"Urban whore" sexism train wrecks Scientific American's holiday weekend

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Fair enough. I don’t care about the colour of my car (resale grey) either. It goes from A to B and back again without breaking.

Here in London, “urban” would reference light industry or smart-talking nitrous oxide inhaling yoofs (youths), who’d be associated with urban decay. Or, up and coming hipsters. Or “urbanites”. Hustle, bustle. DJs and fashion.

But in every culture, the word has a special situation in the lingo. This guy, he seriously jumped into a trap of his own making - warranted or not. He was an easy mark for revenge.

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I’ve learned something new here. “Urban” is another word that I’m not allowed to say on the Internet, or I might get fired.

The acceptable vocabulary gets smaller every day, I guess.

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What? Having heard of a racist slur makes a person racist?

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Who wrote that you can’t say it? Go ahead and say it. You might want to be aware, though, that in certain contexts, it has racial connotations.

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Exclamation points!!! Multiple question marks?? And why are you asking the victim, even rhetorically, what the perpetrator (and your employee) was thinking when he made the comments? You’re looking for sympathy from her about what a jerk-off your employee was and how he abused your trust? You hired the guy, he passed whatever vetting and training procedures you have in place, and you allowed him to represent you professionally, so don’t try to pretend that he also victimized you.

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I honestly can’t figure out how many persons in this thread are infinitely dense, actively driving trollies, or some combination of the two.

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Yes, I already learnt that one. Also, mansplaining.

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What? Having heard of a racist slur makes a person racist?

You know, now that I think about it, this isn’t the first time I’ve heard someone claim “urban” is racist. The first time would be Chris Matthews, during the past Presidential election, when he claimed Paul Ryan was racist for saying:

“I think the surprise was some of the turnout, some of the turnout in urban areas which definitely gave President Obama the big margin to win this race.”

I honestly, truly, bluntly state that anyone who states that “urban” necessarily means “black” is indeed racist. If you look at the demographics of the U.S., yes, African-Americans tend to be concentrated in urban areas, but over the entire country African Americans make up 12% of the U.S. population. By contrast, 83% of America lives in cities or suburbs. Now, I know that there were people deluded into thinking that Obama only won because black people voted for him, but I don’t think Paul Ryan is either that deluded or stupid (nor do I think he’s especially bright, just not that stupid). It’s just a simple fact that urban areas lean more liberal and rural areas lean more conservative, and while most of the land mass is rural, only 17% of the U.S. lives in rural areas. Surely anyone with half a brain knows that this is what Ryan was referring to.

EDIT: Now, whether Paul Ryan was playing to the idiot racists, well…probably.

Similarly, anyone with half a brain knows that this weasel of an editor was playing off Danielle N. Lee’s title, and in no way intended it to be racist. The notion that intent doesn’t matter, that because a bunch of white kids have decided to white knight against these horrible racists? Doesn’t matter. But naw, it’s people like me who are the idiots, failing to see the racism that was almost certainly not intended.

I mean, honestly…I don’t think anyone is arguing that this person wasn’t being offensive, rather that it’s a mighty big stretch to claim that it’s obvious that it’s racism and that anyone denying that is a damned fool or a racist defending racism.

(Sorry if I’m just feeding trollies, btw.)

Now that I think about it, you know, if “urban” is obvious, let’s throw something in: among African-Americans, nearly 80% say that religion is very important to their lives, and aside from urban centers, the African-American population tends to be concentrated in the South. Further, educational levels tend to be disappointingly low. Therefore, I suggest that every time one of the privileged kids here on Boing Boing makes fun of stupid Christians down South, they’re being racist. It’s obvious to anyone with half a brain.

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I don’t believe that anyone here is claiming that the “urban=black” link is obvious; to the contrary, there are posters claiming disbelief that it is a thing at all, or at least appear to require extraordinary evidence that it is a thing.

What we are saying is that if you insult someone by calling them a whore, if you then tack ‘urban’ on to it, you have to own the extra insult that carries as a synonym for ‘black’ as well, and own all the shit that flies your way because of it. One cannot claim innocence through ignorance when one’s intent is to insult anyway; the claim of ignorance in one’s insult is far more worthy of doubt than that ‘urban’ is used by some as a dog-whistle for ‘black’.

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Fair enough.

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[quote=“Shane_Simmons, post:280, topic:12021”]
You know, now that I think about it, this isn’t the first time I’ve heard someone claim “urban” is racist. The first time would be Chris Matthews, during the past Presidential election, when he claimed Paul Ryan was racist for saying:

“I think the surprise was some of the turnout, some of the turnout in urban areas which definitely gave President Obama the big margin to win this race.”

I honestly, truly, bluntly state that anyone who states that “urban” necessarily means “black” is indeed racist.[/quote]

