Actually I think you could have been a bit more forthcoming in your OP. You said, and I paraphrase - “Is it OK to register racially offensive names?”
The thing is, I’ll bet a lot of people didn’t know it was offensive. I sure didn’t. So what was wrong with saying “Hey listen, this word is offensive to my people, could we please get it changed?”
Why did you have to start off on the defensive? No one had said at this point “You’re wrong, it’s not.”
[QUOTE=Anaamika]
Come on. He made a point and you go insulting him.
[/QUOTE]
He didn’t make a point, he made it all about him, as usual. “Why should your objection stand when mine didn’t! Waaah!” is not a point, it’s threadshitting.
I apologise. I shouldn’t have let your threadshitting get to me. Next time I’ll just click the !.
Sheesh, lighten up. Next thing you’ll tell OldBroad and FatbaldGeezer that they have to change their usernames because they’re sexist and ageist.
HottentotVenus herself is black, fer cryin’ out loud. If she wants to name herself after certain black icon, I don’t see what is racist or offensive about that.
Hottentot Venus, for those who don’t know, was the name the press gave in 1815 to a Khoi woman named Saartje Baartman, who made a decent living as a travelling sideshow-attraction. In those days, sideshows were far more respectable then they are now; they catered not just to the fairground, but also to people with a scientific interest. Think of their target audience as the same audience who’d today watch Discovery Channel.
Is it racist now to even mention someone’s skin-color? Now that will make for a more relaxed atmosphere when people are dealing with each other. :rolleyes:
Mentioning skincolor should be okay because it is something unimportant. Like “Mr Smith? That’s that <black guy” <guy in the red sweater> over there". Small or irrelevant, not taboo-ridden and “verboten” .
Did anybody bother to ask the poster in question why she chose the name? I just love when people get their knickers in a knot making assumptions about others’ motives.
:rolleyes:
[QUOTE=Anaamika]
Actually I think you could have been a bit more forthcoming in your OP. You said, and I paraphrase - “Is it OK to register racially offensive names?”
The thing is, I’ll bet a lot of people didn’t know it was offensive. I sure didn’t. So what was wrong with saying “Hey listen, this word is offensive to my people, could we please get it changed?”
[/QUOTE]
I said that too. In my OP. nIn very similar (possibly milder)wording, even. Did you read my OP?
[QUOTE=Anaamika]
Why did you have to start off on the defensive? No one had said at this point “You’re wrong, it’s not.”
[/QUOTE]
It’s a more eyecatching title, and I wanted to relate the degree of offensiveness to familiar examples right away. And that isn’t “on the defensive”, it’s “on the offensive” - I wanted to build my case right there and then.
Look, she’s an American Black, I don’t expect her to know what’s offensive to a South African Coloured. I did not Pit her, this is not a Pitting of her. This is a request for action by the Administrators.
And Quiddity, for the last time, her motives have absolutely nothing to do with it. The word Hottentot is an ethnic slur. That’s a fact.
Why didn’t you explain in your OP WHY it was offensive? Was that to omuch trouble?
Yes, your OP comes out swinging. How is that likely to make more people listen and not react as they have done in this thread?
And I don’t agree with you that Hottentot is anywhere near the level of nigger or raghead or any of the thousand names shouted around. So where does that get us? I am not a mod but your OP struck me as so damn negative - like you’re accusing the mods of deliberately allowing it in.
You have not convinced me. And I may not be black but I’ve suffered my own share of racism. So I’m not speaking out of my ass.
[QUOTE=Contrapuntal]
We’ve had Tio Gringo for quite some time. Is gringo racist?
[/QUOTE]
Yes! My pale white brothers won’t stand for this outrage! :rolleyes:
Yeah, the OP is just as whiny and hypersensitive. Personally, I hope the mod 'discussions" merely consist of large amounts of pointing and laughing and they aren’t taking this ridiculous complaint seriously.
[QUOTE=MrDibble]
I apologise.
[/quote]
Accepted with the same sincerity in which it was offered.
Don’t worry, I did it for you. You can’t report your own posts.
And now I’m thinking of Wizard of Oz:
Lion: Courage! What makes a king out of a slave? Courage! What makes the flag on the mast to wave? Courage! What makes the elephant charge his tusk in the misty mist, or the dusky dusk? What makes the muskrat guard his musk? Courage! What makes the sphinx the seventh wonder? Courage! What makes the dawn come up like thunder? Courage! **What makes the Hottentot so hot? ** What puts the “ape” in apricot? What have they got that I ain’t got?
All: Courage!
Lion: You can say that again!
