Or, how Sly and the Family Stone have prefigured the tortured logic of mainstream “liberal” American academic/media elite discourse on race. From the Chicago Tribune:
It’s hard to come up with an ethnic slur that has less of a sting than “whitey.”
A prevalent yet unsubstantiated Internet rumor has it that Barack Obama’s wife, Michelle, used this term at some point in a speech, and the Obama campaign is concerned enough to have posted an online rebuttal.
I’ve got to ask, though. Are there really white people out there so ignorant of history, so unaware of the nuances of language and so threatened by minority grievances that they take genuine umbrage at the term “whitey”?
More a taunt than a threat, the word has no ugly history and hints at no particular stereotypes. It may have been hurled in a menacing fashion in ugly personal confrontations from time to time, but it’s never been used to keep a people down, to put them in their place, to rank them as subhuman.
To be truly offensive, a derogatory term needs to have an ominous context that “whitey” lacks.
Those who take offense are confusing prejudiceâ€â€which is making negative assumptions about people based solely on external characteristics, of which all races and ethnicities are guiltyâ€â€with racism, which is prejudice in action.
It requires them to imagine that “whitey” marginalizes, diminishes and therefore harms white people.
And if they’re really that dumb, then I guess they deserve to be insulted.
Beyond the irony of being lectured on what people should or should not take offense at by those who constantly remind us that giving “offense” is commensurate with “hate speech,” and as such, is worthy of special remedies (“diversity training” for benighted “haters,” a rather nuanced reconsideration of free speech that turns “tolerance” on its head, or — at best, the rise of “free speech zones,” which are nothing more than a progressive attempt at Jim Crow-ing the First Amendment), what is especially astounding and galling about this piece of Foucaultean dross is that it seems to take its own cynical argument seriously: because use of the term “Whitey” has never been accompanied by a systemic program of oppression, the argument goes (question: was the word “nigger” ever included in anti-black legislation?), it can’t possibly be “racist,” because “racism” can only occur in a situation of unequal power relationships.
This is, of course, the Spike Lee apologia — one that conveniently brackets that the Great Society programs, and race-based affirmative action in particular, acts as a government sanctioned “remedy” for perceived power disparities, and in so doing meets the criteria for “institutionalized unequal power relationships” necessary for even this most tortured excuse for racism.
Further, the argument — like so many others that seek to excuse boorish behavior from the Reverend Wrights of the world — forgives the perpetuation of the very kind of racial animus that it should be bemoaning.
But then, perpetuation of grievance politics being such an essential piece to the progressive political strategy, it is hardly surprising that the a major newspaper would close ranks around the kinds of speech that under different circumstances they’d be decrying, and perhaps even agitating for legislation to “correct.”
So yeah. It looks like an Obama presidency will give us a frank discussion on the issue of race. If by “frank” we mean, “shut up and quit you’re bitching, whitey. We’ll tell you what racism is.”
Seizing the means of linguistic production. Boutique Marxism enters the mainstream — and once it is accepted, it will most certainly undermine classical liberalism and the idea of free speech.
(h/t Terry Hasting; more, from neo neocon.)
update: If you’re one of the few people who bothered to come over from feministe rather than simply take at face value Jill’s ludicrous encapsulation of my argument in this post, my response is here.
For all the good it’ll do me.
Open italics tag, sir.
Never mind, thank you. – delete these, if you wish.
Ummm, well, the Irony Meter pegged on that one.
“never been used to keep a people down, to put them in their place, to rank them as subhuman.”
I think I would take issue with that. It’s used to diminish, and absolutely to reduce the humanity of those so described because of that person’s or those persons’ race. To put them in their place, as oppressors, evildoers, an organized collective of paleness who should be generally held in contempt, and/or tampled, exposed, humiliated, dismissed, etc. depending on how used.
While I don’t agree with telling people how they should or shouldn’t be offended, it doesn’t surprise me that they would appeal to the social oppression factor in defining racism, because that’s how most (if not all) of the academic intellectual community defines it. I think they need a better definition myself, one that creates a possibility for racism from non-dominant groups as well, but I would be wary for criticizing an author that is adopting standard definitions in an intellectual context.
And if they’re really so dumb that they would take offense at something that was intended as a taunt and an insult, then I guess they deserve to be insulted.
Fixed.
Can I get a job as a Tribune copy editor?
