racism row

MotoDC wrote:

PJ_Soul wrote:

PJ_Soul wrote:

And once it was Niggers. Then there were Chinks. Chugs. Spics. Kikes..... At some point all of these terms were considered acceptable by the ruling majority. There is a reason why what's acceptable has evolved. There are a lot of people who DO find outdated racist terms very offensive, and not at all for manufactured or arbitrary reasons. The reasons are pretty specific and sound. So people probably should be called out when they are using racially offensive terms.

How are we to measure level of offensiveness?? It's not easy - that's why the best idea is to avoid ALL offensive racial slurs, even if you happen to believe (rightly or wrongly) that it isn't AS offensive as other terms.

My point was that the labels I provided were just that, labels. They weren't slurs. Yours were clearly slurs and always were. Yes, slurs used to be more accepted whereas today they are less so, but they were still slurs. Negro, African-American, and colored were not slurs. Sure a racist fuck could use them with the right invective and make the sound as such, but that doesn't make the inherently slurs. The fact that they sound anachronistic and "wrong" now to our hypersensitive ears doesn't make them slurs.

"Coloured" is definitely a slur NOW though. Try walking up to a group of African-Americans and refer to them as "coloureds" and I think you would quickly realize that it definitely is a racial slur.

MotoDC wrote:

PJ_Soul wrote:

"Coloured" is definitely a slur NOW though. Try walking up to a group of African-Americans and refer to them as "coloureds" and I think you would quickly realize that it definitely is a racial slur.

Couple of things here:
1) In a way you're illustrating what I meant by arbitrary -- once it wasn't offensive, now it is. I'm not saying we shouldn't respect another person's claim to self-respect and go out of our way to insult/offend, but we should keep ourselves intellectually grounded here in what's a real vs imagined slight.
2) Your example also highlights what I meant about the invective being applied. I could go up to that same group and refer to them as "blacks" in such a way as to offend as well.
3) This is quickly turning semantic, but to me "slur" is something used to insult. Intended as such. "Colored", denotatively, is a physical description (however backward and anachronistic it may sound). Nigg** is not in any way a "meaningful" description. It's nothing but negative and carries the full weight of the racism that spawned it. What I will grant you on this point is that, since "colored" is a physical description, it could be argued to carry the implication that one could characterize a person based at least partially on that alone. Clearly not something we should be striving for in modern society.

1) It's not arbitrary. I don't understand why you are calling it arbitrary. There are very specific and well-justified reasons why that is now a racial slur. It's also not an "imagined" slight. Just because someone is too ignorant to know that the term is a racial slur doesn't make it any less offensive and doesn't make it any more arbitrary.
2) You could go up to any group of people and say pretty much ANYTHING in the right tone of voice and offend them. I don't really find that relevant here.
3) I don't think it's semantic AT ALL. Calling black people "coloureds" is completely racist and insulting. Just looked up the history of the N-word:

Nigger is a noun in the English language. The word originated as a neutral term referring to black people, as a variation of the Spanish/Portuguese noun negro, a descendant of the Latin adjective niger ("color black").[1] Often used slightingly, by the mid 20th century, particularly in the United States, it suggested that its target is extremely unsophisticated. Its usage had become unambiguously pejorative, a common ethnic slur usually directed at blacks of Sub-Saharan African descent.

..... So I guess Nigg** is also okay (no), since you could actually pretty much place the exact same paragraph to "coloured" minus the Latin connection.

PJ_Soul wrote:

1) It's not arbitrary. I don't understand why you are calling it arbitrary. There are very specific and well-justified reasons why that is now a racial slur. It's also not an "imagined" slight. Just because someone is too ignorant to know that the term is a racial slur doesn't make it any less offensive and doesn't make it any more arbitrary.
2) You could go up to any group of people and say pretty much ANYTHING in the right tone of voice and offend them. I don't really find that relevant here.
3) I don't think it's semantic AT ALL. Calling black people "coloureds" is completely racist and insulting. Just looked up the history of the N-word:

Nigger is a noun in the English language. The word originated as a neutral term referring to black people, as a variation of the Spanish/Portuguese noun negro, a descendant of the Latin adjective niger ("color black").[1] Often used slightingly, by the mid 20th century, particularly in the United States, it suggested that its target is extremely unsophisticated. Its usage had become unambiguously pejorative, a common ethnic slur usually directed at blacks of Sub-Saharan African descent.

..... So I guess Nigg** is also okay (no), since you could actually pretty much place the exact same paragraph to "coloured" minus the Latin connection.

1) So "black" is cool but "colored" is not. Those words could almost be synonyms and you're telling me there's not an aspect of arbitrariness in this. OOOk. Easy come easy go. Look I don't have any special desire to be able to call anyone "colored", but are you sure you understand what I mean by arbitrary? I was clear in a prior post that I'm willing the accept the necessity of considering other people's claim to self-respect, at least to an extent, but if we're going to have an academic discussion we need to be a little more analytical than "it hurts that guy's feelings therefore it's inherently bad".

2) Haha, no, you really couldn't, not in any reasonable sense. Try it with "bubble gum" or "leotards". Good luck not giggling.

3) My #3 was a discussion of the difference in understanding of the meaning of "slur". Therefore semantic. "Slur" implies intent on behalf of the speaker, in my opinion, or at a minimum that's a consideration in the determination of whether something was a slur. The mere choice of someone to be offended by something is not in and of itself enough to make that something a "slur" or inherently offensive.

PJ_Soul wrote:

Black is probably okay because white is okay. It puts the two main players in this issue on equal footing. "Coloured" does not, because it suggests that they are "coloured" and white people are not (I personally think that white people should be called "beige").

White people are often times more coloured than black people. A white persons face can go from angry red, to sick green, injured they may turn black and blue...(it's part of a poem)

White people are the coloured ones. Even the color white has all the colors in them.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coloured

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/126829/Coloured

In South Africa, they use 'coloured' also. But not for black people...
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Who Princess wrote:

Well, I have heard African Americans many times use the term "people of color" to describe themselves. I also had a black co-worker (up until last month, not some time in the waaay past) who was amused rather than angered when people used the term colored. Her comeback was always, "I wasn't colored, I was born this way!" So while I think it's a term that has fallen out of use, I'm not sure it's a racist slur on par with the N-word.

It's also possible we could ask a dozen black people and get a dozen different opinions. I have known many who did not care for the term African American.

Can see your last point... a lot of black people feel no connection whatsoever to Africa. They've never been there and never want to go, so why should they be called African American (they might ask)?? They are just American. I get that.