Feminism and Political Correctness

[Yvonne]

No word should be illegal to say, but they should be respected for their potentially devastating power of association; associations which by definition are different for everybody.

 

While people should be free to say careless and horrible things, they are not free from criticism for their actions.

[Diageo]

A poem can be the most masterfully created piece of art ever. If the person reading it doesn't get it, it is nothing.

[Jonnas]

There are people who get riled up over the mere mention of the word "slavery" too. So... you know.

 

 

If you're against slavery and racism, why would you use that word?

 

I just did, three times. Without ever advocating slavery and/or racism.

 

The existence of words isn't everything. Poetry and rhetoric aren't just words, much like a painting isn't just paint. Context and usage (much like the precise strokes of a brush) give words meaning.

Edited July 12, 2011 by Jonnas

[chairdriver]

A poem can be the most masterfully created piece of art ever. If the person reading it doesn't get it, it is nothing.

 

Just because someone doesn't understand it, doesn't make these not the greatest lines ever writ:

They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow,

Through Eden took their solitary way.

 

 

Words have power. There's a reason people study English literature. There's a reason people will think you a lesser human being if you use that word without shame.

[Dannyboy-the-Dane]

This is by far the most interesting thread we've had in a very long time.

[The Peeps]

If you said to someone 'you shouldn't say nigger, it's offensive'

 

Are you in the wrong for saying it yourself? No. Context and intent matters too.

[Magnus]

He's called "monkey"? Really? REALLY?

 

ugh.

He's called Monkey because the game is (very loosely) based on Journey to the West and the character is based on/an homage to the Monkey King.

 

Plus he spends a majority of the game climbing around like a monkey.

Edited July 12, 2011 by Magnus

[Diageo]

Just because someone doesn't understand it, doesn't make these not the greatest lines ever writ:

They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow,

Through Eden took their solitary way.

 

 

Words have power. There's a reason people study English literature. There's a reason people will think you a lesser human being if you use that word without shame.

 

Yes it does. If no one understands something is great, then it isn't great. That's the end of it.

 

If you're the only one that thinks a poem is good. Is everyone else wrong, or are you? If you think the world is crazy, is it, or are you crazy?

 

Poetry, art and any media is only as good as the perception of those who watch it.

 

Words can only have power if heard by the right people.

[ReZourceman]

I genuinely don't care if someone is black/a woman/gay.

 

What about all three at the same time?

 

If you said to someone 'you shouldn't say nigger, it's offensive'

 

Are you in the wrong for saying it yourself? No. Context and intent matters too.

Absolutely. Gangsters/type people/street people use the word nigger as a term of endearment. I occasionally use the word to refer to an object of win, berate me if you will.

[heroicjanitor]

Language is just for communicating, that is all. If you didn't mean to communicate a bad meaning then it is fine, regardless of what emotional attachment other people have to a word.

 

Calling a muslim a "sand nigger". Do they get offended because you are calling them black, or because you are saying they live in sand or because you are obviously trying to offend them? You just know it's meant to be offensive and take offence.

 

There is always a time when someone figures out or is told they should take offence at something. Learned offence... It just sits badly. Apparently the word "cracker" is supposed to offend me. If someone wants to offend me though they would have to use a different word/attack something that is particular to me. I don't like having the power to gravely insult someone just because he is black.

[MoogleViper]

I once punched a woman.

 

 

 

I enjoyed it.

[Supergrunch]

But the point is that it's not about skin colour, it's about culture, experience and ideals.

 

As in, to quote my good friend: "I've never met a black person at Oxford. I have met lots of white people with black skin."

What I was trying to say was that many of the problems arise because people conflate race/culture and skin colour, which needn't be the same thing at all. Black skin shouldn't be something to avoid mentioning because it indicates you (or your ancestors) come from areas where it's advantageous to have melanin-rich skin, any more than people don't avoid mentioning the fact that lots of people from colder climates have blue eyes. This is especially true when you realise that the genetic differences within races are far greater than those between races. Of course on top of this, there are a whole load of problems surrounding cultural discrimination and how to avoid it, but society is really still at a level where certain "sensitive" features are given cultural connotations that they needn't have. Which seems both a more serious problem, and one that is more immediately addressable.

 

(For the record, I've met one culturally "black" person at Cambridge, if that's even really a culture as opposed to a mish-mash, but only one. And I guess they might dispute that.)

[Dannyboy-the-Dane]

A Rapist's View of the World: Joss Whedon and Firefly.

 

Oh, dear lord ... this is just ... wow. A prime example of a feminazi, indeed. I can only pray that it is indeed a troll.

 

There are people who get riled up over the mere mention of the word "slavery" too. So... you know.

 

"In our current political and cultural climate, a title like Enslaved shouldn't even exist."

