Marley23, you have nailed my background exactly- scary!
Yes, the only racism I have ever known is an occasional “what are you looking at white boy” when I mistakenly make eye contact with certain black people. No big deal, as long it goes no further, it doesn’t spoil my day.
Would I think an 80 year-old black man who had a relative hung for whistling at a white woman were overreacting if he got pissed at a hanging joke? Absolutely not. But what about blacks born in the US after about 1970 or so, when all the more ludicrous separatist laws were outlawed, who haven’t experienced hardcore racism? I’m not naive enough to think that racism doesn’t still exist, that there are small Southern towns that blacks probably still avoid as a result. But the difference in ‘my dad was beaten and hung’ for being black, and ‘that cashier didn’t say have a nice day to me because I’m black’ is vast.
I do think some people use that as an example to justify bad behavior, as in using the Rodney King verdict as an excuse to riot and loot. As the cliche goes, I have many black friends. A couple I know for a fact will tell their kids, if someone calls you a nigger, beat their ass. I just think this is wrong, regardless of history.
You cite the Rodney King verdict. Is this an example of racism to you?
Because if those cops weren’t saying “nigger” as they beat the hell out of that guy, their billyclubs surely were.
As long as people remember incidents like that…and remember that many of the people who were walking around saying “nigger, nigger, nigger” during the ancient 1950s-1960s are now teachers, ministers, and senators (George ahem Allen)…then “nigger” coming out of the mouths of whites will still have a lot of power on blacks. That’s not wallowing in pity or hyping past oppression. It’s simply self-preservation.
That’s me, Marley the Racial Psychic. [Come back, Dave Chappelle, I have a sketch idea!] I hope it’s not offensive or condescending of me to say it, it’s just obvious that you haven’t been on the wrong end of that kind of thing. I’m white, too, and I haven’t been on the wrong end of a ton of prejudice either; I just think I get it.
I won’t deny that attitudes in general have changed, but then again, it was only eight years ago that James Byrd was beaten up, chained to a pickup truck and dragged to death by strangers just because he was black. You hear about that incident (okay, it did happen in Texas) or Benjamin Smith’s shooting spree in 1999 (that was in Illinois and Indiana, and he grew up in Chicago… much less Southern) and I imagine you take smaller things like the rudeness a little more seriously, because they’re all symptoms of the same problem. The awareness that there are people who would hate you or kill you for something like that can have a major impact.
Yeah, anti-white terms are mostly amusing to me, but they would cease to be if I had found them used against me in an aggressive manner.
In the same way, the word under discussion is more offensive to me, as a white person, than anti-white terms because 90% of the time the term has been directed toward me it was used either in an uncomfortably prejudicial way by white people against other black people, or by black people as an act of aggression toward me, either subtle most of the time or overt. (The other %10 are in the context of jokes or racial discussions [which don’t happen as often IRL as on message boards], which while sometimes uncomfortable do not give me the feeling of witnessing or being the object of aggression.)
One thing to note, though: I can look at a caucasian and wonder, “Is he/she a Jew?” but I never would have to ask a black person to confirm their ethnicity. They’re obvious and apparent targets for discrimination. Walk down any given city street and play “Guess Who’s Jewish!” Not quite as easy as “Guess Who’s Black,” huh?
I once was ordered into the back seat of a police cruiser (I talked my way out of it) for shaking the hand of my black roommate in public. The cop assumed he had palmed something off on me – “What’d that boy just hand you, son?” is what I was asked, not “What’d that Jew just hand you?”
My little brother is retarded so I’m pretty biased on this subject. The use of the word “retarded” is not objectionable by anyone that I know of. Referring to someone as a “retard” (as I often hear from my daughter’s softball teammates) always makes me cringe.
And those people are home free? I would say that probably half of the people you’ve described belong to a group that have at one time or another fit tomndebb’s description of lacking power and suffering persecution. They are the women. I see subtle and not so subtle sexism in posts here all the time. And cunt remains an acceptable insult at SDMB.
