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[theinevitable]

I'm not saying that people are the same. I'm saying that the concept of scientific "race" is out of favor, for whatever reason. Maybe some day people will be able to get over their racial hang-ups. But right now, that hasn't happened yet. The same way the Nazi's made social darwinism forever uncool, the KKK and the like have made any scientific study of racial differences unpopular.

I actually probably do have some wierd racial hang ups. I mean, you're talking to the kid who's having a major guilt trip because he's getting "welcome to Washington University, from the Hispanic Student Society!" letters. I didn't lie. I am technically "hispanic". My mom is from south america. But what does that mean? I look white. I don't speak spanish. my last name is "Burton". Should they specify "hispanic: the kind that look like mexicans"? I don't know. But it makes me uncomfortable. ANyway... I don't know. It just seems so... unscientific. Am I not hispanic because I look white? Aren't hispanic people people from spain... and aren't spanish people white? Drawing boundaries between "races" is just too tricky.
In the same wikipedia article, they listed the formerly accepted racial groups: australoid ( Aborigines), Capoid ("bushmen", whatever that means.), caucasoid (what the hell? the example is an arab guy.), Mongoloid, and Negroid.

Anyway... I'm not suggesting we pretend racial slurs don't exist. But using an insult to describe someone is always unnecessary. This can go back to when someone, I forget who, insulted a woman by calling her a cow. We then entered a whole debate about people of gravity. Did he have the right to call her a cow? absolutely. Did her gravitude have anything to do with why he was mad at her? not really. Calling her a cow didn't really accomplish anything, except making the gravitious members of the board upset.


Similar story to paul's: my dad had to take a group of representatives for his company to (I completely can't remember the city. Birmingham? The one with the famous pictures of dogs biting people during the civil rights movement.) One woman, a middle aged black woman, commented that she didn't feel comfortable going there. She said "I know it probably isn't like that any more... but when I hear that city's name, I just think of police dogs and firehoses." Every black person in the room, with the exception of one guy, I think, said that they felt the same way, but hadn't wanted to say anything.

[Hobot]

Also, I admit that I don't even understand the etymology of a lot of racial slurs.  Like Kike?  Where the hell does that come from?

I've heard the "circle" explanation.

[jough]

The funny thing, both of the black people who called me on the carpet for using that word come from totally different socioeconomic backgrounds, yet they both said almost exactly the same thing.  "what year is it? Paul, you can't say that word in 2006."  Funny, and they don't know each other either.

Oh sure, but the "Words You Should Tell People Not to Call Black People" was the highlight of the newsletter last month, so they all know, Paul.  THEY ALL KNOW.

[jough]

I'm not saying that people are the same. I'm saying that the concept of scientific "race" is out of favor, for whatever reason.

Yeah, and there's still a "Flat Earth Society" too, and some moron wrote a book declaring that the Earth does not revolve around the sun, and people are still denying evolution despite scientific evidence.  People are morons. 

And I know you're not saying that everyone is the same - but the implication in a lot of this "ohmygoddon'tmentionrace" talk is that we shouldn't notice or at least mention that people of different races are different.  Physically, culturally, psychologically, etc.  And I think that trying to pretend that they aren't, or at least acting like you don't think people are different when you're among society, is wrong. 

I mean, I may treat some people differently because they're different.  I may speak more slowly to Indians (both Slurpee Indians and Casino Indians).  I may over-explain things to the Finnish.  I may not tip a Honduran waitress as much as I would a Costa Rican one, but none of these things make me a bad person. 

There are so many legitimate reasons to despise and mock people - doing so just because of their race is only one of them!

I've heard the "circle" explanation.

Yeah, I'm not buying any of those.  Also, I guess I don't understand why some people don't like Jews.  Is it because of Ben Stiller?

[Roger]

And now, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome LENNY BRUCE!

