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Brian Miller
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 28 July 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 30898
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| Posted: 22 June 2021 at 6:33pm | IP Logged | 1
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Are you in the south, James?
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132286
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| Posted: 22 June 2021 at 6:54pm | IP Logged | 2
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I’ve noted before that the first cat I knew, when I was 3, belonging to people my dad had met, was named N*gg*r. That was common practice in England, when naming black cats and dogs. Meanwhile, my grandfather called just about anyone who wasn’t White a “bloody Black”. I’m sure my opinions on the power we give words began there.
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Paul Kimball
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 21 September 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 2166
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| Posted: 22 June 2021 at 9:32pm | IP Logged | 3
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Hardly. Black people had almost neutered the N-word by aggressively making
it their own, then mostly White liberals decided it was time to ban the word
entirely and basically turned it right back into a way to manipulate the
emotions of Black people.
_________
Your experiences may of course be different than mine but I don't remember
any point where that word was close to being neutered
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James Woodcock
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 21 September 2007
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 7620
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| Posted: 23 June 2021 at 6:23am | IP Logged | 4
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This is such a complicated area to discuss.
It is interesting to understand that times HAVE changed,
and people HAVE changed, as we understand the power of
words, and the meaning of words.
I have often spoken of how I genuinely wonder whether,
had I been born in earlier times, I would have held
racist views and ideals. I know, without a shadow of a
doubt, that I hold that potential in me. Because when I
was a child in junior school, I used racists language -
without understanding what the words meant. But we all
did in my school.
I know better now, but clearly, the evidence says that
culture, and being raised in a culture, has an impact on
how I was at that time.
Of course, with better understanding and education, there
is no excuse for me to now use that language, ever again.
But we are in a time when people are re-examining the
past - where many people who achieved brilliant things,
have been shown to have acted in ways that we would not
accept now. But they were then. And they had been raised
in a completely different culture then. So do we dismiss
their achievements because of this? Do we vilify them for
their bad?
Or do we understand that we are trying to assess people
from the past based on our current thinking? And
understand that we have to make adjustments for the
passage of time and better understanding?
Do we throw out so much culture that contains both good
and bad, within the same thing? Calls for Enid Blyton
books to be removed occurred this week - there is good
and bad in those books. But it was the culture at the
time and few knew better. Had they been written now?
Totally different story.
Do we throw the baby out with the bathwater?
This is totally different to instances where the
situation, the person, can clearly be seen to be on the
negative end of that spectrum.
This is a minefield for the younger generations, because
we do seem to be in a state where if you did something in
the past, you must be vilified in the present for it.
But, as we have seen recently, there are people, who have
been shouting from the rooftops, supporting that stance,
who just may well have done things in their past, when
they were younger, when they understood things less, when
they may not yet have formulated their own stance on a
topic, and those things they have done, are similar,
sometimes exactly the same, as the people who they vilify
because they did things in their past when they were
younger and 'knew no better'.
But no one seems to come forward and say 'Hey, no one
knows this about me, but in my past, I did this and,
yeah, I'm not proud of it. I know better now and think we
need to advance as a society'. Which really, would be a
better starting point if we are to truly progress - let's
acknowledge that we have all probably done/said things in
our life we are not proud of.
But who am I now? Who are you now? What does the weight
of our lives say about us? Do we hold those same views we
held as an eight year old? As a teenager? Should a thirty
year old lose their job for something they said/posted on
Twitter when they were fifteen? Should we treat that
exactly the same as if they had said it this morning? or
should we understand that we might need to be a bit more
nuanced in how we react to all this stuff that gets
'uncovered' in people's past?
Having said all that, on the topic of sticks and stones,
I do have a different stance to JB on that. I class it
akin to the topic of 'don't be a grass'.
For me, 'Don't be a grass' is about someone who knows
damn well they have done something wrong, exercising
power and control over a victim, making them think that
they are in the wrong if they tell someone, and I deplore
that. I hate the whole concept of manipulating people
into allowing bad things to happen, based on the theory
that if you tell someone, YOU are worse than the person
doing the crime, because you have no honour or some other
stupid thinking. And so many people seem to accept that
thinking.
For me, words hurt. Simply telling people to not let the
words hurt them, thus robbing the person saying the words
of their power, is disingenuous to the victim. Usually,
the person saying the words already holds power and is
using the words to solidify, or laud that power over
their intended target.
