The poster who posted the above was earlier warned because of this post:
(emphasis mine)
Contemplation says, in effect, that what he meant was merely that Jared Leto’s character, Harry Goldfarb, would have been able to leverage his white privilege post-incarceration and possibly avoid the downward spiral to which Marlon Wayans’ Tyrone C. Love would have more likely succumbed.
Had he used my words, I doubt anyone would have blinked.
So, in an effort to explore the framework of what “hate speech,” is, I am curious to learn if the warning will be rescinded, given his explanation and my attempt to rephrase. I personally have no recommendation.
Considering past threads like this one, I’m not sure if I buy the poster’s explanation.
But I’m not sure if it’s even relevant to being modded – the words are being modded, not the sentiment behind them. “He’d be a bum because he’s black” sounds like it violates the rules of the board, even if there’s some nuance to what the poster meant – if he meant it in a different way, he should have said it differently. I think.
I’ll weigh in, since I issued the warning in question, but iiandyiiii has already covered it.
Even without the poster’s history, the phrasing is highly questionable, at best—I believe the word “bum” carries a negative connotation about how someone chooses to live. And while Bricker correctly notes the “explanation” given by the poster, I’d add that said explanation didn’t come until after another poster (in the post immediately prior) offered the same possible rationale for the “poor” phrasing.
Any plausible deniability was removed by the poster’s prior contributions on the subject of race.