Are there any niggers here tonight? Could you turn on the house lights, please, and could the waiters and waitresses just stop serving, just for a second? And turn off this spot. Now what did he say? "Are there any niggers here tonight?" I know there's one nigger, because I see him back there working. Let's see, there's two niggers. And between those two niggers sits a kike. And there's another kike— that's two kikes and three niggers. And there's a spic. Right? Hmm? There's another spic. Ooh, there's a wop; there's a pollock; and, oh, a couple of greaseballs. And there's three lace-curtain Irish micks. And there's one, hip, thick, hunky, funky, boogie. Boogie boogie. Mm-hmm. I got three kikes here, do I hear five kikes? I got five kikes, do I hear six spics, I got six spics, do I hear seven niggers? I got seven niggers. Sold American. I pass with seven niggers, six spics, five micks, four kikes, three guineas, and one wop. Well, I was just trying to make a point, and that is that it's the suppression of the word that gives it the power, the violence, the viciousness. Dig: if President Kennedy would just go on television, and say, "I would like to introduce you to all the niggers in my cabinet," and if he'd just say "nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger" to every nigger he saw, "boogie boogie boogie boogie boogie," "nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger" 'til nigger didn't mean anything anymore, then you could never make some six-year-old black kid cry because somebody called him a nigger at school.
(from Julian Barry's screenplay for "Lenny")

[Doc]

This has actually been bugging me a lot lately, partly becuase I've been working in customer service and so have been examining more how I respond to people from different groups (not just ethnic also socio economic etc, not something you'd think you could tell from a brief visit to a gas station but generally I just count teeth - and no I don't want to hear about you goddamn college-graduate-millionaires that have no teeth and how I'm being prejudiced against the toothless) and I basically came to the conclusion that you can't come close to judging people by their appearance so now I just assume everyone is exactly the same as me. Until proven otherwise I just assume everyone I encounter can speak english reasonably well, is reasonably intelligent, works a shit job and is reasonably well educated. If it becomes apparent this is not the case I adjust but you just can't second guess every person you talk to and I think it would be insulting to do so.

With the nigger thing, first of all it's not really an issue in my country (we have our own wonderful little slurs, too many of which are depressingly tied to the world 'aboriginal' which just makes any conversation akward) but I would have thought it would make more sense to encourage people who weren't black to use it in a friendly way, by saying 'No, we can say that, but you can't say that' it just reminds everyone of the negative connotations rather than re-inforcing the positive way in which it was intended.

[Doc]

Since that post ended up being either offensive or incoherent anyway I thought I'd add that the people you insulted with your e-mail Paul are indicative of a problem in our society: people think what something looks like is more important than what something means and don't actually bother to see if there's any correlation between the two. This is because people are idiots, people of every race, everywhere.
Yeah you! YOU HEARD ME BUDDY!

[side_show]

I don't have anywhere near the time I'd like to to properly address this topic but here goes:

I had a Portuguese friend of mine ask me a little while ago about the terms "Aboriginal" and "First Nations" and which was appropriate, and what the difference was between the two terms.  I said that I didn't know, and that as long as the intention behind it was respectful, I'm sure that whatever term he used would be fine.

That said, Paul, is it possible that your friends were letting you know the term was outdated because they care about you?  I don't know what the rest of the dialog entailed, so maybe they're just jerks.  But I mean, if I am out in public, and someone I don't know refers to me as an Indian I don't normally respond to it, but I do sort of assume they're working from a place of ignorance and are possibly stupid and/or racist. FYI: I know in the US a lot of people still use the term Indian or American Indian, but in Canadian linguistics the term is no longer in use common use - it's basically used as a racial insult, and is, in Canadian linguistics, the equivalent of calling an African Canadian a Nigger.  I don't know what else they said, but maybe they just don't want you to get into a situation where you're around folks who you don't know who will make negative assumptions about you for using an out dated term?

[pmcd9]

Paul, is it possible that your friends were letting you know the term was outdated because they care about you?

Yes, that's exactly the case.  I was just about to write that in response to Doc, but you beat me to the punch.  My friends weren't insulted because they know I love jigaboos.

