Racial slurs

#1

Let’s continue our conversation about the use of these words here.

It’s getting the other thread majorly off-topic.

The way Nas uses the word nigger is as a commentary on racism. He’s embracing the term as a mark of defiance against oppression from politicians and music industry censors. That context makes it acceptable. Using the word purely as a slur, to represent a group of people based on their behavior and clothing, is the very use he is protesting against.

Douchebag works just as well to refer to unintelligent, materialistic fuckwads. But nigger used in that context is reprehensible and stupid.

#2

Nigger still carries the connotation of a black person. You very well wouldn’t call a white person a nigger because they’re stupid and uneducated, would you? White trash doesn’t carry the same painful, historical precedence as the former does.

To call a black person a nigger, no matter how they act, is to connect them with the worthless way their ancestors were treated. You’re basically saying they’re less of a person than you; scum. It doesn’t matter what connotations society wants to put on it, how words evolve. To think it’s okay to use it in private is just as despicable.

No matter how you cut it, it’s a term that should never have even been born, and needs a post-natal abortion rather than a half-assed attempt into evolving it into something a little less unabashedly terrible.

#3

I use it all the time. So often in fact that I don’t even associate it with racism anymore, but anger (since I use it when I’m mad).

#4

Black people can use it, white people can’t.

Kinda like how jews can make jew jokes, but if someone else makes them in the presence of a jew, there is a chance they will be offended.

#5

The only Jew jokes I have known here in Germany are referring to their role in the Third Reich, and are thus more than inappropriate to tell to whatever audience. They are simply not funny.

Example:

"How many Jews go into a 4-person-car?

At least five, cause there’s always additional room in the ashtray."

That’s fuckin offensive and not in the least funny to me. And I hate fellow Germans who tell those jokes for any other purpose than showing how disgusting they are.

#6

Not offtopic at all.

It’s very odd for Germans to hear their parents or grandparents being proud of things that Hitler started. Like the huge net of “autobahnen” (you might call them “highways”), the industrial infrastructure in Western Germany and the incredibly affordable “Volkswagen” cars.

#7

Here have fun

#8

Things like infrastructure and things like that are fine and no one is going to say Hitler was a bad person for doing things like that. When they reference Hitler, it is almost always in the context of the super-horrendous things he’s done to many groups of people (not just Jews).

It’s one of the reasons that “Reductio ad Hitlerum” (a variant of “Reductio ad absurdum”) is a logical fallacy because it claims that since X did Y and X is bad, Y is necessarily bad. Hitler ate food. Is eating food bad?

There are racial and ethnic slurs still in the common lexicon. There was a word that I grew up with that I thought had absolutely no issues with whatsoever (I’ve even used it) but I later found out to be a slur and I stopped using it:

The word “jew” as a verb. For example, if you go to a flea market or an auto sales place and you begin to haggle on the price, I grew up thinking the actual phraseology to use in situations like this is to “jew them down on the price”. I never connected “jew” (verb) with “Jew” (noun) in my brain until someone someday kindly pointed out the history of the slur.

And I hate myself sometimes that I’ve used it in the past, ignorant of the words that were coming out of my mouth.

#9

Nigger Penis.

#10

The great thing about South Park is that they make fun of EVERYONE. They don’t really take sides too much. Which is one reason it’s hilarious.

#11

#12

I see that you do not remember the nigger penis fiasco of yesteryear.

#13

I just love to rip things out of context, that’s all :wink:

#14

Hey guise.

I like,

fucking hate

anyone whos not a white, Christian, landowning male.

/thread

/sarcasm

#15

I’m white, but I don’t own land (or other people) and I’m definitely not a Christian.

Feel the hate flow through you.

Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. Suffering leads to the Dark Side. The Dark Side leads to being able to shoot lighting out of your fingers.

…wait, I think I messed that up somewhere.

@sassyrobot: I wonder if it’s a regional term, then. What led to my education is that I used the term to a highly-devout Jewish person, and a dear friend of mine. He wasn’t offended (like you, he’s very unoffendable) but he informed me that “jew” originated from the stereotype that Jewish people were moneygrubbers and would do anything to save a penny, so, to haggle on the price (save a penny), you were to haggle like a Jew and “Jew them down”.

Looking back on it now, it’s something I would never say anymore outside the historical or quotation context…or to use as a joke when I know that the person I’m talking to wouldn’t be offended and would get that I was joking and didn’t actually mean it.

#16

Oh shit, I seem to have forgotten about homosexuals.

#17

Wrong thread. You want that other one. :3

#18

I honestly don’t really use racial slurs in a racial way, I’m white and I’ll just call my friends chinks, niggers, Jews, or whatever. I usually just use them when I’m mad, or just joking around.

#19

bottom line you have no right to determine what other people can and can not get offended by within reasonable bounds, therefore when using potentially offensive and understandably so terminology and “words” then one should be aware that some individual s have the right to be offended =by it and may in afct be indeed when casually using terms which are rooted in ethnic stereotypes and subjugation

#20

Every human being is equal in my eyes, so I treat everyone the same.

If I can make jokes about white people, I can very well make jokes about Jews, niggers, Christians, Terrorists (Sorry, I meant Muslims), specks, gooks, pakis, coons, etc.

Excluding people from everyday wacky conversation just because they happen to have a different tone of skin or believe than me… Now -that- would be racist, imho. Humans are humans, no matter what origin/skintone/religion they have. I don’t dislike specific races, I dislike the human race as a whole.

Also, as people have said before, it depends on where you live. Over here, nobody really frowns upon the use of racial stereotypes. Apart from the occasional organizations that always cry and scream.

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