 

Ugh, opinions like these just tick me off. I hate censorship, especially when it's based on over-sensitivity. It's ironic that the people who are most worried about other people's ability to separate reality from fiction are actually the people who seem least capable of doing so. It is a game. It doesn't promote slavery. In fact, I'd actually say it looks like it provides an interesting new perspective on the genre as well as the topic.

 

Language is just for communicating, that is all. If you didn't mean to communicate a bad meaning then it is fine, regardless of what emotional attachment other people have to a word.

 

Calling a muslim a "sand nigger". Do they get offended because you are calling them black, or because you are saying they live in sand or because you are obviously trying to offend them? You just know it's meant to be offensive and take offence.

 

There is always a time when someone figures out or is told they should take offence at something. Learned offence... It just sits badly. Apparently the word "cracker" is supposed to offend me. If someone wants to offend me though they would have to use a different word/attack something that is particular to me. I don't like having the power to gravely insult someone just because he is black.

 

So true.

[The Bard]

To not offend people purposefully. I get it. What annoys me is when people are blindly offended by the word "Nigger", regardless of context. Yes, it's associated with slavery and racial issues, but so are the words "slavery" and "race".

Calling a black person a nigger is offensive, but getting flak for simply saying "Nigger" outside of an offensive situation shouldn't happen.

 

Yes, but "slavery" and "race" are different words. Just because they share a single association with "nigger" doesn't mean that association is the only thing that constitutes the latter word. "Slavery" and "Race" are two very vague terms that apply to a history of oppression that can apply to so many different events and circumstances, and don't contain the specificity of "nigger," a word that applies only to problems that not only refer to the selling of people of one particular race to another for profit, but of a cultural and social hegemony underlined by race differences that is prominent in many parts of the world even today.

 

Words are only what the person who hears them perceives them to be. I can talk to my friend and throw around the word nigger, and retard, capper, rapist, sheep-shagger, paedophile and not need to be told off by someone who overhears the conversation that I am being offensive. We understand what we understand our words to be in our context, we don't need anyone else's.

 

Well, what you are doing here is showcasing an overwhelming lack of social and moral responsibility, not to mention a heinous ignorance of language, and inevitably, you're marginalising the existence of people who have had their ancestral and cultural histories marred by the sort of brutality that you can't even begin to imagine. Language is not denotative of course (unless we're talking about scientific language, and even then, its problematic), and words are collaborative and infused with a social identity. They are not abstract constructs that mean whatever you want them to mean, they are malleable, yes, but become hardened through usage. Only an insular dumbass would say that language; a purely social thing, isn't affected by its wider usage. If you utter "nigger" as a white person, you are flippantly flinging a term that is pregnant with centuries of hate. Yes, when you are with friends, you have a special agreement regarding the use of words within your own circle, but you shouldn't be flippant with language, and there are some words whose meanings shouldn't be diluted through misuse, just because of the severity of the things associated with them.

Edited July 12, 2011 by The Bard

[nightwolf]

Ah sexism, feminism etc etc, blah blah blah.

 

I've recently been told that at work my group - all lads, were told to behave around me during work hours, because...wait for it.

 

I'm a woman.

 

Now the lads told me after a couple of weeks because I've fitted in quite well and it's not ever been an issue, they thought it was quite sexist to assume a woman would have to be treated differently to say if a guy had joined the team.

 

I'm pretty much in agreement, ok, so the company were only trying to look out for me, my group are pretty rough and will make jokes about pretty much anything and I can see for some people thats pretty hard to take, but it shouldn't be because I'm female, what if a guy comes in and gets offended? Is that ok because he's a guy?

 

Christ I was so angry that day, not at the boys, but at the company itself, how irritating!

[Diageo]

Well, what you are doing here is showcasing an overwhelming lack of social and moral responsibility, not to mention a heinous ignorance of language, and inevitably, you're marginalising the existence of people who have had their ancestral and cultural histories marred by the sort of brutality that you can't even begin to imagine. Language is not denotative of course (unless we're talking about scientific language, and even then, its problematic), and words are collaborative and infused with a social identity. They are not abstract constructs that mean whatever you want them to mean, they are malleable, yes, but become hardened through usage. Only an insular dumbass would say that language; a purely social thing, isn't affected by its wider usage. If you utter "nigger" as a white person, you are flippantly flinging a term that is pregnant with centuries of hate. Yes, when you are with friends, you have a special agreement regarding the use of words within your own circle, but you shouldn't be flippant with language, and there are some words whose meanings shouldn't be diluted through misuse, just because of the severity of the things associated with them.

If it isn't The Bard, here to throw some ad hominem argumentative fallacy to make his point seem stronger and make himself feel better. I would take what you said more seriously if you didn't do this every time. It's childish really.

