Originally Posted By MissCandice WD, I am glad you are back. I wanted to post that you can't leave since I think you are 1 out of the 2 black people on LP but I didn't want to make you mad but now that you mentioned it yourself well, let's just say I am glad you are staying. That "apology" was awful and it won't make me forget the hatefullness of the original rant of hate, that's for sure.
Originally Posted By DAR <<I wanted to post that you can't leave since I think you are 1 out of the 2 black people on LP >> Who's the other? ;P
Originally Posted By Dabob2 I'm also glad to see you back, WD. I had black friends who routinely use the word, and others who won't. The ones who do tell me that, like any word, it's just a collection of letters - context is everything. I do know that as a gay person, "fag" was the most hateful word to me; if you ever heard it, you knew there was a hateful person behind it, often with hostile intent. Yet, some gay friends of mine use the word for each other (affectionately), or for themselves. There are some who believe that by "claiming" the word, you rob it of its power. I'm not sure if I believe that or not. Strangely enough, these same people will also use "queen," but only as a perjorative, i.e. "what a drama queen." I really hate that useage and won't use it myself - it's just interesting how one perjorative can be used affectionately and one (for the time being, anyway) is not. Then, of course, there's the word "queer." When I was a kid, this was probably second only to "fag" as a hate word. Now you have shows called "Queer as Folk" and "Queer Eye" that are watched by gay and straight people alike. Gay groups use it in their official titles - i.e. Queer Nation. People talk about "queer culture." When all this started it made me feel a bit uneasy, but by sheer force of repetition I've gotten used to it, and "queer" doesn't get much of a reaction from me any more. Maybe it HAS been robbed of its negative power; I don't know. And the double standard is there as well. If I hear a gay person refer to his friend standing next to him as "fag," I know the intent. If I hear it from a straight person, I can be pretty sure the intent is different. Should we just refuse to use it? I don't know. I don't, but the evolution of "queer" is certainly interesting.
Originally Posted By jonvn "Queer" is just not used anymore by non gay people as a pejorative. It's actually a rather polite way of saying someone is homosexual. He's a bit queer. Odd or something. What made it hateful is the way it was used.
Originally Posted By DlandJB Lenny Bruce used to shock audiences by using swear words and many slams on ethnic groups. But his objective was to point out that they were just words, just syllables slung together to insult. His message seems to have been forgotten and the childish way we avoid any real discussions about the dreaded word almost makes the whole topic seem silly and insignificant.>>> Lenny Bruce was brilliant, but I think he was wrong about words being just syllables strung together and without meaning or power. Words are very, very powerful things. Nations have been created out of words ("We the People..." and all that.) Words have power, they are almost living things...they change over time (Fred Flintstone's "Gay ole time" was a lot different than say Harvey Firestein's "Gay ole time." Words change and some impacts of those words change. There are words you can now use on television that would have been stricken years ago. Sometimes I wish they would still be off limits, because comedians in particular get lazy and think that shocking a laugh out of people is the same thing as being funny. There are only a handful of comedians that can do both and most often those same folks were just as funny when they were not being blue. This sounds odd, but I'm not convinced that Richards is any more of a racist than most people (and I think most people are more racist than they would ever admit to others or to even themselves.) What he has is a rage problem and he went for words and images that were designed to make an impression on the hecklers and get them to stop. Problem is, he used an atomic bomb where probably a sledgehammer would have been sufficient. Well now these hecklers are getting the last laugh. I wonder how long it will be before other hecklers decide to see how far they can push a comic so they can later just look wide eyed and say, like these guys are, that they are very happy to have Gloria Allred representing them in the civil suit they are now planning. Some of the comedians he has worked with and known for years and years - Sinbad, Paul Rodreguiz, etc...said they have known him for so long that they were shocked. They didn't know he had such hate in him -- well, given that they have known him for years, isn't it possible that he actually doesn't but he does have rage? And incidentally, Paul Rodreguiz, who is being very sanctimonious now, has said some pretty unflattering things about gays and has never been called on it. I'm not a big fan of Richards...never liked him on Fridays and thought he was two dimensional on Seinfeld. But I think ever to dismiss words as being something neutral. They never are.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder "And, for Stillthepassholder (or whatever his name is) who said I don't talk to people like I do here in real life, well, here's a story for him:" Come again?
Originally Posted By jonvn I believe it was you who said that I must not talk to people in real life the way I talk to them here. Wasn't it?
