List of acceptable racial slurs by political leaning

About This Message Board
41

Oh, for fuck’s sake. If you were honestly “floored” by this revelation, you badly need to calibrate your outrage meter.

Regardless of the ORIGIN of the word “kike,” it’s now universally understood to be an extremely derogatory term for a Jew, and pretty much the worst thing you can call someone Jewish (in English, anyway).

“Oreo,” by contrast is miles away from the worst slur you can use against a black person. It’s mildly derogatory at worst.

You guys are really reaching. That said, I appreciate the irony that a thread about Al Sharpton spawned an overblown campaign of agenda-driven faux outrage.

42

You quoted Miler saying that “nigger” is one of the most egregious slurs, and that it’s one of the insults for which the hate speech rule has been invoked in the past. That would make it pretty obvious “house nigger” wouldn’t be acceptable. I’m not aware of a Pit mod ruling one way or the other on “house negro,” although these comments from tomndebb (in a non-modding capacity) on the usage of the word are interesting. I don’t know if we’ve had discussions about this in the past.

Nobody said “oreo” is worse than anything.

I don’t think you mischaracterized the ruling. I think you’ve presumed that his comment about “oreo” has implications about other terms, and there’s no particular basis for the presumption. You’re saying other terms are equivalent to oreo and I’m not sure you are right, and I want to make it clear the equivalence is your opinion and not something the mods have said.

In terms of evaluating how insulting a word is, the origin is interesting but generally less important than its current meaning is more important than its origin. Otherwise we could sit here and argue that “oreo” isn’t an insult, it’s a cookie. These days, “kike” and “wop” are used as insults against any Jews and Italians and they’re used by non-Jews and Italians. So they’re not very similar to “oreo.” From what I can see, there are several proposed origins for “kike” (I wasn’t aware it was ever anything except an insulting word used against Jews) andyour assertion about the original meaning of “wop” seems to be wrong.

43

See, y’all, tain’t so hard to understand. What you need to understand is, how to handle the coloreds.

You treat a colored right, there ain’t no more loyal critter on earth. He’s grateful, ya see? He knows what side his bread is buttered on, and he’s rightful glad of it. Hereabouts we know how to handle our coloreds, and they’re rightful glad to be here. Why, some of our best moderators are coloreds!

But y’see, oncet in a while you run across a colored who don’t know his place. Sometimes, Lord only knows why, they aren’t proper grateful for what they have been given, and once you start letting one colored get uppity, there’s no end to the trouble he can cause, getting all the proper grateful coloreds all stirred up.

So what we do hereabouts, is that you can call the uppity ones names. We got a list of the names you can use, and it’s pretty safe, because nobody ever uses those names for anyone except the uppity coloreds. And Lord knows the uppity ones deserve to be called names!

“Oreo” is like that-there. Nobody is gonna call a nice, proper-grateful colored, who knows better than to vote Republican or talk back to his betters about politics, an “oreo”. Wouldn’t make sense, now would it? But an uppity one? Shoot fire, that’s just when we need to do it!

So, ya see, it’s all perfect simple and clear. You can call someone an Uncle Tom, you can call them an Oreo - that’s just dandy, because you would never do that unless the colored in question refused to support Democrat like he should. But you can’t call him anything else, because anything else might apply to the good, grateful, non-uppity coloreds and then they might get upset.

Regards,
Shodan

44

Shodan, I’d say that’s about 50 paces over the “being a jerk” line. This is a formal warning.

45

Wait, was **Shodan **being serious? I took that as an elegantly-written snark (notice the typed accent affectation) on the topic under discussion.

46

Yeah, that’s pretty clearly a comment on the perceived double standard implied in the thread title. Marley was obliging enough to underscore Shodan’s point.

47

I took it as snark that seemed calculated to annoy because it accused a bunch of people of being racist and spoke patronizingly of black people. And that’s how I moderated it.

48

No it’s not. Putting the word “house” before the word “nigger” dramatically changes the things.