It’s okay to denigrate some groups of human beings but not other groups. That is what puzzles me.
Do I sound that stupid? It was clear to me that Wee Bairn hasn’t been picked on because of his ethnicity, and if I had to guess what group was least likely to be picked on for those reasons, it’d be the one I came up with.
To answer the OP, I don’t feel it’s racist to type the word when discussing it. Though I do understand people being hesitant to use it in spoken conversation… I imagine the feeling is like the hesitation I feel when saying the word “fag” around gay people. I have no problem using the word when describing an event, but I know that word has incredible power to hurt people.
I have to admit to being somewhat suspicious of adults who can’t type certain words. On an adult board, I think we can post the words and read before getting offended .
Zoe, do you think “cunt” and “dick” are both sexist terms? Dopers probably use “dick” much more as an insult than “cunt”. The c-word is much more offensive to me than the d-word, but I’m not sure if it’s that way because it’s more sexist or if it’s just a nastier-sounding word.
Being from the UK, I find it peculiar that ‘cunt’ is offensive
He is a cunt - translates to ‘he is a hard bastard’ - one to avoid
He is a hard cunt - business context - smart and unforgiving
He is a smart cunt - grudging approbation
He is an old cunt - grudging approbation
He was a cunt - served in a slightly exotic regiment
He is a nice old cunt - mildly benign, old cynic
In general the word has a degree of approbation, hard nosed or hard line.
In my UK interpretation it has little to do with females or their genitalia, probably more to do with aquired military slang.
I think that is one of the few privileges that comes with membership in a subdominant group. You get to manipulate and twist the language used to oppress you to rob it of its power. If you’re not part of the group, you shouldn’t use it. (Not you specifically, Daithi Lacha, but I know a lot of people feel that that very behavior gives them the right to use the words “fag” and “queer” as well. Not that anyone needs permission to use any word, in my opinion.)
FRDE, the difference in how we perceive the word “cunt” across the pond is one of those peculiarities of our shared language. The only “naughty bits” that we tend to think of as only slightly offensive is “ass” or “asshole.” (Which I think is probably closest in meaning to the UK use of “cunt.”) “Cunt” unequivocally means “minge” or “bitch” to the tenth power here. “Dick” is slightly more naughty and has a nasty edge to it. “Tit…” Well, we don’t really fuck with that one.
I think “cunt” is more offensive than, say, “dick”, because the user of the term is going out of their way to make it gender-specific insult. To explain further, think about how it’s still commonplace to use “he” when refering to the generic person. Few people blink an eye when “he” is used in the gender-neutral sense, but “she” generally doesn’t go down as smoothly.
When someone calls someone else a dick, I don’t think of it as a male-specific insult. It comes across as being as gender-neutral as “asshole” does. Cunt, in contrast, has female-specific connotations. If a guy is accused of being a cunt (or a bitch), his masculinity (or lack thereof) is being slammed, moreso than anything else. If a woman is accused of being a dick, the target of the insult tends to be her attitude and behavior moreso than her femininity. If a woman is called a cunt, the offensiveness is heightened because her attitude/behavior is being linked to her gender and both are being slammed at the same time. At least that’s the sense I get. That’s the best way I have of explaining why “cunt” has a sexist, misogynistic (sp?) flavor to it that “dick” does not. If someone called me a “dumb cunt” that would get my ire up as much as being called a nigger. It might even make me angrier, if they catch me on the wrong day of the month.
There must be regional differences as well as international ones in the use of “dick” and “cunt” because I don’t think that I’ve ever heard one used when refering to someone without the aforementioned bodypart. /runon
I don’t know you with the face. I can’t remember ever hearing someone use “dick” to describe a woman. I think the female equivalent of “dick” would actually be “bitch”. “Dick” seems pretty gender specific in my experiences. Yours might be different though.
Anyway, thanks for all in this thread. It’s been informative for me.
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