break the bonds between parent and child and to eliminate any sense of identity.
>
> The children grow up working in the house of the master.
>
> Assibit, a former slave (Photo: Anti-Slavery International)
> Assibit was born into slavery, as was her mother and her husband
>
> The slave owners encourage the slaves to reproduce to increase their numbers, sometimes even determining when they have sexual intercourse.
>
> They treat the slaves like their cattle.
>
> Slaves are often beaten for small misdemeanours.
>
> They work long hours and are sometimes deprived of food as punishment.
>
> There are documented cases of slaves being stripped naked in front of their families to humiliate them, of female slaves being raped by their owners, and even of male slaves being castrated by their owners as punishment…
>
> Ending slavery in Niger would require a social revolution.
>
> \*\*An entire section of the population would have to be taught that they are not intrinsically inferior to others, but that is what they have believed for generations. \*\*
[BBC NEWS | Programmes | From Our Own Correspondent | Born to be a slave in Niger](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/4250709.stm)
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### Author:  [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2010, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-liberal-the-new-nigger/534534/50 "2010-04-02T02:05:26Z")
> [@tomndebb](#):
>
> Beyond that, of course, “liberal” was never an epithet invented by some power elite to disparage a class of people. It was the accepted term for a serious political movement that came under a shadow when the movement, itself, ran out of steam, (or changed directions, depending on who is telling the story).
Fair enough. But while it wasn’t invented for such a purpose, ITSM to be propagandized today in a way meant to pack it with as much negativity as possible. There seems to be a conscious effort to make it an epithet.
> [@](#):
>
> For that matter, Zinn’s analysis of race is flawed. Clearly, there were efforts to make sure that the disparate elements of the lower classes were kept separate, but that was hardly some Illuminati-inspired effort to “create” a situation, but more of a natural progression in which all elements of society, (already stratisfied by class), sought to ensure that no class “lost status” to any other. Zinn attempts to portray a devious plot, manufactured and instigated by cunning overlords, when it probably had a lot more to do with the normal actions of humans. This is not to say that there was no manipulation from the ruling class, but it probably had more to do with their recognition that while white indentured servants could flee to a different colony and blend in among other free workers, enslaving black servants made it much easier to identify runaways.
Well, I’d like to hear more of your criticism of Zinn. Your portrayal does seem a little off though. The social stratification itself is presented as designed, with Indians treated as nothings, blacks as completely disenfranchised slaves, and various other groups intentionally allowed various degrees of freedom and access to certain career choices, for instance. It was after that that people’s desire not to ‘lose status’ kept groups at loggerheads. I don’t remember the word ‘Illuminati’ ever being used either.
Point being, is the above claim what you are disputing?
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### Author:  [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2010, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-liberal-the-new-nigger/534534/51 "2010-04-02T02:13:32Z")
Where’s my forty acres and a mule?
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### Author:  [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2010, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-liberal-the-new-nigger/534534/52 "2010-04-02T02:16:09Z")
> [@msmith537](#):
>
> 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.
All right, there is some lack of proportion here. But my ears detect a conscious effort to make ‘liberal’ a dirty word. It is like a melodrama- the audience is supposed to start hissing when they hear it, freeing the speaker from having to actually make a point. And go on from there in a discriminatory, pejorative mode.
> [@](#):
>
> You are not oppressed for your Liberal beliefs.
It may yet me my bad, but I still don’t have a clear idea of exactly what ‘liberal beliefs’ are. However, I have been accused of being a liberal, and yes I was literally oppressed over it. Not now however.
> [@](#):
>
> You aren’t prevented from living in certain neighborhoods or taking certain jobs or marrying certain women.
But I really was.
> [@](#):
>
> You aren’t taken out back and beaten or killed for being liberal.
I still have the scars on my face that prove I was beaten over it. More specifically, I was attacked for responding to scathing accusations of being a liberal with an insistence that the word be defined and then definitively mapped to my behavior. Unable to define their terms and exposed as idiots, they resorted to physically attacking me.
> [@](#):
>
> You might be ridiculed or disagreed with, but get over it.
Thanks for the advice. If that is all it ever was I doubt I’d have this hangup though.
> [@](#):
>
> 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.
Nope. Just wondering if others see it the way I do.
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### Author:  [@PBear42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PBear42)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2010, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-liberal-the-new-nigger/534534/53 "2010-04-02T02:41:59Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#):
>
> Come see the name-calling inherent in the system!
Curses! Beaten to the punch. And with a better line than I had in mind.
Oh, and the OP is balderdash. Or you could save two letters and use another word that begins with “b.”
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### Author:  [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2010, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-liberal-the-new-nigger/534534/54 "2010-04-02T03:27:04Z")
> [@xtisme](#):
>
> There is a simple way to test this. As a conservative, go up to a bunch of liberals and say ‘What are you liberals doing around here?’. Then, as a white (for us non-whites, the best thing would be to hire a white person to do this test for you…heck, you might want to do this even if you are white) go into Philadelphia or LA or DC and go up to a group of blacks and say ‘What are you niggers doing around here?’…and see if you get the same reaction.
