[QUOTE=Monty]
Same chick?
[/QUOTE]
They only have one but move her around a lot using efficient just-in-time inventory control.
Did you refer to all blacks of that era as “niggers?” If not than this is not analogous.
Sigh. I can’t imagine anything more difficult than a discussion with people who cannot tell the difference between a political party and a race of people, so I won’t attempt to.
Yup, but damn, she’s worth it.
[QUOTE=Who_me?]
Cracker isn’t the equivalent of nigger. It’s no where close. People can call me cracker all day long and it wouldn’t bother me.
[/QUOTE]
If I can find a black man who is not offended by “nigger” would that make it OK?
[QUOTE=Bryan Ekers]
Yep, better to nip this sort of thing in the bud.
[/QUOTE]
(bolding mine)
Am I the only one to catch Ekers “joke” here? (Note, Bryan, I’m not accusing you of being racist.) “Nip” being short for “Nippon” or “Nipponese” which the Japanese were at one time being referred to as.
I’ve always heard the terms “Nips” and “Japs” used as slurs. Mind you, it doesn’t bother me if someone who served in WW II uses them, but if I hear anyone too young to have served in WW II say it, I tend to get offended.
[QUOTE=groman]
I’ve always felt that people who view every mention of race as racist are themselves insecure about their background.
[/QUOTE]
Funny, I think the same thing about people so nuts they have to write graf after graf to explain why it’s not that they’re huge fucking assholes, but actually smarter and better than everybody else that makes them want the right to call people Japs and kikes.
[QUOTE=Tuckerfan]
(bolding mine)
Am I the only one to catch Ekers “joke” here?
[/QUOTE]
No.
[QUOTE=Monty]
Funny thing is that out of all my time in Japan, I met exactly zero foreigners who didn’t like the term gaijin being used to refer to them.
[/QUOTE]
Huh. Perhaps the Japanese government actually realized that using hateful language says a lot more about those who use it than those who are the target of it. At least, when used knowingly.
[QUOTE=Who_me?]
Cracker isn’t the equivalent of nigger. It’s no where close. People can call me cracker all day long and it wouldn’t bother me.
[/QUOTE]
:rolleyes:
As said by Contrapuntal:
I just love the strange verbal and mental gymnastics by some that “cracker” is not a racial slur, not an insult, or that it’s even an innocuous word meaning, in one common definition, a white resident of the far Southeast US. It’s great that people can miss the point and Google to online dictionaries and find alternate meanings for it, or that a College team is named “Crackers”. It means little. If it’s used as a racial slur, then, surprise, it is a racial slur*. That’s sort of been the whole point of this thread here, as people have been lecturing to non-US residents that “Jap” means a bit more in the US than they thought it did.
- Obviously, when the car full of black teens pulled up next to me at a stoplight and yelled out that I was a “fucking cracker”, they meant I must have been a Florida native. Yeah, that’s it. :rolleyes:
…
[QUOTE=groman]
Some Germans might find words “kraut” or “fritz” derogatory but that doesn’t make them so when I use them.
[/QUOTE]
We prefer “Hun” or “Belgium-raper”. Thanks in advance.
Regards,
Shodan
[QUOTE=Una Persson*If it’s used as a racial slur, then, surprise, it is a racial slur**. That’s sort of been the whole point of this thread here, as people have been lecturing to non-US residents that “Jap” means a bit more in the US than they thought it did.[/QUOTE]
As I understand the argument from the Offenderati, it is impossible even to construct a racial slur against whites because no white person has ever undergone any sort of oppression or disadvantage of any kind. Ever. Anywhere. No, really.
[QUOTE=Shodan]
We prefer “Hun” or “Belgium-raper”. Thanks in advance.
[/QUOTE]
Can I go with Belgium-rapist? Something about “raper” just rubs me the wrong way.
[QUOTE=Tuckerfan]
Am I the only one to catch Ekers “joke” here?
[/QUOTE]
No, just the only one to point it out.
As a white guy, I’m not offended by being called cracker. Heck, I’ve called myself a cracker before.
Being Southern, though, I do have a problem with being called a Yankee. It’s just cultural inertia driving that one.
[QUOTE=Liberal]
As I understand the argument from the Offenderati, it is impossible even to construct a racial slur against whites because no white person has ever undergone any sort of oppression or disadvantage of any kind. Ever. Anywhere. No, really.
[/QUOTE]
Yup. That’s exactly what we think. Way to be intellectually honest.
[QUOTE=Una Persson]
:rolleyes:
I just love the strange verbal and mental gymnastics by some that “cracker” is not a racial slur, not an insult, or that it’s even an innocuous word meaning, in one common definition, a white resident of the far Southeast US. It’s great that people can miss the point and Google to online dictionaries and find alternate meanings for it, or that a College team is named “Crackers”. It means little. If it’s used as a racial slur, then, surprise, it is a racial slur*. That’s sort of been the whole point of this thread here, as people have been lecturing to non-US residents that “Jap” means a bit more in the US than they thought it did.
