Well, Michael, it’s funny you should mention that. Several years ago, (when I was in high school) we had a wildfire on “Hillside” and area southeast and (duh) on the hillside) above Anchorage.
A newsman, while broadcasting live from the scene, excitedly, and while on a live broadcast yelled.
“It’s very hot up here, I can see the trees burning and I’m completely surrounded by flaming faggots”.
It was obvious he meant sticks, but…
I wonder if he ever lived that one down?
Having never heard of the dude, I thought Eve was gonna rant about her personal physician and his atrocious Boston accent.
Brain explosion.
I am so sad attitudes like this still exist. How on earth is it more insulting to call a rapist anything other than a rapist ? The only thing worse than a rapist that I can think of is a murderer. A torturer is on par with a rapist IMO, and as far away from a homosexual as a heterosexual is… apples and oranges.
I sympathise with rape victims, and their friends and family, but to drag unrelated sexual preferences into it, insulting a whole group of people is uncalled for. DaFrigginDoctah, I hope you show your sister your love, not the hate you’ve displayed here.
I think he said (somewhere in his rambling hijack) that he was 18 years old. What a sad failure of the public school system.
Well damn. I always miss the good flamewars. I totally missed out on Bindrah, and now this one. All you have to do is mention me by name and I’ll at least get a poke in before they’re gone! No one ever lets me have any fun anymore… 
Esprix
Yes, we’ve heard that about you…
How’re the nipples?
Hey Eve, why are you making light of DaFrigginDoctah’s sister being raped?
Hey EasyPhil, why are you being a hypocrite?
I thought you were here to crusade against bigotry. Making homphobic slurs is bigotry.
Or does it only count if it’s something that offends YOU personally?
Jackass.
:rolleyes:
I’m not sure where the word faggot came from in its use to denigrate homosexuals.
But I think that many young people now use the word to describe a bad or strange acting person more than a homosexual. I agree he shouldn’t use the word, but obviously if these 2 raped his sister he does not think that they are homosexuals.
It almost has a new meaning just as “nigger” has a new meaning to many people. I have black friends who call me “niguh” once in a while and I call them “white boy” or “whitey”
My daughter calls people “fags” and I tell her not to talk like that. But I know when she says it that it has absolutely nothing to do with homsexuals. She uses it to describe a jerk or someone acting strangely. And no, this doesn’t mean she equates homosexuals with jerks or strange behavoir. And yes, she knows and has been around gay people her whole life.
Please don’t attack. Believe me, it REALLY bothers me when homosexuals or Blacks are denigrated by REAL homophobes or rascists. Or I should say, ignorant people.
I even get upset when a man refers to a woman as a bitch.
But it sounds like this kid wasn’t referring to or trying to denigrate homosexuals. (in this instance, at least)
But I Think words can evolve and this is one of them.
How am I being a hypocrite? Was he referring to two homosexual men raping his sister? Sure the word is a slur against homosexuals when used by a heterosexual to describe a homosexual. My question is; Why make light of the sister being raped?
Did he take it out on homosexuals? I must’ve missed that part, he used some very poor choice of words…
Lets not pile this guy yet, he’s not Bindrah…
Well, damn. Here I was expecting to be the first person to point out that what’s really going on here is a difference in definition, and someone else beats me to it. I’m originally from Wisconsin, and have pretty much always used the word “gay” to describe something annoying or bad- for instance, getting nailed in a game of Unreal Tournament by a lucky shot is “totally gay”. It takes a concious effort not to use that phrase where I am now, but I refrain because I know other people react as if I’m making a racial slur when I use it.
I’m not convinced that immediate offense to words that grows out of alternate definitions is justified. The usual argument would be that using profanities that were originally concocted as a slur against one of the special interest groups the public as a whole has decided to protect helps propogate those negative stereotypes. But certainly the reverse is the case- the more people who think that shouting “faggot” in anger means something different than reading “faggot” in Savage Love, the better. The negative connotation is drained away into a totally seperate meaning.
It’s probably not fruitful to condemn use of a minority label in non-minority contexts anyway. Profanities generally see a while range of use, because they are colorful and powerful words. Certainly when someone says “shit” or “motherfucker”, they could mean any of a hundred different things. Context makes it clear which one they mean. In the present case, most posters in this thread seem to suggest that if ONE definition of a word is a protected minority group, then any use of that word for anything negative is politically incorrect. (In fact, using the word at ALL would probably require some apologies and clarification.)
-C
I’m from Wisconsin(Oshkosh to be precise), and while many words and slang terms for gay men and lesbians were used as insults… it isn’t as if the state is a back water and thus the use can be excused on the basis of a lack of understanding.
Now, while I’m gay, and obviously had to deal with a culture around me that made it very hard for me not to feel uncomfortable and a bit fearful, it was not a lack of understanding for the most part that made people in the Fox Valley(Green Bay down to Fond du Lac) use it. They generally knew exactly the impact they were having.
That you got beyond it and are concious of it is a good thing which I commend you for. But… the use of it or any other word as a slur that is made to target a specific group I do not think can be explained away or its impact minimized.