 

Words don't have a memory. If I tell a child that "nigger" means pony, that is what they word means. Sure we have a culture and they standardise language so we can communicate easier with each other, but at the core, it's still dependent on what the person who reads it thinks it means. It's not pregnant with anything. The centuries of hate have passed. The only reason people who were not marginalised are offended are because they are taught to be or because the speaker is clearly trying to offend even in tone.

 

A black person that doesn't speak English will have no problem with you calling him a nigger. He'll only be offended when you tell him he should be, or that it was meant to be offensive.

[chairdriver]

You're wrong. I don't even see the point in arguing this. Just don't use it. Or use it, and be prepared for people to think you're a dick.

[Diageo]

You're wrong. I'll use it when I want. I'm sure that 90% of the people I know won't be offended by it. I don't have any black friends. Actually I have one friend of a friend, and he's fine with people calling him nigger.

 

Or maybe I just have friends that can notice when someone intends to offend or not, which should be the way offence is handled.

[chairdriver]

Good luck in the wider world.

[heroicjanitor]

You're wrong. I'll use it when I want. I'm sure that 90% of the people I know won't be offended by it. I don't have any black friends. Actually I have one friend of a friend, and he's fine with people calling him nigger.

 

He's fine with people calling him nigger? Or is this "nigga", the more friendly, jokey cousin. The word nigger is used for nothing other than to cause offence, you don't call someone nigger. You can say the word but not call someone it...

[Diageo]

Good luck in the wider world.

 

I'm obviously not stupid enough to say it to everyone on the street, that was never even the point. I specifically said I can say it to my friends, where you claimed that you could never say it ever, like when you commented on Jonnas saying it.

 

He's fine with people calling him nigger? Or is this "nigga", the more friendly, jokey cousin.

 

Both .

[The Bard]

If it isn't The Bard, here to throw some ad hominem- argumentative fallacy to make his point seem stronger and make himself feel better. I would take what you said more seriously if you didn't do this every time. It's childish really.

 

I don't throw Ad hominems around to make my argument stronger - my argument is already airtight and backed by minds much greater than yours - I throw them at you because you genuinely are an infantile pillock at times. My argument contains two points whose validity is independant of each other; so even if you by some miracle prove to not be an infantile pillock by popular conviction, then the other point regarding language still stands.

 

No; a word doesn't just mean whatever the person reading it thinks it means, sure, there is always interpretational flexibility, but that is to do with any given term being able to be divided into jargons, manners of speech, dialects, sects, religions, political groups etc. The way we use words is a sign of who we are. Words are not simple things, why do you think we have so many different words for things that can ostensibly refer to the same thing? It's because all words have a different tonality and purpose. These words are not superfluous. Consider these: "nigger," "negro," "black," "african american." In denotation, yes they can refer to the same thing, but each has incorporated into it a particular tone in line with the way in which each has been used over time. With language, you cannot ever ignore the history of a word, even if this history seems to you to be obscure.

[chairdriver]

So it's OK to glorify slavery in the company of your friends?

 

Seriously, it's just so whack, on so many levels.

 

 

NO. I'm not OK with people jokingly calling their gay friends "faggot". Because people get shouted that on the street before they're beaten up (which happened to my friend, as you might remember). Yeah, it might be a joke, but how funny is it? How funny is it to trivialise stuff that's associated with awful things?

 

Have some responsibility with what you say.

[The Bard]

You're wrong. I'll use it when I want. I'm sure that 90% of the people I know won't be offended by it. I don't have any black friends. Actually I have one friend of a friend, and he's fine with people calling him nigger.

 

Or maybe I just have friends that can notice when someone intends to offend or not, which should be the way offence is handled.

 

Hey, I'm not saying don't use it, hell people in my close friendship group often call each other by words that are traditionally used as derogatory signifiers of race, but we do it in a jokey knowledge of the fact that we're doing it to subvert the traditional meanings of these words and turn them into terms of endearment. We're also doing it in the knowledge of the fact that not only is our usage unorthodox and meaningless within wider society, but that there is a large contingent of people would would be greviously offended if we said the same things to them.

[Captain Falcon]

 

Hey, I'm not saying don't use it, hell people in my close friendship group often call each other by words that are traditionally used as derogatory signifiers of race, but we do it in a jokey knowledge of the fact that we're doing it to subvert the traditional meanings of these words and turn them into terms of endearment. We're also doing it in the knowledge of the fact that not only is our usage unorthodox and meaningless within wider society, but that there is a large contingent of people would would be greviously offended if we said the same things to them.

 

So out of interest, what's stopping everybody doing that and removing the negative conotations inherent to certain words and making them acceptable whilst we find new ways to express their old meanings?