You’re at risk of being seen to attempt the justification of the usage of racist commentary. What is it you’re trying to say? What is it you want to say?
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TIL an ‘urban whore’ is a thing. Great.
My (overpriced) 2c. I’m not convinced this guy was being intentionally racist, but I don’t much care. He was definitely being an arsehole and deservedly got fired. If he didn’t want to get tarred with that particular brush (and who knows? I guess he’s not going to be sticking his head over the parapets to complain any time soon) he should probably have engaged his brain before he hit send.
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I’ll second p-b’s admonition, and further ask that you step off that slippery slope, please.
There’s no need for the average white American to ponder in a vexed way whether or not to use the n-word; he or she already knows it’s not right (if not exactly why it’s not right) to use it, even though some black people sometimes do.
If you’re white, avoid insisting that because blacks use the n-word without being legitimately blamed for it, no one should be bothered if you use the n-word too. It’s a simple rule, and an easy one to keep in mind.
As for other potential words, no, since whites remain where they put themselves in an extant racial hierarchy – on top – it’s not a good idea for them to develop words and phrases that blacks aren’t allowed to use.
You’re acting as if racism, in its many, many forms and effects, no longer exists.
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As the Urban Dictionary says,
Urban means relating to or concerned with a city or densely populated area, The term is exploited by corporations such as MTV to refer to black music/culture, without mentioning race.
These widespread racial connotations are not necessarily negative, but whether you’re aware of them or not, they are widespread.
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You know what I don’t get?
When a starving child steals my lunch, everybody fusses over the kid.
But when I steal a starving child’s lunch, suddenly I’m a monster!
Similarly, a 90-pound woman who slaps a 500 pound bodybuilder across the face with all her might seems to get a much reduced sentence than the 500 pound bodybuilder who slaps a 90 pound woman across the face with all HIS might. Sometimes she’s not even charged! Where’s the fairness in that? I mean, sure, he would be totally unfazed by the slap, and she’d be in the hospital, but, still, it should be equality, right?
(Psst. What you’re missing is the ‘equal’ situations aren’t comparable because there’s an imbalance involved)
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Seriously though, is their little tiny lunch of sticks even worth stealing?
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I actually want to point out that I don’t think he’s necessarily, consciously racist. That is, he might be one of many people who try their best to treat people the same regardless of race, but have some kind of baggage he’s not aware of, or he might not even be, he might simply be one of those people who have the instinct to, when they want to insult somebody anyway, they go for something that’ll hurt more, without caring that it’s racist (that if he thought it would hurt more to call her a tall whore, he’d have done that instead). And, indeed, it’s certainly possible that he had absolutely no idea of the connotation of ‘urban’, and just thought it sounded better.
While “if he’ll do that, he’s probably racist, too” might have some weight to it, in some of our guts, I think the bigger problem is that defending it, latching on to that issue, you’re not defending him, per se. You may think you are, but you’re also inadvertently defending the idea it was OKAY to use “urban” in that negative context, that people are making a mistake. “It’s forgivable. It’s very possible he didn’t know, so you all are probably overreacting.” But I think, even if it’s wrong in his motives for using it, even if they were entirely blameless in his heart, it’s NOT wrong to point out how problematic that word is to use. And that’s what some people have spent a lot of effort fighting. The insult he used was racist, even if he didn’t use it that way. I think it’s okay to say, “I’m not convinced he knew the subtext to the insult,” (I think he had a feel for it on some level, as I described above, otherwise he could have left urban out of it entirely, but I can agree he may not have been trying to be racist), as long as you’re not also saying, “… and so him using it wasn’t a problem.” It was still a problem. It just happened to be a problem of ignorance rather than maliciousness, and the way to correct BOTH problems is highlighting it. Just my opinion on it, others who are annoyed at the defense of his use of the word ‘urban’ might well disagree.
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I’m sorry, but I needed something dry to get the rich fois gras taste out of my mouth.
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But this is precisely the point. It is not right for the 90-pound woman to slap the 500 pound bodybuilder. It might be even more not right for the reverse to happen, but that doesn’t mean the former should be tolerated or condoned. That’s because we ought to believe that physical violence is a bad thing. As soon as you start claiming that it’s OK, but only if perpetrated by weak people, you get into a terrible mess.
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You’re still dancing around the edges of the campfire. Dressed in what, I can only guess.
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Ah, but you agree that they shouldn’t be punished the SAME, right? And if you saw a lone police officer and there were two people you’d just witnessed doing the slapping (let’s say it’s two couples with the same proportions), and he arrested the bodybuilder who smacked the woman he was with, would your instinct be to shout at how he shouldn’t let the woman who slapped the huge guy she was with (and he was left unfazed) stay unpunished, that he should devote an equal amount of energy to each? I hope not. But we seem to have a precedent for giving people different consequences to the same ‘act’, because of the power dynamics.
So, how about the punishment for whites using the ‘n-word’ is the social disapproval that we’ve assigned to it, and the punishments for blacks using it is having to deal with annoying people insisting it’s okay that they use it because the situations are exactly the same?
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Longtime lurker here and I was finally motivated to sign in to clear up some nonsense that has been posted several times in this thread.
I live in a majority minority city and work in an office that is 80% African American. Most black people do not go around referring to each other as the n-word! In fact, they get offended if another black person calls them that. Just because you’ve seen a rapper throwing the word around or seen teenagers who don’t know any better using the word doesn’t mean that it’s socially acceptable among black people.
Sure, a white person using the word is far worse than a black person, but this idea that “They call each other that!” is just false. It is not socially acceptable among black people that I know.
And frankly, it blows my mind that there are Americans who can pretend urban isn’t often used as a euphemism for black (foreigners get a pass on knowing the ins and outs of our vernacular). Next we’ll be saying that “thug” isn’t used predominately to describe young black men. I guess now I can get a lecture from Glitch about arguments from personal incredulity.
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[quote=“Glitch, post:12, topic:12021”]
It might baffle you, but what you seem to think of as obvious other people hold to a greater degree of scrutiny.
[/quote]Which is funny, because you appear to be holding the context to a lesser scrutiny than others. Ah, the kneejerk pseudosceptic.
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"Do you realize you’re being irrational? You’re passing judgement without evidence, you’re extrapolating wildly, you’re making personal attacks and insults, and you’re even trying to silence opposing viewpoints.
We are all entitled to our own opinions. I believe I presented mine neutrally and logically. "
Your bias in your rush to defend is no less obvious than others who have seen this behavior before. You are no more logical, no more reasoned, and no less prone to human failings.
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As far as I’ve ever personally observed, people don’t go around calling black people “Urban” as a racial epithet
As far as I’ve ever personally observed, people don’t go around calling my personal observations, science.
Because what I’ve observed has an awful lot to do with what I will allow myself to see. And I admit this, because i am a scientist, and not admitting it would be hubris, and would lead to shoddy conclusions based in selection bias.
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Why?
Because they’re attention whores.
You are not allowed to judge one person more harshly than another simply because of your personal feelings
In what world is this true? Who are you to tell other people what they are ‘not allowed’ to do? Are you god?
Friend, riding a high horse down a low road is not going to get you anywhere.
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I do think glitch is a bit more prone to seeing his/her own flaws in others, though.
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If one relies on racist and bigoted to be the same thing, then i suppose you are correct.
But I think that even if she was racist in using urban, he was bigoted when he used it.
And they’re not quite the same thing, are they?
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