- Obviously, when the car full of black teens pulled up next to me at a stoplight and yelled out that I was a “fucking cracker”, they meant I must have been a Florida native. Yeah, that’s it. :rolleyes:
[/QUOTE]
The point is that I don’t give a flying fuck whether someone calls me a cracker. Hell, I didn’t even find out I was supposed to be offended by the term until I got out of high school. I knew “honkey”, but cracker? Why did anyone want to call me a saltine? I would tend to doubt that cracker and nigger are equivalents in most peoples’ minds.
By the way, I never said that cracker wasn’t a racial slur, just that it wasn’t equivalent to nigger and that I wasn’t offended by it..
I think I remember this exact same issue coming up here before. Australian discussing motorcycles refers to “jap bikes,” mortified to learn that it’s considered a racial slur in some part of the world. For that matter, I didn’t know “Paki” was a slur until I read it here. Good thing I did.
[QUOTE=Lemur866]
Well, since I know that in Britain “Paki” is an offensive ethnic slur, I would avoid using it there, and since it isn’t part of my vocabulary to begin with over here in the US I wouldn’t use it here either. But seriously, it’s just a short version of the country of origin of the person in question. “Paki” is offensive, “Pakistani” isn’t. But still, the word has absolutely no emotional resonance for me. Sure, nigger, mick, spic, kike, all those, I can see how they are offensive. And by analogy, words that have a similar history in other times and places can be offensive, even though I don’t share that history. But still…
[/QUOTE]
Lemur, you’re too smart not to know this. “Jap” is a derogatory word, because it originated as a derogatory term. Would you use “Jap” in a business meeting? Language doesn’t follow regular rules all the time, so pretending that “Jap” is the same as “Brit” is just ignorant. You know better.
[QUOTE=Who_me?]
By the way, I never said that cracker wasn’t a racial slur, just that it wasn’t equivalent to nigger and that I wasn’t offended by it..
[/QUOTE]
You did go out of your way to weigh in with your testimony as to what you thought about it, implying that you thought the fact that it didn’t bother you was important. Although you say again that you don’t care who calls you a cracker, you need to understand that that has little real relevance to the thread.
On what basis exactly is it “not equivalent?” What was your thought process in weighing the severity of one racial slur versus another? Again, just because it doesn’t bother you? I’ll freely admit that one won’t find a sports team named “the Florida Niggers” anywhere - and that, unlike nigger, cracker has a much longer and more broad history of not being an explicit racial slur. Also, a slur used by a minority race against a majority race doesn’t carry the same weight at times. But slurs are not something just used against a faceless population of people, they’re used against people - everyday people. It seems like it might not be equivalent to me in a general sense - BUT, when someone uses it specifically to denigrate you and demean you based on the color of your skin, a disgusting thing for someone to do, why is it not equivalent then? Because a white person is the object of the abuse? Not that you said that, but I’ve also spoken with people who have asserted that “white people can’t experience racism.” I’m certain I’ve read as much on this Board.
I don’t think you want to try to rate racial slurs as to their severity, because I don’t know that you, me, or any of us, have the facts to do so. There’s too much of a relative aspect to it, after all. So you can post again now to tell us all how you don’t care who calls you a cracker when and in what context, and I can post again to tell you that when cracker is used as a racial epithet, it’s ugly and wrong.
[QUOTE=DrDeth]
Well, note that some think Yank is a slur.
And, did we beat the Japanese people (who had some very bad leadership) or did we beat the “Japs”? I consider “Jap”= “Nazi” for WWII terminology, in other words, I use “Jap” to refer to the “Imperial Japanese of Tojo’s leadership” and “Nazi” to refer to the “Third Reich of Hitler’s leadership”. Can we still use Nazi?
[/QUOTE]
No, Jap is to Japanese as Kraut is to German. We beat the Japs and the Krauts. Or the Nips and the Krauts. Nips is just as bad, if not worse, that Japs.
Japanese pronounce their country as Nihon (nee- hone), which is sometimes written Nippon, hence “Nips”.
[QUOTE=John Mace]
Lemur, you’re too smart not to know this. “Jap” is a derogatory word, because it originated as a derogatory term. Would you use “Jap” in a business meeting? Language doesn’t follow regular rules all the time, so pretending that “Jap” is the same as “Brit” is just ignorant. You know better.
[/QUOTE]
Well, divorced of its etymology, it is the same: an abbreviation consisting of the first syllable of the word.
It’s a shame, from a linguistic standpoint, that endowing certain terms with the status of “slur” is robbing us of several otherwise perfectly good verbal shortcuts.
(How else could one shorten, in a non-offensive way, “Nipponese” or “Japanese,” anyway? “Nippo” and “Jappa” sure doesn’t sound any better to my ears.)