Ahem.

AnneBeeche

^^



^ Well, obviously! Don't you see how delicate and sensitive and oppressed he is?

In all seriousness, I am for the protection of basically all cultures, but white supremacists only believe in "protection" (read: total domination) of their culture and that all others are second in priority and should be sacrificed to allow white culture to thrive.

It's like all those awful people who think the entire planet should drop their languages in favor of one standardized language, often English.

Kinkajou

Well, what else would you expect from supremacists?

Also, who is that man in your profile picture?

It's Eiji Hino, the main character of Kamen Rider OOO, portrayed by Shu Watanabe.

AnneBeeche

Well he is a very beautiful man.

Kinkajou

You now have yellow fever? :B

AnneBeeche

Huh?

Kinkajou

He's Asian. Duh. :P

AnneBeeche

Asian people are not "yellow". Not cool dude.

MadassAlex

If memory serves, Kink is Asian. I think he's allowed to make a crack at their expense.

AnneBeeche

Just because you're black does not mean calling yourself or other people a "nigger" is okay. That's what I think, anyway.

I'm just going to drop off this article, and hope you guys have the time to peruse it. The Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia is a museum that is dedicated to teaching people tolerance using items of intolerance. It is a single room meant to be a haven for honest and completely open discussion of anything and everything to do with racism.

InsanityAddict

^Link doesn't seem to work.

Also, the Racial Slur Database now finally has an option to sort by group instead of only alphabetically: http://www.mcgonigal.org/Data/general/RacialSlurDatabase.pdf

MadassAlex

^^ Yet we accept and laugh at nigger jokes coming out of the mouth of black comedians. What I'm saying is that being of a particular race gives you some wriggle room; using the term "yellow fever" with a :B is clearly pretty jokey.

vandro

I disagree, race should never matter, not even with racist jokes, I am utterly dumbfounded at people cowering at the mere mention of words like nigger/nigga, chink and the like, they are just words, and the context in which they had power has faded away.

MadassAlex

As long as there's one coloured person out there who disagrees, then they haven't faded. Plus, it's just politeness. I mean, I'm okay being the "kraut" (via ancestry, not nationality) of my friendship group, but that's just me. But I wouldn't use the word "kike" around, say, Malk. Unless I was really hammered.

Colour blindness won't do a thing, because it just provides a forum for people to reopen old wounds and then claim that it doesn't matter. Perhaps there'll be a day in the future where you ideal holds true. I certainly hope so. But with coloured people particularly still holding working class positions while far, far more white people get into the middle class, the effects of various sorts of racism are still with us today.

AHR

I like curse words. They are fun to say because of the weight  they carry. I love writing them. 

vandro

Politeness can go fuck itself, frankness is more important, politeness can lead to socially accepted forms of hypocrisy. And I find it really troubling, not because it is wrong in principle, wanting to take away slurs from bigots is a good intention but it just leads to making the new words supposed to replace the slur into a new slur. (See Euphemism Threadmill). Taking the slurs away is dealing with the symptom rather than the source, which is bigoted people. Besides, making this kind of people go into hiding does not make for a better society, it just makes one where resentment is just below the surface ready to break tension.

MadassAlex

Better in hiding than out in the open. In hiding, their power and influence is heavily limited. In the open, they can do anything.

Without any social measures to prevent this kind of thing, you basically just get a situation like we see elsewhere on the internet: accepting subtle racism clothed as free speech. And clearly language doesn't change too fast, since we still have "nigger", "spick", "chink", "kike" and all other such terms. There's no real reason to accept these words in polite conversation except if they're being discussed as terms.

Essentially, I'm saying that just because a measure of political correctness doesn't fix the problem doesn't mean race blindness will. I'm not sure what'll end up solving the problem, but it won't be free reign on using the language and terminology. Racists will reintroduce those terms back into general discourse and everyone else will continue to avoid them out of respect for the suffering they represent.

Malkavian

The thing about racial slurs is that when I call another jew or myself a 'kyke' there's a complete understanding of irony and no one brings so social justice or inequality to the table. When a black person, asian, or whatever does, that understanding such lines are much less obvious and so it's harder to tell if they're being ironic, hateful, or just pretending to be ironic for the sake of saying dirty words.

