I’ll take that as a no.
But if you only look at behavior, you can’t distinguish use of words as slurs vs. other use. Or possibly even context.
I thought it was closer to a yes, if I understood your question correctly, I just don’t think this particularly matters for the larger question.
I think you can, at least some of the time. When it’s not possible, then it’s still reasonable to discuss whether one thinks it was an appropriate or inappropriate usage based on the context available.
Then I don’t understand. How can you just look at behavior - flying a confederate flag - and not motives - why they say they are flying that flag - and discern racist motive vs. non-racist motive? Isn’t racism about motive? Or if it’s about behavior, then all confederate flag-flying is racist? I am confused.
Why can’t you just ask?
I didn’t understand your question, apparently, because this confuses me.
You can, but in my view “I didn’t mean it to be racist” doesn’t always mean that one successfully avoided doing or saying something that was racist or otherwise problematic.
Okay but never mind, I think we’re getting there.
Sure, but you could ask more questions. My point is simply that motive matters. It may not be the only thing that matters, but it’s relevant. Something I’ve been saying all along in this thread.
So, donning your cape to fight racism wherever it might be—correction: whoever you imagine it might be—and indirectly labelling people as racist in the process, is more important to you than not indirectly labelling non-racists as racist.
Whether it is intentional or not, that is what you’re doing.
And please, save the “but I might say something racist and I appreciate being called on it, because it makes me a better person” pablum.
Who have I (directly or indirectly) labeled as racist, and who have I incorrectly labeled as racist?
I know you disagree with my arguments, but who specifically have I wronged, in your view? I’ll spare the “pablum” since you asked so nicely, but that is indeed a part of my reasoning.
Are you at all sure about that? It wasn’t just a sudden explosion that the main stream media started painting Republicans with ‘all the sudden’ because I can sure tell you that this time last year “thug” was a perfectly non racial word.
Now someone has told you and others that it is, in fact, a racist word because, well because the MSM decided so.
Where was that evolutionary process?
You do it, indirectly, overtime you insist that a statement is racist. Especially when you know, and sometimes even admit, that it is not necessarily so.
Which cases, specifically, do you object to? Whom have I wronged, specifically? If I’ve wronged someone, I want to apologize and learn from my mistake.
You used the word “niggardly” in my presence. Apologize and learn from your mistake!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/longterm/williams/williams020499.htm
Seriously, my point is that sometimes you have nothing to apologize for and not all claims of being wronged are legitimate. The above is an extreme example of that.
It has to be a legitimate wronging though. Look at the tactic Islam has adopted to prevent critique. You agree with that? Using the pretense of being “wronged” or “offended” to de-facto censor? It’s ironic that the modern left has adopted one of the most dangerous tactics of an enemy of classical liberalism.
The excellence of this point cannot be overestimated.
Well said.
No idea what this is responding too.
Confused - Are you saying Islam is “the modern left?”
Not at all. They just have a similarity in at least one aspect.
Perhaps they aren’t the only ones who share this similarity then. Perhaps groups you favor may do it too.
Without a doubt. Censoring and demonizing speech and those who speak is not a rare property for groups that have ambitions.
Censoring is a far cry from condemning. The equivocation you engage in, in which you treat compulsory censorship and negative speech as equivalent responses to speech, is intellectually bankrupt.
Huh?