The thing that struck me as disingenuous was posting a link that did not actually discuss the source for the whole username in historical context, and then allowing to pass without mention other members discussing a dictionary definition of hottentot, and then allowing to pass without mention an Administrator’s reference to the term being a tribe name.
It seemed like you knew about Baartman, but others didn’t seem aware, and were content to let the decision be made without any discussion of that detail.
I didn’t want the discussion to take place without that historical context. Of course “hottentot” by itself is offensive. It may well be offensive even in historical context, but its meaning seems somewhat different in that context, even if still offensive.
I admit my point is somewhat pedantic; I’ve already called myself a history dweeb. Maybe I’m inferring intent where I should be seeing justified outrage. If so, I apologize. And I’d be right there protesting with you if the username was just an isolated slur without context.
Sailboat
Oh, your objection was to the word Hottentot? Like a Inuit would be offended if anyone used the word “Eskimo”?
Edited too late:
By the way, calling the KhoiKhoi or Khoi-San a “tribe” is something of an understatement. It’s considerably broader than “tribe”, the Khoi-San are a whole grouping of peoples.
Sailboat
[QUOTE=Maastricht]
Like a Inuit would be offended if anyone used the word “Eskimo”?
[/QUOTE]
Yes, we should ban Evil Eskimo and Eskimo Spy, too, or at least force them to change their names.
Sheesh, lighten up. Next thing you’ll tell OldBroad and FatbaldGeezer that they have to change their usernames because they’re sexist and ageist.
[/QUOTE]
Do you see any difference between those two names and say AllWomenAreBitches or my OP’s Nigger Boy?
[QUOTE=Maastricht]
HottentotVenus herself is black, fer cryin’ out loud. If she wants to name herself after certain black icon, I don’t see what is racist or offensive about that.
[/QUOTE]
Well, for one thing, Saartjie Baartman wasn’t a “black icon”. She was Khoi. There’s a difference. Plus it’d be like calling Rosa Parks “Nigger Buslady” every time you refer to her. You bet your ass it’s racist and offensive.
[QUOTE=Maastricht]
Hottentot Venus, for those who don’t know, was the name the press gave in 1815 to a Khoi woman named Saartje Baartman, who made a decent living as a travelling sideshow-attraction. In those days, sideshows were far more respectable then they are now; they catered not just to the fairground, but also to people with a scientific interest. Think of their target audience as the same audience who’d today watch Discovery Channel.
[/QUOTE]
That is a complete mischaracterisation of the situation Saartjie was in. She wasn’t carniefolk, she was a naif who was used and abused, and in the end, cut up for display. She died far from home and alone. There was nothing remotely acceptable about her fate, as you try and make it sound. In Paris she was exhibited like an animal. Her treatment is a black mark against some of Wetern Science’s founding lights, like Cuvier, who kept her genetalia preserved in a bottle..
[QUOTE=Maastricht]
Is it racist now to even mention someone’s skin-color? Now that will make for a more relaxed atmosphere when people are dealing with each other. :rolleyes:
Mentioning skincolor should be okay because it is something unimportant. Like “Mr Smith? That’s that <black guy” <guy in the red sweater> over there". Small or irrelevant, not taboo-ridden and “verboten” .
[/QUOTE]
There’s a big difference between mentioning skin colour and an ethnic slur. There’s a big difference between “Black guy” and “Nigger”.
Guess which side Hottentot falls on?
[QUOTE=Anaamika]
Why didn’t you explain in your OP WHY it was offensive? Was that to omuch trouble?
[/QUOTE]
I said it’s an ethnic slur. What more do you want?
[QUOTE=Anaamika]
Yes, your OP comes out swinging. How is that likely to make more people listen and not react as they have done in this thread?
And I don’t agree with you that Hottentot is anywhere near the level of nigger or raghead or any of the thousand names shouted around. So where does that get us?
[/QUOTE]
You’re not Khoi, so your opiniuon doesn’t count, really. If you’re ignorant about what’s offensive, despite being shown better, I can’t help you.
[QUOTE=Anaamika]
I am not a mod but your OP struck me as so damn negative - like you’re accusing the mods of deliberately allowing it in.
[/QUOTE]
Well, the OP was directed to mods, not you, so I don’t care what you think. Since they’ve said they’ll think about it, I don’t think they read the same tone you did. Which is good, because it wasn’t my intention.
[QUOTE=Anaamika]
You have not convinced me. And I may not be black but I’ve suffered my own share of racism. So I’m not speaking out of my ass.
[/QUOTE]
I don’t have to convince you of anything. But yes, you are speaking out of your ass, because it’s not your ethnic slur. You don’t get a say in whether it’s offensive or not.