~Paul

[jough]

Well, Paul's friends could have made a point about him referring to people of color (that's my favourite euphamism for "negro" next to "Darkie" which also cracks me up - I guess it's the opposite of "Whitey") is that if he were referring to some white dudes he probably wouldn't have mentioned that they were white, but if he sees a black man, he's not just a man to him, he's a BLACK man.

I can see how that may be a problem.

I go through my day pretty much fitting in and I almost never have to even consider my race when I am out among society.  It just doesn't come up much, unless I have to go to North Philly (Philly Harlem), where I am instantly and constantly reminded that I am extremely white, and where everyone - men, women, old people, children - tries to sell me drugs, because that is usually the only reason a white person goes into that neighbourhood.

Oh yeah, I want to buy drugs just because I'm white.  Those people are fuck*ng racists.

[pmcd9]

Well, Paul's friends could have made a point about him referring to people of color (that's my favourite euphamism for "negro" next to "Darkie" which also cracks me up - I guess it's the opposite of "Whitey") is that if he were referring to some white dudes he probably wouldn't have mentioned that they were white, but if he sees a black man, he's not just a man to him, he's a BLACK man.

I can see how that may be a problem.

You have to consider the context of why I mentioned the "negro" in my e-mail.  It's because they have become such a rarity in my life in Utah that I thought it worthy of mention that there is apparently only a lone black person in all of Utah.  I've been here for nearly three weeks now and still he's the only one i've seen, and he's from Louisiana and here for the same reason I am, to work and then leave when the job is done.  I was saying it out of amazement, I wasn't using his color as a signifier.

I did see a guy with dreds and one of those funky knit caps with the red-green-yellow african colors, but he turned out to be a white guy.

~Paul

[wombat]

I wish we could still say 'colored people.'  It has always sounded poetic to me. And ever since reading Henry Louis Gates' memoir of that title, it has an air of nostalgia.  It's completely unlike 'people of color' which is obviously some kind of bureaucratese.

Speaking of Jough's 'didn't notice X was black,' I had an interesting experience a couple weeks ago when I had to call the zoo police about someone a member of the public had complained about.  She pointed the guy out to me and I went inside to phone and describe him.  The first thing the cop asked was whether the guy was white or black.  I couldn't answer, and what was interesting about this was that I felt like an idiot.  Because obviously we ALWAYS notice, so how I could not know?

I had to say, the guy was not very white nor very black and his hair was completely covered with a hat.  But I still felt like an idiot.  (And before you ask - I knew the cop and he's black.)

[Drygioni]

I wish we could still say 'colored people.'  It has always sounded poetic to me. And ever since reading Henry Louis Gates' memoir of that title, it has an air of nostalgia.  It's completely unlike 'people of color' which is obviously some kind of bureaucratese.

My friend always uses the term 'coloured' rather than black, and while I have no real problem with it it's too broad a brush to paint with. Depending on personal definitions, coloured can mean anything from 'just' black people to people of any ethnicity other than caucasian, which makes it seem a lot like 'us and them'.

For the same reason, I do not like the term 'Asian' when used to describe someone specifically. Obviously it is a statement of fact, but calling someone Asian could mean someone is Russian, Iraqi, Japanese, Indian... Not good to simply refer to them as that I suppose. Eh, not that I know anything really.

[Hobot]

Yeah, I'm not buying any of those.  Also, I guess I don't understand why some people don't like Jews.  Is it because of Ben Stiller?

Actually, I think the "circle" explanation is pretty legitimate-sounding.  They mentioned it as the most likely explanation for the origin of the slur on both the History Channel and Wikipedia, and we know that neither the television nor the internet ever lie.

Why do some people dislike Jews?  Because they're God's Chosen People.  Obviously.  I mean, that's got to rub a lot of people the wrong way.

[jough]

Yeah, how come God didn't choose Lithuanians?

My incredulity at the circle explanation is why would goyim use a Yiddish word, then?  It doesn't make sense.  Maybe if they called people "circs" or something for circles, but kike? 

No, not the simplest explanation either.  Where's Ockham when you need him?