Whether that power is actual or assumed, doesn't really
matter. It's there, the words are given power because of
it. And that should be the focus of our outrage, rather
than the people who are on the receiving end - THEY,
should receive our support
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James Woodcock
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 21 September 2007
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 7620
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| Posted: 23 June 2021 at 6:27am | IP Logged | 5
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One final thing I would add to the above - is that all that
also applies to how women are treated, often with bells on.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132286
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| Posted: 23 June 2021 at 9:27am | IP Logged | 6
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I included women in my short list of people who can be manipulated with words. The last decade or so, in fact, has seen one of the nastiest anti-female words come into broader use.* Probably because the old standard “bitch” has become almost a joke word. ————— * What’s a four letter word for a woman ending in UNT? (aunt)
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James Woodcock
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 21 September 2007
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 7620
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| Posted: 23 June 2021 at 9:33am | IP Logged | 7
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My mind boggles at the increased use of that word. there
was a time that its use was pretty much banned in TV and
film but now it can be thrown around in 15 certificate
films.
I cannot think of a similar word for males
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Joe Zhang
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 12857
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| Posted: 23 June 2021 at 10:27am | IP Logged | 8
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There are those who take exactly the opposite view of JB's, that language creates reality. It's something that American intellectuals take seriously. And it's why so much of the current culture wars are fought over the use of pronouns and gender neutral titles like "birthing people".
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Craig Earl
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 13 July 2019
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 1249
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| Posted: 23 June 2021 at 12:26pm | IP Logged | 9
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My mind boggles at the increased use of that word. there
was a time that its use was pretty much banned in TV and
film but now it can be thrown around in 15 certificate
films.
I cannot think of a similar word for males
-------------
That word is the one swear-word that is off limits for me, but I've also noticed its increasing use in movies/TV shows. In the US it seems to be directed at females but in the UK men and women are on the receiving end (I've even heard women call men the C word over here).
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Rebecca Jansen
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 February 2018
Location: Canada
Posts: 4523
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| Posted: 23 June 2021 at 12:47pm | IP Logged | 10
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De-powering words seems a good idea. I don't use the 'N' word even though I think it might be initially short of Nigerian? You know, as Pakistani gives us another word we shouldn't say (but I believe Prince Harry once did about a friend in the armed forces and caught royal h*ll). Queer is something I dare not use either though a lot of gays and others do, the biggest moment for it might be in that Queer Eye For The Straight Guy show?
There just aren't lots of derogatory terms for white guys... whitey? Honky seems pretty dated. A-hole and b*stard seem to have become more gender neutral than I'd have thought they could be. Think of all the terms for women though... b*tch, wh*re, c*nt, slapper, bint, tart. Now you do only call a man a pr*ck, but anyone can be a c*nt (Derek And Clive made a great sideline in that one). In Holland cl*tzak is a bit like bollocks except you can call a man one.
Cue clip of Sex Pistols on that daytime talk show...
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Rebecca Jansen
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 February 2018
Location: Canada
Posts: 4523
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| Posted: 23 June 2021 at 12:51pm | IP Logged | 11
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A 'grass' is just a snitch, grassing someone up is telling on them... another elementary school level concept there like catching cooties, kicking a ginger, having four eyes and all of that sort of thing. There's a shifty beggar on Heartbeat named Greengrass, not to be trusted unless you happen to be on some fiddle with him perhaps.
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Tim O Neill
Byrne Robotics Security
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 10926
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| Posted: 23 June 2021 at 1:25pm | IP Logged | 12
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Eric S: "People still apply emotional reaction to words BLINDLY. A knee jerk reaction; a white man uses the N word and a black audience loses their mind. But if a BLACK man uses the N word, it's friendly and charming.
Exactly as Mr. Byrne says; words are nothing but symbols. And if misunderstood, then that's where the problems start. I still recall a politician accurately and correctly used the word "niggardly" - but knee-jerks heard the N word and went crazy.
Once people are smart enough to understand how words are used in context, we'll mature a little more. And in all equality and fairness - once people stop using inflammatory words for a couple decades, we'll mature a bit for that as well.
How soon until we can once again use "gay", "sucks", or "blows" with no fear of insult or bad denotation? Not soon enough."
****
You tell them, Eric! Don't you let the haters win - you can say whatever you want. You start using the n-word today and show them that you are just as friendly and charming as any Black man or woman. In fact, do you know what would be a total boss move? You go tell your supervisor that you have the freedom to use the n-word when you want. They are going to see you are a man of supremacy! I smell promotion.
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