[QUOTE=MrDibble]
That is a complete mischaracterisation of the situation Saartjie was in. She wasn’t carniefolk, she was a naif who was used and abused, and in the end, cut up for display. She died far from home and alone. There was nothing remotely acceptable about her fate, as you try and make it sound. In Paris she was exhibited like an animal. Her treatment is a black mark against some of Wetern Science’s founding lights, like Cuvier, who kept her genetalia preserved in a bottle.
[/QUOTE]
I’m in total agreement with you here.
Sailboat
[QUOTE=Sailboat]
The thing that struck me as disingenuous was posting a link that did not actually discuss the source for the whole username in historical context, and then allowing to pass without mention other members discussing a dictionary definition of hottentot, and then allowing to pass without mention an Administrator’s reference to the term being a tribe name.
[/QUOTE]
I’d already said I knew where it was from, I saw no need to do other people’s Googling for them. Like I’ve said, where the term is from is irrelevant to the offensiveness of the one word in it.
[QUOTE=Sailboat]
It seemed like you knew about Baartman, but others didn’t seem aware, and were content to let the decision be made without any discussion of that detail.
[/QUOTE]
This is true - I think my whole objection is to hottentot as a word. I didn’t see the relevance of the context (see post #2).
[QUOTE=Sailboat]
I didn’t want the discussion to take place without that historical context. Of course “hottentot” by itself is offensive. It may well be offensive even in historical context, but its meaning seems somewhat different in that context, even if still offensive.
[/QUOTE]
I get your point, but I don’t agree. Historical context does nothing to make the word any less offensive in-and-of itself.
e.g.:There is a reason the Agatha Christie book isn’t called “Ten Little x [Niggers/Indians]” anymore, even though it was a period piece.
[QUOTE=Sailboat]
I admit my point is somewhat pedantic; I’ve already called myself a history dweeb. Maybe I’m inferring intent where I should be seeing justified outrage. If so, I apologize. And I’d be right there protesting with you if the username was just an isolated slur without context.
[/QUOTE]
I think you misunderstand me - I am not outraged. I don’t think anything overly negative of Venus Hottentot. I just don’t want a username with an ethnic slur I personally find very offensive to be allowed. I don’t think context matters - since a username is necessarily devoid of that context, appearing all over the messageboard.
I certainly didn’t expect to find an ethnic slur in GD this morning, but there it was.
[QUOTE=Maastricht]
Oh, your objection was to the word Hottentot?
[/QUOTE]
Did you read my OP before you started posting?
[QUOTE=Maastricht]
Like a Inuit would be offended if anyone used the word “Eskimo”?
[/QUOTE]
They’d be within their rights, IMO.
[QUOTE=Q.E.D.]
Yeah, the OP is just as whiny and hypersensitive. Personally, I hope the mod 'discussions" merely consist of large amounts of pointing and laughing and they aren’t taking this ridiculous complaint seriously.
[/QUOTE]
I’d hope not. I’d think they’d do that in here, actually, Mods aren’t known for being shy.
If we had not dealt with this whole issue, including the difference between Khoikhoi and “persons of sub-Saharan African extraction” (for lack of a better way to say the not-quite-ethnically-accurate grouping of “Blacks”) and the fact that “Hottentot” is a highly offensive ethnic slur for the Khoikhoi and the Coloured of South Africa, in GQ within the past week, there might be some valid grounds for the naivete shown here. I believe Mr Dibble is well within his rights. If someone were to object to “Mongoloid” on the basis that they are of Mongolian ethnic descent, which nobody except them knew prior to the objection, there might be a case for “unreasonable outrage.” But Mr Dibble has been very forthcoming, in threads where it was relevant, that he is Coloured as the term is used in South Africa, that he is partially of Khoi extraction, and that “Hottentots” is a highly offensive term applied to the Khoikhoi. He, FRDE, and I among others discussed it on this board within the past few days, fahcrineoutloud!
Wow. A person of a particular heritage points out that a perjorative term for folks of his heritage is offensive. Maybe if someone else of that heritage came along and said “Nonsense, most of us don’t care”, that would be one thing. (I’m thinking of, say, the term Indian for Native Americans. Many folks of that heritage indeed use that term for themselves and don’t consider it perjorative). But from what I gather, the term is undoubtedly perjorative. So it’s not OK to use it, period.
The person who uses it as her username, I’m fairly certain, didn’t mean to offend. A lot of folks here, since the term isn’t commonly known or used where they’re from (America/Europe/Oceania/Asia), don’t see what the big deal is, and I reckon that’s understandable, but I think now that it’s been pointed out, we shouldn’t use it. Seems fair to me.