I just went and read that entire thread and that kid, even though he did use a word that is offensive to many, gave the poor OP some very good advice. He has been through some bad shit in his young life and here he was helping some anonymous poster out.
Did you miss the part where he talks about his sister being raped? He has an understandable desire to kill those two. He communicates the hell he went through and still tries to help this other guy out.
Then he got pissed off at people who pointed out to him his poor choice of words. To tell you the truth, I would have also. Not that you weren’t correct in being upset with his choice of words, it was the way you let him know. Not a mention about his sister, just rip him for the word he used.
Again, I doubt if he equates that word with gays at all.
And then the strange thing was, MIMI gets banned and he doesn’t even after using the word again.
God I love this place and all you faggots who post here.
You’ve completely missed the point. I’m not saying that no one in Wisconsin has any idea that “Gay” can mean “He who prefers the company of men”. It’s not a 1. regional OR a 2. ignorant thing I’m getting at.
I’m talking about when a single person uses a word that CAN mean “homosexual” to mean something totally different. It isnt a question of ignorance. If I use the word “dope”, I can be using it to mean a variety of different things; I doubt you would call me ignorant if I denied that when I use it to mean a slow-wit I am not making any reference whatsoever to marijiuana.
I havn’t “got beyond it” in any spiritual sense. I think people overreact in illogical ways to the word “gay” being used in contexts that have nothing to do with homosexuals. But they overreact predictably, so it’s easier to just make allowances for that than fight about it.
Again, you miss the point. We’re discussing a slur that was NOT made to target a specific group. It’s just that the group in question is one possible meaning of the word.
-C
Maximum C, suppose you were Abbadasian. Abbada being a fictional country I just made up for the purpose of this exercise.
Now, over time, Abbadasians have been made fun of, much as people of other ethnicities have. They’ve been referred to as Abs. There have been Ab jokes; how many Abs does it take to screw in a lightbulb, how do you know an ab has been in your house, what do you do with an ab… etcetera. It’s a derogatory term.
Now, say this derogatory term expands from just describing Abbadasians to describing various bad things; someone just got fragged in Unreal Tournament, and they call the sniper a ‘fucking ab.’ Someone gets cut off in traffic, and they scream ‘goddamn ab bastard!’ out the window.
Now, say you hear someone talking about a rapist. And, even though the rapist had no Abbadasian heritage, even though Abbadasians had nothing to do with the crime, they refer to the rapists as ‘drunken, stoned abs.’
Do you appreciate being equated with rapists? Heck, do you appreciate being equated with assholes, motherfuckers, and pricks, which are other derogatory terms currently in use? Do you see how the usage of the term ‘ab’ in a derogatory fashion is constantly demeaning to the Abbadasian population?
Now, as a gay man, how do you think I feel when I hear someone call someone else “faggot” as an insult? Do you think it feels all warm and fuzzy, knowing that someone considers an integral part of my personality so abhorrent that they would use it to insult someone else? How do you think it felt the other day when I was in Wal-Mart, and I overheard two guys looking at air fresheners and dismissing them as “Gay. Gay. That one’s gay. Nah, too gay.” If they considered something to be gay, it wasn’t qualified to cover up the stench of their farts.
My point is, I deal with this all the time. Whatever you think the word means, where it comes from is significant. What it references is significant. And who it hurts is definitely worth your consideration.
If saying something hurts people, and it doesn’t hurt not to say it, what kind of humans go on saying it?
You’re still harping on the fact that the because the words have ONE definition that equates to your personality, ALL uses of that word carry that charge. But I’m saying they DON’T.
As for your Ab example- no, if people really used the word independant of it’s national meaning, it wouldn’t bother me. The word “cracker” is used as a daragatory way of describing white people, a group that includes me just like these Abs do. I don’t feel upset whenever someone offers me a saltine or a ritz.
I suspect the problem here is that you don’t really believe that a word which CAN be used in a negative racial (for the purposes of this paragraph, consider “race” to include seuxal orientation- easier for me to type) way can ever be used in a negative way that doesn’t involve the race. Or that you’re never sure when the person is using it that way or not, so you are always worried that racial prejudice is there. This is exactly why people stop using words- because everyone else refuses to let the word grow.
There’s an episode of South Park that you should watch- it’s the one where Chef is protesting the South Park flag. You can probably download it on the web somewhere. The jist of it is that the flag shows five white people hanging one black person. The kids of south park say they like the flag, and Chef gets upset. Only later does he realize that the kids didnt see anything wrong because all they saw were people; they didn’t make the racial connection. This DISJUNCT between the racial origins of words and the negative meaning is a sign that the original stereotypes have died away.
-C
I was going to post something here, but MrVisible essentially said everything I was going to say, and did it way, way, way better than I ever could have. Well done.
I think the word is offensive no matter how normalized it becomes. The n word has become normalized in everyday speech amongst some members of the Black community, I personally don’t use the word in speech or in writing.
Eve and Consuela B, you should both be ashamed of yourselves for making jokes at the expense of a rape victim, regardless of what her brother called the rapists.
You are both fucking tasteless and ignorant.