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <"Queer" is just not used anymore by non gay people as a pejorative.> No, it isn't. But I think that may be precisely because gay people turned it into a non-pejorative. It certainly wasn't that long ago that it was probably the #2 anti-gay word. (Homer Simpson to John Waters, who used the word "queer": "Don't use that word! That's OUR word to make fun of you. We NEED it!") <It's actually a rather polite way of saying someone is homosexual. He's a bit queer. Odd or something. What made it hateful is the way it was used.> That's always the case, isn't it? "Spade," for example, could be seen as simply descriptive (spades as a suit are black, after all), but it isn't just descriptive. It's meant in a hateful and dehumanizing way. Intent is important.
Originally Posted By jonvn "But I think that may be precisely because gay people turned it into a non-pejorative." Perhaps, but I think people just moved on to other words. But also, it was used as a point of pride. When I hear the N word come out of a black person's mouth, it is not used as anything but an insult. "...could be seen as simply descriptive (spades as a suit are black, after all), but it isn't just descriptive. It's meant in a hateful and dehumanizing way. Intent is important." No, I don't think that was ever meant to be descriptive or a genteel way of describing someone. "Queer" could be.
Originally Posted By alexbook "'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.'" Any descriptive word can be a perjorative if the speaker's (or writer's) intent is hateful. I've heard people use "Jew" or "Jewish" in a way that I found very offensive, but I'm certainly not going to demand that Gentiles stop using those terms. It's not the words that are the problem, it's the hate behind them.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>Fred Flintstone's "Gay ole time" was a lot different than say Harvey Firestein's "Gay ole time." << I dunno. Fred and Barney sure went on a lot of vacations together. ; )
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <<But I think that may be precisely because gay people turned it into a non-pejorative.>> <Perhaps, but I think people just moved on to other words.> I don't think so, and as a gay person, perhaps my ears were quite sensitive to hearing the word "queer." Until maybe 15 years ago, you just didn't hear it from gay people themselves and DID hear it from straights. When gay people started using it - and not just using it, but doing so in an almost concerted, in-your-face way - was when straights seemed to realize they couldn't use it in as a pejorative any more. <But also, it was used as a point of pride. When I hear the N word come out of a black person's mouth, it is not used as anything but an insult.> I know black people who use it for each other quite affectionately. Maybe it's an east coast/west coast thing? I even saw a newspaper article that swore that written (or said) with an "er" on the end, it was an insult; written or said with an "ah" at the end, it was affectionate. (!) <<...could be seen as simply descriptive (spades as a suit are black, after all), but it isn't just descriptive. It's meant in a hateful and dehumanizing way. Intent is important.>> <No, I don't think that was ever meant to be descriptive or a genteel way of describing someone. "Queer" could be.> Could be, but I've heard it all my life, and until the recent evolution, 98% of the time it wasn't.
Originally Posted By friendofdd Read what some others say about words. <a href="http://www.ifla.org/faife/litter/subject/word.htm" target="_blank">http://www.ifla.org/faife/litt er/subject/word.htm</a> "Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill." Siddhartha Gotoma or BUDDHA
Originally Posted By TALL Disney Guy <That was the point I was trying to make. I mean I don't go up to my friends and say "Hello cracker".> Like I said earlier there's no way that term can be offensive to a white person. It just doesn't have the same meaning and conotation.> Yeah, but that's because you're not a minority, and history has been different to you. <I do know that as a gay person, "fag" was the most hateful word to me; if you ever heard it, you knew there was a hateful person behind it, often with hostile intent. Yet, some gay friends of mine use the word for each other (affectionately), or for themselves. There are some who believe that by "claiming" the word, you rob it of its power.> See? It's all different because black people, gay people, and others have been minorities, and how history has treated them. Because white people have been the majority and "top dog" so to speak, it's silly and ridiculous to think there's a term for us that's offensive that a bigger majority has called us--but in this country whites have always been the majority. So we have no use for such nuances.
Originally Posted By Mr X ***Well you are missed in general. I almost always reading yours and Mr X's thoughts, but they are rarely on here anymore.*** My thoughts were on here, Dave. They got deleted. Guess using the "a" word is just as bad around these parts!
Originally Posted By DAR <<Yeah, but that's because you're not a minority, and history has been different to you.>> But I've heard of instances of some white people being offended by the term cracker which is ridiculous. Tall you made some good points, but where do you draw the line? I'm 1/8 American Indian, do I have the right to say the word Injun or Redskin? I would say no.
Originally Posted By DAR <<I do know that as a gay person, "fag" was the most hateful word to me; if you ever heard it, you knew there was a hateful person behind it, often with hostile intent.>> Well let me be the first then to personally apologize because I've said "fag" plenty of times around my friends. It's a term that plenty of heterosexual males through around rather carelessly it seems.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder "I believe it was you who said that I must not talk to people in real life the way I talk to them here. Wasn't it?" In this thread? No. In the tattoo thread probably. And I stand by that.
