Being black is not an objective deficiency. Not having one of the five senses is.
Don’t get me wrong, I recognize that there is a strong deaf culture that has formed to support people who have hearing disability, but if there was a 100% effective, safe and painless pill that restored hearing loss in all cases, 98% of the deaf population would be hearing within a month. You’d have a few outliers whose self-esteem was so tied up in their deaf cultural identity that they would refuse to change, but the vast majority would want that other sensory input.
It was the sixties, man. We weren’t bound by your square mathematics.
I think the problem is that people get too focused on abolishing the word and not the mindset that created the word.
You won’t abolish racism by getting people to stop saying nigger. Even if you could enforce 100% compliance (maybe a device that would make a person’s head explode if they said or wrote the word) you’d still have racism. Racists would just start using other words to express their bigotry.
I’m not saying that political correctness doesn’t have value. It’s good to put racists on the defensive and remind them that most of us think they’re wrong. But achieving political correctness shouldn’t be the end goal. We should be aiming for a society in which nobody wants to say nigger rather than a society in which nobody can say it.
Because “S-word” and C-word" are already taken, silly.
I had half-expected a response like this, and considered adding a new line:
Likewise, it’s fine to want to distribute a hearing-granting pill to as many deaf people as possible. There may be some holdouts within the deaf community who’d refuse treatment, but very few people would consider offering the treatment to be hateful anti-deaf bigotry.
Deaf people’s attitudes towards deafness would make an interesting discussion (though it should probably be its own thread), but they aren’t particularly relevant to this discussion. The fact remains that most people are not deaf and are not intimately familiar with any objections to a cure for deafness. Most people will regard a doctor who offers hearing-granting pills to the deaf as helpful, not hateful. Some might say that he’s misguided, but with good intentions; very few if any people will look at him and say, “That doctor sure hates deaf people.” (even though a different doctor offering makes-you-white pills to black people would evoke from the same people, “That guy sure hates black people.”).
And never forget a certain 14-letter “S” word…
Schickelgruber?
I honestly think Bitch will be the next one.
It seemed like it got okay for a while to use it in context or for women to “own” it… I think it’s going away.
Insults and slurs always have a way of keeping up with the times. Evidenced by the fact that “gay” can now be used as an insult (“that’s so gay”).
So there’s no point in keeping the list updated. When “retard” is long forgotten and replaced by “mentally challenged”, “MC” will become a slur and advocates for the … uh… mentally challenged will have to move on to something else.
Sure they do.
This taking of offense is a social and political game people play, and boy do they play it on the SDMB. The Pit is full of threads where Ms. X (it’s always a white woman) recounts someone (usually an older relative) saying something so racist/homophobic/xenophobic/chauvinistic that Ms. X must tell the SDMB how shocked/gobsmacked/words fail/infuriated she was. Strangely, Ms. X usually admits she expressed no disapproval to the offender. It is less a factual recounting than a socially acceptable way for Ms. X to publicly proclaim that she is a Very Good Person.
In fairness to the once-funny George Carlin, the original seven words contained only seven words. 
Plus, “ass” and “balls” have always been allowed, though not in the typical SDMB context.
I think that the usage of the term F-word, R-word and their ilk is fucking retarded.
Sorry, I couldn’t let that go by. People, they are words in a language. If someone is upset by their usage, tough.
Didn’t buy my earlier explanation, huh?
Okay, I knew George Carlin did a bit about the seven words you can’t say on television. But I don’t have the piece memorized. So I did a quick search on Wikipedia.
One of the first thing the articles says is that Carlin got the idea from Lenny Bruce. Bruce said that he had been arrested for obscenity and gave the list of prohibited words. Carlin took the list and made a bit out of it.
I copied Bruce’s list and pasted it into my post. But I failed to pay enough attention and notice that Bruce’s list contained nine words. Carlin had dropped two of them (ass and balls) for his routine.
So I’ll admit to inadequate research and proof-reading.
But I stand by my original point. We should not allow the principle of adding new “bad” words to an existing list. Because if you ban the most offensive word in the language, you just move the second most offensive word into the top spot. Ban that word and there’s another offensive word right behind it. There will always be words that will offend somebody.
So my point is that obscenity should be a finite resource. It’s not enough to say a word is offensive - you’d have to convince people it’s more offensive than some other word that’s already on the banned list.
