Context is all, young Jedi.
Of course the rules accommodate it.
Someone posted a mildly offensive and old joke which was not targeted against anyone in particular. Another poster got their panties in a bunch and came off the top rope with a post full of bile and venom. One got a note the other a warning. It’s that simple. You don’t have to pick apart the wording of the rules to explain it.
That’s because you haven’t shown any logic to being able to be bigotted against one group of people but not another. The word nigger is wrong to use because it is bigoted, not because there’s something inherently wrong with the word. You can keep shouting that it’s about language until you’re blue in the face, but it doesn’t actually explain anything.
Just come out and say it. The word “nigger” offends you. It’s a social more, and we’ve been culturally programmed to find it offensive. Bigotry against blacks is offensive to us at a deep level. Bigotry against Southerners is not. Thus, you governed by your feelings, and gave the guy who offended you the bigger punishment.
Because it’s obvious you are just making up reasons after the fact. You shout context, but it’s clear from context that he was making a “joke” to show how offensive the conversation was to him. You always claim intent matters, but it’s clear he had no intent of actually calling anyone a “nigger.” You claim he was cited for language, but, as repeatedly pointed out, that exact word has been used before, hence language was not enough. You then claim “junior moderating,” but posters have been doing this specific action forever–someone offends you with a post, so you make a post back offending them. Plus, you almost never actually moderate for junior modding.
None of your explanations hold water because you refuse to point out that it was an emotional reaction that caused you to give the guy a Warning. The word offended YOU, so you punished him. Then you added the mod notes so you wouldn’t seem like you were singling him out.
Are you goddamn kidding? You think that black people in the US are in a position of respect by the culture at large?
I thought Canada was the part of America we got to make fun of…
I just realized my post might be misinterpreted. I don’t actually have a problem with the idea that something that actually offends the mods deserves a warning. They have “thick skins”, as they say. It’s fair to assume that, if something general offends them greatly, it offends others’ greatly.
But that’s an entirely different type of logic than what has been used in this thread. No one wants to admit that, yes, it is more offensive to use a certain racial epithet than it is to make fun of Southerners. And that’s because that’s how our society works. The mods aren’t here to create social norms.
My problem with this thread is that no one wants to admit that. No one wants to admit to jtgain that he is right–“nigger” is more offensive than anything people can say about Southerners. It’s not fair, but that’s just the way it is.
If anything, I think the mods are too thick skinned, most of the time, and expect too much out of the regular posters.
If you can’t read both posts and not see the difference between the two in tone and content I don’t know what to say.
But in this case they didn’t.
The post was clearly satirizing the views of another.
No, I’m saying that the argument seems to be that the reason West Virginians can be treated poorly is because they haven’t been treated as poorly as blacks.
It’s kind of non-sensical.
Nope. Looks like the whole affair went over your head.
Breathtakingly ugly? Nasty Bigotry?
Perhaps a little perspective is needed here.
Yes. Thats the case. Its way too deep for me.
Nothing nonsensical about it. I might punch my friends in the arm, jokingly, and at worst they’ll find it obnoxious and annoying behavior. But if I have a friend whose arm was repeatedly broken in the same place, and I punch him there, he’s going to find that a lot more than obnoxious. Because he was injured in the past, I need to go out of my way not to injure him in the same way in the future.
Same thing here. Saying repulsive things about other groups is jerkish behavior, granted; when snotty liberal say repulsive things about the South, it’s really annoying to me. But saying the sort of repulsive things about black people that have accompanied centuries of vicious, sometimes murderous, oppression–that’s different. Because of historic terrible treatment, yeah, you gotta go out of your way not to continue the pattern.
Perspective would indeed serve you. When someone is making the claim (even jokingly) that everyone from an area is incestuous, that’s nasty, and it’s bigotry. What else could it possibly be?
I think the sheer ubiquity of such jokes about the South can make them look acceptable to certain folks. They’re not acceptable.
(and tom, on reflection, are you really sure you’ve heard vitriol from Southerners toward the North that’s equal to the nastiness that flows in the opposite direction? I’ve heard northerners called carpetbaggers, jerks, etc., but I haven’t heard nasty things said about their sexual habits.)
Let’s tweak that a little.
You punch your friend in the arm and cause extensive bruising and tendon damage.
You break your other friend’s arm.
Does this make the bruising and tendon damage perfectly okay?
This is pure moral relativity. The fact that one group isn’t abused as badly as another doesn’t make the abuse okay.
But it shouldn’t be annoying to you. It should be just fine, since it’s not the same thing as saying snotty things about blacks. Right?
No its not. To change the example that we are originally talking about so as to leave race out of it.
See the difference? In this case both deal with the same stereotype but one is a lot more venomous and deliberate and should be dealt with harsher. Thats not even taking into account that the first one was obviously an old joke and the second one was not.
Note: both should be dealt with in GQ as being inappropriate. Its a matter of degree of Mod action.
Why?
A minor wrong is still a wrong, even if it’s not as wrong as a big one.
Interestingly, you just did what the OP did: use offensive language to illustrate a point. To me, that’s the real difference – someone peppering their posts with rude stereotypes is a completely different animal than someone using harsh language to carry an analogy.
I can see the argument that GQ is not the place to lecture other posters on stereotypes, but I don’t think the language that was used is by itself worthy of sanction.
What you’re saying is that there is a difference between comparable offensiveness directed at blacks versus other groups, since they have a history of greater suffering.
Possibly you would extend this to other groups as well, and have some sort of sliding scale of how offensive one can be for various groups, based on your opinion of how much oppression they’ve suffered.
I think this is all ridiculous, but it would be useful if a staff member would comment on whether this - or some comparable variant - represents actual Board policy.
You’ve got that backwards. jtgain is the one arguing that he is just as offended by southerner incest jokes as racist jokes are to black folks. That’s why he used that term.
Degree is a well-ingrained concept in jurisprudence. That’s why there is misdemeanor assault and felony assault, or murder in the first, second, and third degrees. Or even misdemeanor vs felony criminal mischief (i.e. damaging property). Punishments are scaled to fit the crime, as it were. Traffic fines are higher for speeding faster.