For the record, on a strict text reading of that phrase, if that is how he said it, I’d agree that he didn’t mean anything racist by it. Knowing the tactics of the modern day Republicans, it’s not that BIG of a leap to assume he’s pandering to it, but it’s still a leap. Now, if I heard him speak it aloud, and he put a particular emphasis on the word ‘urban’, THEN I’d feel comfortable saying he was using it as a code word. You know the kind of emphasis… the kind where you can pretty well hear the air-quotes. Did he say it that way? I don’t know, and I’m not even going to look it up, I hear enough from that idiot to go looking for more. I won’t assume he did. But that doesn’t mean that lots of people don’t also use it that way. And often in the same way, when they say it, you can often hear that they’re putting an emphasis, or there’s a little pause, like for a split second the thought runs through their mind “Well, I can’t say BLACK, that might be racist… I know, I’ll say urban!”. And liberals have done it too, and I’m sure those on BOTH sides, often mean it with the best of intentions (they’re worried about offending people). But again, it’s how you use it. If you say, “I like this music, it’s very… urban!” You might be a little clueless, but I think most people will let it slide. If you’re calling somebody an urban whore… again, it’s like ‘tall’ whore. Is a tall whore better or worse than a short whore? Presumably, it depends on your own tastes. You wouldn’t add ‘tall’ to insult somebody. Is a suburban whore better than a urban whore? If you’re strictly talking about population density of the area they come from, what’s the difference? Presumably you can have high priced urban whores who only serve the rich and famous in Manhattan and cheap ones, so it’s not the location that matters? So why bother to include the distinction? Unless you’re using it as code for something, like black. And, again, context. If he said that to a white guy, or somebody he doesn’t know at all, you’re a little less likely to think he’s using it that way than to somebody who’s blogging-identity owns being a black woman. If it’s a mistaken impression… sorry, but he opened the door by calling her a whore in the first place, so he might as well get a lesson in what’s socially inappropriate on two fronts.

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You know what I always found interesting? Certain mammals, when you secretly paint a mark on their forehead, and sit them in front of a mirror, will react and try to get the mark off their own head, when they see it in their reflection, recognizing that it’s them.

Others don’t react that way… they can certainly see the mark, but they assume that it’s only on the handsome stranger behind the glass wall, and don’t do anything because, for all they know, the guy was just born that way.

I just find that fascinating, how something so blatant can escape them. I mean, you’d think that the creature they see in the mirror, moving in exactly the same way as they do, that would spark some kind of self-conscious reaction, but nope, some are capable of it, some are not.

I’m sorry, am I rambling off-topic? I guess I just got bored with our last conversation.

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The vector of modern politics is why people (rightfully or not) leap to that assumption.

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What we are saying is that if you insult someone by calling them a whore, if you then tack ‘urban’ on to it, you have to own the extra insult that carries as a synonym for ‘black’ as well, and own all the shit that flies your way because of it.
One cannot claim innocence through ignorance when one’s intent is to insult anyway; the claim of ignorance while insulting is far more worthy of doubt than that ‘urban’ is used by some as a dog-whistle for ‘black’.
I don’t think it’s requiring extraordinary evidence. I swear, last post on this, because honestly, the Pavlovian response to the charge of “racism” is exhausting.

Nope. I don’t see that it follows that because someone plays off of a person’s moniker, that it’s necessarily racist. Nor do I believe that, once a person has hurled one horrible insult, that therefore makes the person guilty of every insult which can be gleaned from a deconstructionist’s perspective.

Not only that, but…honestly, the original reason I stepped into it is because I wanted to say a long-winded “hey, this isn’t necessarily racist” in the vain hope that it would help defuse the situation. Hoboy, I always underestimate the level of hubris BoingBoing’s horde can dish up. I have to bow out at this point because all of us who have participated in this debate, including me, are guilty of derailing the conversation away from the issue that a female scientist was called a whore because she refused to work for free.

The extra-fun part of all this is that here we are, a bunch of uninvolved white kids losing our everloving minds over an email sent by an idiot editor, who has since been let go, and over a blog post being temporarily removed from a blog maintained by SciAm, and based on their explanation was only removed until they could get confirmation from the Biology Online blog. And we’re reading further insult into it that the victim herself has not read into it. Finally…if you check out DNLee’s Twitter feed, she seems to be having a lot of fun with the #whoreitup hashtag.

Maybe all of us, including me, need to get our knickers out of a twist…but keep our eyes on what’s important.

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People are still arguing about whether or not urban has racial implications? Dr. Lee has basically stated that the Urban in Urban Scientist is a reflection of her race. She is trying to use the word in a positive way. If someone else, however, uses it as part of an insult, it is not too much of a stretch to imagine that they mean it in an insulting way.

It reminds me of the way some women are trying to reclaim the word slut ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SlutWalk ). If a guy yells stupid sluts at a group of women participating in a SlutWalk, I think it is safe to assume that he means it as an insult.

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Yes, obviously, they would be defamatory, if that were the case (there is no evidence for this, but whatever).

Was this “clever” turnaround supposed to be some kind of troll?

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If he honestly didn’t know it’s still a manifestation of the luxery of remaining ignorant of the connotations that such language can hold. The language then becomes problematic, instead of dickish.

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I could explain to you the concept of using context to determine the meaning of language, but since you seem to be intent on being willfully obtuse on this subject you’d probably just further misrepresent what I say and accuse me of accusing you of being racist. So, like, whatever. Have fun.

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So you just ignore why I made the only-technically-a-comparison so you can go for the jugular. Unsurprising, really. Good job at feigning interest in order to make me a villain on the flimsiest pretense. I don’t think I trivialized or infantilized anything, but yes, I’ll admit I’ve lost here. Eh, it was worth it for the chance to learn your tactics. It’s certain that you have terrifyingly capable logical faculties; can’t really agree with your chosen application of them, but hey.

Note, given that his name (?) is Ofek, it’s not even clear that he’s from the U.S. or even knows much about it.

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When I am pointing out how something is sexist and a man declares that it is not, that I am over-reacting, and that they know better when it comes to determining whether something is sexist … it is fucking annoying.

I assume (but I could be wrong) that black people get just as annoyed when a white person tells them to stop imagining racism that is not really there.

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