So far Miller hasn’t explained his reasoning or ruling, but several people have expressed the opinion that it’s wrong to compare “oreo” to “wop” or “kike” because the latter two are terms that are generally used as insults for ALL Italians and Jews while OREO only refers to certain types of black people.

Well, the same is true of the term house nigger and house negro. I’ve never heard either used as a reference to all black people but only to black people who would also be called “oreos”.

Here’s Malcolm X, one of the most influential and brilliant African-American and Muslim leaders of the past several decades who popularized the term.

I should add, that one of my professors, who helped craft the school’s rulings on hate speech referred to Clarence Thomas as “the Republicans house nigger” though, to his credit, not in class or acting in an official capacity.

In fact, the only difference I see between the terms house nigger and house negro versus oreo is that the latter tends to be used by whites to refer to people who some blacks call house negroes and house niggers.

So no, it’s not clear to me why house nigger or house negro would be considered worse than oreo and it seems to me that if we’re going to argue that it’s not against the board rules to refer to some black posters as oreos then it should also be within the board rules to refer to them as house negroes or house niggers also.

For the record, I don’t think we should be allowed to use racial epithets at all and thought it was a bad ruling on Miller’s part.

No it’s not. It was popularly thought to come from the phrase “without papers” but actually it came from an Italian slang term “Guappo” which was used as an insult for Italians who today might be termed Guidos.

49

I understand it makes for a different insult, but since it still incorporates the same racial slur, I don’t see why we’d even think about treating it differently.

I don’t care enough about this to get into an argument about it, but for the record, I did post a cite and it didn’t say anything about “without papers.” It did say that the term was an insult for people from a particular part of Italy and didn’t have anything to do with embarrassing the community or acting like a stereotype. The current meaning of the term is not in dispute, and while both are repugnant, it’s not used in a way similar to oreo.

50

I just realized that no one has asked you to explain your ruling so I guess I will and also to see about other racial epithets that one can use in the pit as insults directed against other posters.

So, why did you decide that it wasn’t a violation of the board rules to use the term “oreo” as an insult to refer to a black poster?

Second, does that also mean that Bob could have referred to OMG as an Uncle Tom, a house negro, or a house nigger as well?

I’ll be honest and say that I see no reason why if “oreo” is considered acceptable but discouraged that Uncle Tom, house negro, and house nigger are also considered acceptable because they are all variations on the same theme and are clearly directed at the same group of people.

Third, is it within to refer to some Italian posters as “wops” in the Pit. If not, then why not?

Fourth, since it is okay to use at least some racial slurs referring to black posters, then we should have some racial slurs to refer to white posters.

Can one refer to white posters one doesn’t like as “peckerwood” or would that be considered a violation of the rules?

If it would be considered a violation of the board rules then why while oreo isn’t?

51

I don’t know if you are drawing a distinction between “calculated to annoy” and “disagreeing yet again with the moderation, but via parody this time”.

But the patronization was not mine. I think this kind of double standard, where black Democrats are protected from racial slurs but Republican ones are not, is patronizing. Certainly I do, and that was part of what I was trying to get across. Apparently it worked.

I should say I am not necessarily protesting my warning. If you want to call it jerkish when a post strikes too close to home, that’s your right.

Regards,
Shodan

52

Because it’s used differently for different reasons and applied to different people.

Again, I think the use of racial slurs in the pit should be banned entirely and that allowing them serves no purpose while clearly causing problems.

53

You’ve GOT to be fucking kidding!

rachelellogram had it right. But I think Shodan turned you into his marionette on this one. In your world intentionally insulting a black poster by calling him and oreo does not merit a warning, but some elegant snark making a point about it, while not calling another poster names, does.

You need to revoke that Warning immediately and apologize to Shodan. That was one of THE worst moderator calls I’ve ever seen.

Unbelievable.

54

Before we go too far on this, it is not my intent to turn anyone into a marionette. I was trying to make a point about the idea that any black who isn’t a Democrat is betraying his race and thereby becomes a legitimate target for racial insults.