You could probably convince most people that nigger is a more offensive word that tits. So nigger would make the obscenity list and tits would drop off of it. And maybe you can make the case that faggot is worse than piss. But you’re going to have a hard time convincing people that retarded is more offensive than cocksucker or motherfucker or even shit. And that’s the point - retarded may offend some people but there are worse words out there.
Things have changed since Carlin’s 7 words bit. It used to be the 7 words you couldn’t say (shit, piss, cunt, fuck, cocksucker, motherfucker, tits) were all references to sexual organs, sex acts or things that sex organs do.
Now references to sex organs are ok (except for cunt, which still has some social impact) and all the slurs involve deriding one group as inferior to another group, or derogatory terms for group A said by group B. Nigger, kike, retard, faggot, raghead, jungle bunny, chink, etc. All the unacceptable words now seem to have that in common, words that deride an entire group.
What is ironic is that words that describe women (bitch, whore, etc) aren’t really viewed as harshly as words that describe blacks as inferior, gays as inferior, jews as inferior, etc. No idea why that is.
So which group will be next? No idea. But it should be along the same lines. Maybe women. Who knows. Maybe ‘bitch’ will become as unacceptable as ‘kike’.
I think the mentally ill may be the next group. Words like ‘psycho’ or ‘nut’ may start being seen as slurs. Or fat people. Chubby, lardass, fatty, tubby, etc.
That is what I’m going with. Terms that describe women, fat people or the mentally ill will probably be the next slurs. All you fat, crazy women out there keep your heads up, soon you will have the protection of the mainstream media.
What would be weird is if in 30 years all the slurs change again. Thirty years ago they were about sex organs. now they are about labeling group A as inferior to group B. Who knows what everyone will be sensitive and secretive about in 30 years, but whatever it is the taboo words will reflect it.
But I think the offensiveness of cunt has more to do with its use as a derogatory term for women than its use as a sexual term.
In the 70’s and 80’s, “bitch”, “whore”, “cunt”, “slut”, etc. used to be banned as sexist. In fact, words like those generated outrage similar to slurs against gays today. But then rap came along and overrode all that. It seems to have played out amongst the PC crowd that fear of appearing racist trumps feminist concerns. I must admit that I’m a tad confused as to how being free to call women bitches and ho’s advances the cause of civil rights or an end to racism, but there it is.
Little Nemo, fair enough. I posted upon seeing your original seven words post and hadn’t seen your response. Don’t see much to argue with in your last post.
I would like to see some objectivity, so please give me a cite where 98 per cent of deaf people would take a hearing pill.
xthx
Oh indeed. I shot an MTV Cribs houseparty at Star Island with Ja Rule. It was a Cribs episode, a party to celebrate the premiere of the first Fast & Furious, and a chance to show off this new mansion he’d gotten ahold of.
This was my third outing with Ja Rule because of Cribs. I was setting up my Steadicam® outside of the mansion, the driveway shown in some of the sped-up footage. Plenty of time before we get going. All good. A limo pulls up. Out climbs Ja Rule and a bodyguard and a few pals.
He spots me and walks over to give me a quick hug, loudly proclaiming " Hey how you been niggah ?? " Must mention here that I am as whitey-white as a German-Polish-Russian white guy can be. He cracks up, I crack up, he gives me a fast hug and tells me see ya later, and walks into the house.
The bodyguard is slack-jawed. The wheels, they were turning. " Whose the white guy? What is that thing on the metal stand? Why is Ja giving him a hug? Whose got the bag of weed?? " ( must add that the hug was an olfactory as well as tactile moment for me. My goodness, Ja Rule reeked of the Mighty Herb. ) But he’s a quick study and figured, Ja gave me a hug, I’m okay. Quick look in my eye, quick nod and he’s off into the house.
It did amuse me. I knew that Ja Rule was using it as a shorthand way to affirm that he recognized me, knew what I was about and that I was “ok”. It did nothing to lessen my surprise at the use of the word in my direction, but in no way did I take offense.
Yesterday, on 42nd St in front of the New Amsterdam theater, I was on my phone doing email. Next to me were two African American fellows, both wearing MTA uniforms. ( MTA is the NYC entity that runs buses, subways, commuter rail, etc. ). They were talking about someone and the N Word was used nonstop in reference to this fellow. Neither derogatory nor complimentary, it was used as an pronoun not an adjective. Apparently in some circles, to this day there is no backlash against the use of the word in casual conversation.