>
> My guess is that, assuming you survive the second test, you will notice a subtle difference…
>
> -XT
Yes. A cynical but effective test. I am getting caught in my hyperbole.
Consider another test: Take a cubic meter of airspace- preferably one with good reception. Take all the radio waves and TV waves, maybe satellite and cell.. all the signals that pass through this cube of space per unit time. Now consider all the negative messages packed into the word ‘liberal’ in these signals, in this space, in this unit of time. Weigh that.
I bet ‘liberal’ is one of the ‘heaviest’ words today in these terms. Suggesting it is being deliberately packed with negativity to give it oratorical force or something. Have you not noticed any such phenomenon?
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### Author:  [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2010, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-liberal-the-new-nigger/534534/55 "2010-04-02T04:49:54Z")
> [@xtisme](#):
>
> There is a simple way to test this. As a conservative, go up to a bunch of liberals and say ‘What are you liberals doing around here?’. Then, as a white (for us non-whites, the best thing would be to hire a white person to do this test for you…heck, you might want to do this even if you are white) go into Philadelphia or LA or DC and go up to a group of blacks and say ‘What are you niggers doing around here?’…and see if you get the same reaction.
>
> My guess is that, assuming you survive the second test, you will notice a subtle difference…
>
> -XT
[Rex Kramer did this](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7S5BP-tvR8)!
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### Author:  [@figure9](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/figure9)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2010, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-liberal-the-new-nigger/534534/56 "2010-04-02T11:53:41Z")
I think there is some connection between nigger and liberal. Both words put a person into a defined category and take away from individual differences. Both can be used as a degrading stereotype. I think in some peoples eyes liberals are a subspecies of human that just aren’t smart enough to understand the world.
Although liberal does not have the racial overtones as nigger. It is a word used to stereotype and marginalize a group of people. Is liberal the new word for nigger? No not really. Are there similarities in how the words are used? I think so.
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### Author:  [@figure9](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/figure9)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2010, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-liberal-the-new-nigger/534534/57 "2010-04-02T11:55:27Z")
I agree with you that the word liberal is poorly defined. I once asked someone what a liberal was and was told, “a liberal is a person with liberal values.” What are liberal values I asked. “Liberal values are values that are liberal.”
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### Author:  [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2010, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-liberal-the-new-nigger/534534/58 "2010-04-02T12:21:37Z")
> [@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?
_I’ve been loved and put aside
I’ve been crushed by the tumbling tide
And my soul has been hemegonized_
Actually you mean _hegemonized_. And I’m not sure that’s a word either (can you hegemonize your Chevy for a really great shine\*)?
I do know that whenever I see someone blatting on about the “elites” and “hegemony” my eyes glaze over and I know the arguments are going to be bogus.
Yep, advocates on the right and left have been using labels to demonize each other since time immemorial. “Liberal” is definitely out of mode; the new/old term of opprobrium for the left is “socialist”, which is pretty funny coming from people whose Medicare you’d never be able to strip from their cold, gnarly hands.
I’d say the OP is the reincarnation of **Smash The State** but doesn’t sound nearly crazy enough for that.
Excuse me, gotta take my assault rifle into Starbucks and get me some latte.
\*no racial allusion intended.
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### Author:  [@adhay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adhay)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2010, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-liberal-the-new-nigger/534534/59 "2010-04-02T13:58:54Z")
> [@tomndebb](#):
>
> …
> For that matter, Zinn’s analysis of race is flawed. Clearly, there were efforts to make sure that the disparate elements of the lower classes were kept separate, but that was hardly some Illuminati-inspired effort to “create” a situation, but more of a natural progression in which all elements of society, (already stratisfied by class), sought to ensure that no class “lost status” to any other. Zinn attempts to portray a devious plot, manufactured and instigated by cunning overlords, when it probably had a lot more to do with the normal actions of humans. This is not to say that there was no manipulation from the ruling class, but it probably had more to do with their recognition that while white indentured servants could flee to a different colony and blend in among other free workers, enslaving black servants made it much easier to identify runaways.
From the WIKI article [Divide and rule](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divide_and_rule).
> [@](#):
>
> Likewise James Madison recommends in a letter to Thomas Jefferson of 24 October 1787 [5], summarizing the thesis of The Federalist #10 [6]: “Divide et impera, the reprobated axiom of tyranny, is under certain qualifications, the only policy, by which a republic can be administered on just principles.”
Let me summarize, if the wealthy 10%, united in their wealth, can keep the poor 90% squabbling among themselves over whatever, all is well.
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### Author:  [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2010, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-liberal-the-new-nigger/534534/60 "2010-04-02T14:04:17Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#):
>
> Actually you mean _hegemonized_. And I’m not sure that’s a word either (can you hegemonize your Chevy for a really great shine\*)?
>
> I do know that whenever I see someone blatting on about the “elites” and “hegemony” my eyes glaze over and I know the arguments are going to be bogus.
Thanks for the correction. That is the kind of word you usually would only hear at an academic conference, huh? I was struggling for what word to use there. Maybe I should have said ‘cement’. Sorry to use your least favorite word. “Is hegemonzie” the new “sleeping pill”? 😛
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