The poster in question QUOTED the poster you’re so worried about.
The poster in question QUOTED the poster you’re so worried about.
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How is this still a thing?!
Racism or beauty contests?
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Yes.
I was thinking of the latter when I wrote it, but immediately realized it could apply to the former.
Thanks to the internet, I’ve come to accept racism as inevitable in America 
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I’m surprised that no one is pointing out the obvious: the young lady’s use of the term is in no way racialized, let alone racist. In fact, she seems to be using it as a term of endearment for her friends. We shouldn’t assume that words mean the same thing to white teenagers, who might use them as vernacular slang, than they do to black or white adults, especially middle-aged ones, for whom the word “nigger” has a very specific historical resonance.
That’s not to say she or anyone else should use the word, just that teenagers should be free to communicate with one another however they like without worrying that their private conversations at age (13? 14?) will be published, parsed and used to try to imply anything about what they do or don’t believe about race. And we definitely should not assume that a teenager using the word in the context above necessarily has any racist thought or intent.
I’m confused. I thought she used Twitter to convey her thoughts, so these weren’t private conversations. These weren’t handwritten notes passed in class. I also wonder about parents who let their child loose on Twitter without any guidance.
I don’t like pageants, but I liked that the young lady didn’t downplay her mistakes. What does bother me are the adults who are downplaying her mistakes by continually coming up with excuses.
What about black teenagers? You’ve kind of left them out of this equation. The African-American teens that I’ve known would not be okay with a white teenager misappropriating this term.
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I said some really stupid shit when I was a teenager and some of was thoughtless and callous and just plain horrible. Damn glad that doesn’t follow me now.
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At no point do i defend her remark. I defend her and everyone’s right to make amends and unless further actions prove other wise to be done and live your life with out the scarlet letter digitally burnt on you.
You quoted the quote as well, and ignored that i was asking what is the punishment for this ? How would that punishment rehabilitate that person?
Other people decided to godwin the shit out of it and linked it to rape and huge miscarriages of justice to imply a similar level of criminality.
Ok fair enough edited please read this sentence instead…
Other people decided to godwin the shit out of it and linked it to racial disparities in the treatment of rape and huge miscarriages of justice to imply a similar level of criminality.
I linked it to racial disparities in the treatment of rape, actually. And I still maintain, based on a lot of evidence of other cases of misdeeds and how the perps are treated, that it’s highly unlikely a black winner of the contest who did the same thing would be treated so lightly.
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I remember what happened to Vanessa Williams, who never hurt anybody but had her Miss America title stripped from her after Penthouse published unauthorized nude photos of her.
I was pleased to read this little tidbit from her Wikipedia page:
Thirty-two years after resigning as Miss America, the current CEO of the Miss America Organization, Sam Haskell, offered Williams a public apology at the beginning of the Miss America 2016 pageant (where she was serving as head judge) stating: “I have been a close friend of this beautiful and talented lady for 32 years. You have lived your life in grace and dignity, and never was it more evident than during the events of 1984, when you resigned. Though none of us currently in the organization were involved then, on behalf of today’s organization, I want to apologize to you and to your mother, Miss Helen Williams. I want to apologize for anything that was said or done that made you feel any less the Miss America you are and the Miss America you always will be.”
Still, though I couldn’t say if that would have happened to Williams if she were as lily-white as Hay, I don’t think pageants and their management have improved appreciably in thirty years. (That apology was decades overdue and they knew it for all those decades.) I have no doubt you’re right, Millie.
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Only if he wants to hear from @Modusoperandi’s lawyers.
Now that is a brief I’d like to read.
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(I thought he was serious, before I got to the 3rd sentence.)
Same here, which is why I’m extra-pleased when I do get carded.
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Exactly.
How many levels of cluelessness is this? Pretty impressive, in a twisted way.
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