My two cents at least.

MillerCross

It all depends on the intention, really. If you're saying something not because you think someone's inferior but because you're trying to be amusing, then you can't be seen as racist. whether you think that's funny or not, that's your thing

personally, i've learned to roll with all the beaner jokes, because, let's face it, people are not gonna be dissuaded by my complaining. Same goes to the drug jokes. Such is life, and instead of fighting, I prefer to laugh it off. 

vandro

Malkavian: That's a double standard, and why I oppose it.

MadassAlex: I am well aware that I don't conform to the context of which we speak about, but I am not deluded, proper social measures are to be taken, I don't know which, but I do know that racialblindness lets the racist to be out in the open. Which makes me wonder, why do people not just take it against the racist in the open?

MadassAlex

^^ For the record, I make drug jokes 'cause you're a guitarist, Juan. The whole Colombian thing took a while to register. <_<

^ Because racists sugarcoat their views, mostly, or otherwise act in ways that are not easily identified. Like homophobia and sexism, racism is surreptitious. It has to be fought socially by the influence of a particular nation's wider population to get properly snuffed.

MillerCross

It bears mentioning that many times, people are not aware of their views being discriminatory, which leads to the whole "I'm not racist, but..." thing.

vandro

But most of the wider population of the USA is made of racially homogeneous groups, that allows for racism to run rampant in the shadows.

MadassAlex

^^ I'll drink to that. -_-;

^ Whole essays could be written on that, and I'm certainly not qualified to speak of it.

MillerCross

^^ For the record, I make drug jokes 'cause you're a guitarist, Juan. The whole Colombian thing took a while to register. <_<

yes yes, alex, i totally believe you, you goddamn bigot >

vandro

I don't know, I just don't think racism's race's big deal, I grew up in a family where skin tone ranges from pale to almost black, in a country where the biggest social issue is socio-economic stratification, and the the smallest and almost nil issue is race politics.

I apologize if my context is different from yours.

MadassAlex

blah blah blah juan blah blah cocaine blah blah satan music blah colombia

^ I come from a country where as a white male, I'm automatically considered more intelligent, honest and contributory than someone of colour, perhaps except for Asians. I'm also the grandson of a man who was in Hitler Youth during the 40s, and have been somewhat disparaged for my Austrian ("Nazi") ancestry on occasion. While it's nowhere near the level of discrimination people of colour can get, it's a little eye-opening to be considered in a certain way or have particular jokes made about you because of who your ancestors were. The majority of the time, it's fine, but sometimes, it's very trivialising.

That said, those instances are very few and far between. The fact that they happened at all was educational, though.

Not that I want to disparage your views, mind, it's just that your context appears to be thankfully more docile and innocent racially than what could otherwise be.

Malkavian

It might be a double standard, but it's one that makes sense because of the history of the world. I can always be sure what a jew means when he says Kyke and the sense of connection it has in subverting a terrible word. You can't be sure of that when a white guys says 'nigger'. In a perfect world everyone could say them and we'd understand connotation but that's the world for you.

^^AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA ok.

vandro

Is the laugh ironic?

IanExMachina

@MadassAlex

Rather than 'kraut' it'd be more likely to be 'colonial' for you.

Well from a Brit anyhow.

I'd say a major factor is context.

Just walking into a conversation with a joke about x group of people is likely to cause offence, not to mention impolite.

However 'banter' with friends is ok as you both know there is no ill will behind it.

MillerCross

I don't know, I just don't think racism's a big deal, I grew up in a family where skin tone ranges from pale to almost black, in a country where the biggest social issue is socio-economic stratification, and the the smallest and almost nil issue is race politics.

So what? I grew up in pretty much the same socio-economical situation as you. Doesn't mean I can't see why discriminating people based on something as inane and inconsequential as the color of the skin is and how it can affect a society. 

I'm sorry, but I have to say that using your background as an argument or a justification is a really really weak argument and it won't win you any favors. Specially when you know damn well how latins are looked down upon by most first world countries.