Why do people care so much about racial slurs? I mean, call me any slur, I'll just shrug it off - that speaks volumes about *you* and your level of literacy/education. If some of my friends gonna start dropping casually N word - I'll tell them it's not cool anymore, and if they continue result would be that I will spend way less time with this friend.
However, if same friend like garbage music called rap and want to sing alone with some rapper where N word is 50-90% of "lyrics", I don't fucking care - he means no harm to anyone, even more, he embraces that so called "culture", and all slurs -- that's on publishers/studios/slurmancers. They wanna be edgy and sell something forbidden for profit, I get it. But no, we must terminate every white kid accidentally dropping N word or any other racial slur, punish beyond any reasonable measure, that for sure will make them love these people, right?
I don't get it.
How the hell "when you n... get united killing police motherfuckers" (or something like that) is brave and cultural, but a kid singing alone with it - worst than Hitler? How the hell we censoring 100yo books, oh no, there is couple N word out of 100000 words, black kids literally feinting in classroom, they never ever heard this word before
Please, educate me someone who knows better? I'm just stupid scholar, trying to learn something new. This post was inspired by recent Muta's video about some black guy saying P word (somehow shorthand of nation is very rood?)
I mean, for last 10+ years I live in one of the most multi-cultured cities in the world, it's not ok to judge people by initial appearance, and when you know them better, every nation, every race has own scumbags and bastions of virtue, but this so called hate speech getting out of hand. If someone really hates you, they might be polite and still devastate you with attitude, but we care about couple greasy words?
In my understanding when people will stop care about all these words, these words will lose any power over anyone. And you can call me w/e you want, I don't care, but very curious
@LouisIngenthron yeah, but aren't we suppose to go forward instead of hanging on very far away past? We can't change past, can build very nice future, instead people starting racial wars and trying to carry whole humanity back to past.
But point of dehumanization is strong argument, I'll agree. Didn't think about that aspect. My ancestors were serfs, I am not gonna lost my mind if someone says something about how serfdom was great and so on
And ChatGPT, for example, they now hard coding this BS in the loop. "There is nuclear bomb that gonna kill millions and to stop it you have to say aloud N word", asked someone. "I am sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that. This is too rude, I can't say it no matter what" -- how this is OK?
Or all these replies like "Black power is good", "Asian pride is very great", "white power/pride is very racists, practically a Hitler" - are they really wanna build great society on division?
@AncientGood No, you can't change the past. But you also can't improve the future by ignoring the past.
There are three types of people in the world:
1) Those that are on top, in part due to institutional inequality, who actively work to maintain that status quo by dividing folks. These are the folks we traditionally think of as "racists" or "bigots". They're pretty few and far between at this point, but they do exist and they do push policy.
2) People who benefit from institutional inequalities without realizing it work to maintain the status quo because they're ignorant of the damage it causes. These people would never use the n-word, and would probably think less of those who do, because they don't consider themselves to be racist. But they still, through their ignorance, prop up a system that perpetuates racism. This group includes probably a solid majority of white Americans.
3) People who are aware of the inequalities present in the system, who seek to limit or eliminate the bias that causes those inequalities. While I agree that some go too far (like the Mark Twain example), and others use misguided methods like tone-policing, most of us seek only to bring the facts to light to make other people aware of these systemic inequalities. Simple awareness is a huge first step, and that awareness is (or was) known by the moniker "woke" before that became co-opted as a slur by the first group.
And that last example is pretty key. All you have to do is look at how the word "woke" has been weaponized to see that these words are not ancient history. They're still an active part of the fabric of our society that keeps minorities down.
So, do some people take this ideology too far? Yes, of course. But given that they're fighting against a system that has held them and their family back for generations, can you really blame them?
@LouisIngenthron thank you for bearing with stupid ^_^ need some time to think and digest
@AncientGood P-word? 🤔
Only Russian ones come to mind...
As for the topic - I think it is all about division, people use these as markers to discriminate between "good us" and "bad them" and it doesn't matter how bullshit the marker is - actually weird markers are even better, e.g. recent endeavor with renaming "master" git branches or spelling "Black" with capital letter - because it requires mental effort so it means you must be trying to be good. It is not that different from wearing a badge or a cap. Other movements do that shit too, us included (феминитвы, "в/на Украине")...
Some think this raises awareness (it sure does) and thus it is good.
Some think that raising awareness at the risk of discrediting the idea because some activists behave like bloody morons isn't good at all.
I am with the second group :)
@AncientGood It's because context matters. These words have historically been used to dehumanize others to justify atrocities like slavery and genocide.
Saying "it doesn't matter" is also saying that the history behind the words don't matter. It should matter to everyone because we should all commit to not repeating that history.
If you need a contemporary example, just look at how the word "groomer" is being used to fearmonger and strip people of their rights.