Apparently I did make the point. Perhaps a little too strongly for some tastes.

Regards,
Shodan

PS- Very belated kudoes to BobLibDem for his handsome apology. Nonetheless, I think the ruling is still a legitimate subject for discussion.

55

Nope. His user name does two things: conveys that he’s black and his politics are not lockstep with most blacks. There is nothing disparaging about that, is there? As you say “oreo” goes further than that. It’s nasty and insulting. BUt it’s not like calling someone an asshole. It’s a racial attack designed to strip the person of his own identity. Yeah you have black, skin, but you’re not really black because of the way you act or think.

It seems based on your analysis, any poster who describes himself as black can then be referred to as “nigger”. No? Why not? It’s “just a nasty and insulting shorthand way to describe him the same way he chooses to describe himself.”

56

We wouldn’t have this forum if disagreeing yet with the moderation over and over were a warnable offense. So it’s the first one. To the extent you’re making fun of what BobLibDem said, you’re right - it’s a presumptuous, dumb thing to say, for which he apologized even though he seems to have stood by the general idea. To the extent you’re accusing liberals and the staff of racism and tossing out patronizing references to black people in an effort to be cute, then yes, it’s deliberately annoying and doesn’t contribute to the discussion. I’m sorry to deflate your conviction that your parody struck a nerve, but my experience is that false accusations are pretty annoying, too.

Then I think we have common ground here. I agree (and I’ve agreed in the past) that that’s a dumb thing to say.

Right or wrong, I prefer any discussions of moderation to be made on the merits instead of having them turn into political debates as one faction of posters or another claims everything is further evidence of bias against their cause. The more people cry “see the violence inherent in the system,” the harder it is to discuss the actual moderating.

57

Ouch. Bad moderating decision, IMO.

I’m not sure what my ruling would be on the whole “oreo” thing, and i wasn’t going to weigh in on the matter, but i don’t think your warning to Shodan was fair at all.

Even if i disagree with it, the point he was making is pretty clear: it’s a point about consistency of moderation, and an assertion that political considerations factor into the moderation process. I think that, like a few other conservatives on this board, Shodan is too quick on the trigger with accusations of political bias in the moderating, but i still don’t think that post deserved a warning.

ETA:

I’ve now seen your most recent post. I get what you’re trying to say, but right or wrong, some people clearly believe that political factors frequently intrude into moderating decisions on this board. I don’t think it’s productive to simply shut down such concerns by claiming that they detract from the merits of the issue. For those people, they constitute a fundamental part of the merits of the issue.

58

Intent or not, his response supported the double standard.

59

Marley didn’t make the call as to whether or not calling a black poster an oreo merits a warning. That was Miller.

The mods are human beings and often have to make judgement calls and sometimes different human beings make different judgement calls. It’s possible that Marley might have given a warning to Bob and also that Miller might have decided that Shodan didn’t cross the line, but I think it’s a bit unfair to judge a ruling Marley made in one forum based on a ruling made by Miller in a different forum with different rules.

I know I can be a bit tough to get along with at times and I’ve had disagreements with Marley in the past and undoubtedly will in the future as well but he’s always struck me as being quite fair and thoughtful.

I don’t have as much experience with Miller and suspect he’s a bit annoyed with me because he gave me a formal warning in the Sharpton thread for this comment after he understandably misinterpreted a joke I made that in retrospect I should have made clear was a joke not a criticism of his ruling.

That said, Miller also has always struck me as being quite fair and thoughtful.

However, I think people who are fair and thoughtful can make bad judgement calls and in the case of Bob’s oreo remark, I think he did.

60

Sure it does. It made the point very well. As did your reaction to it. I while it was “deliberate”, you chose to “annoyed” by it. Liberal blacks like to disparage black conservatives, even on the election trail. And the moderation here appears to think that just fine. Unsurprisingly, I might add. And if you are “annoyed” by someone pointing out that the moderation on this board leans one way, like the rest of the board, you may want to stop by the skin store and get a thicker one.