David Wynn,
I think they need a better definition myself, one that creates a possibility for racism from non-dominant groups as well…
But that would undermine the very foundation of Identity Politics.
“…that is adopting standard definitions in an intellectual context.”
Where, of course, intellectual = dumbass
If by “frank†we mean, “shut up and quit you’re bitching, whitey. We’ll tell you what racism is.â€Â
That, paired with the “It’s a black thing, you wouldn’t understand” meme.
But, this is my favorite part: Those who take offense are confusing prejudiceâ€â€which is making negative assumptions about people based solely on external characteristics, of which all races and ethnicities are guiltyâ€â€with racism, which is prejudice in action.
So … if you’re only guilty of prejudice, that’s ok? Can’t take offense if the person was merely being PREJUDICE.
‘Cause everyone knows that blacks can’t be racist.
Right?
Right?
Oh, really? Get Gingery!!!
i wonder if you saw this comment, Master
#
Comment by Lazar on 6/13 @ 8:09 pm #
Jeff writes;
I believe the only way to beat back what is now so insinuated in our very thinking is to reclaim language, specifically, to reclaim what it is we think we are doing when we interpret.
Similar to undermining a currency. Prices communicate. The processes is subtle. One effect is to destabilize value.
Lenin was right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.
– J.M. Keynes
One more step and you can be the first website to call Obama, well, the word on the tip of your keyboard.
Well, that’s a traffic-boosting headline.
Round up the usual
sock-puppetssuspects!To offset the effects of institutionalized racism we must first institutionalize it.
If you cannot see the inherent truth in this then you are a racist.
Repeat after me now:
War is peace
Ignorance is strength
[…]
And Flagrant beats me to the punchline!
What would that bit, Flagrant? I mean, on the tip of my keyboard are my “F” keys …
You know, on General Hospital, there was a character whose name was “Blackie”. He was played by the great John Stamos, brought to life with his unique genius.
Now we are all a little gayer for having watched me remember this.
“QWERTY”? Or “ZXCVB”?
Or, for the oddballs out there, “DVORAK”?
What did he say?
He said the President is near.
I offer this laurel, and hearty handshake to our new…….president.
Perhaps we should cut Flagrant some slack; s/he may just not be a Sly fan. Which would be dumb, but a different kind of dumb.
Coincidentally [cough], it’s also Whitey’s. It’s how he bounces the darkies’ well- and still-justified ire toward Whitey over toward white people who aren’t Whitey, claiming that those white people operate from a position of “structural” privilege that only Whitey himself actually occupies.
I don’t know if that’s a “rope-a-dope” or an “okey-doke” or both. It’s a bamboozlin’ of some sort, I guess. Someone ask Robert Byrd. All the old-ass Fetchit slang in this campaign that nobody outside it has used since before I was born confuses me (though its revival under the peculiar circumstance [cough] doesn’t).
BTW, I really like that it’s an anonymous “Tribune Staff Report.” Removes all the accountability.
If the Tribune writer even cares, I prefer “Mr. Whitey” or “Mr. Cracker.”
The new mantra: Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will…cause me to crawl up into a little ball and die of woe and self-pity.
Yup, just as I thought, a post by Jeff with a headline like that, surefire moonbat magnet.
It requires them to imagine that “whitey†marginalizes, diminishes and therefore harms white people.
Compare this to the subjective current standard for sexual harrassment at most universities. For example, a man and woman might laugh together at a sexually titillating joke, but a third party listening in can report the joke as harrassment, regardless of the opinions of the conversing parties.
Which my cracker ass says makes those “white men can’t hump” jokes suspect.
Most astounding is that Flagrant misses an allusion that I even gave the referent for.
There’s some meta meta irony happening here: Sly was most likely ironizing the use of competing racial epithets; but Sly and his family can’t be racist, because of their societal position. Which negates the irony of the original. And makes the reading of it today ironically ironic.
Progressivism: it’s what’s for din -er.
“to rank them as subhuman.”
Umm, depends on context. In some cases no. In others, yes that is what it’s for (from a black nationalist or liberationist, it is to make people in subhuman class… much like capitalist or Kulak to a Marxist). It can also be a taunt in the right context (I’ve been called a cracker as a taunt… and it was also a partial threat)… so, I call BS.
The antidote to this is exactly what Jeff’s done, which is to mock it endlessly.
whitey IS different than the word nigger, but had she said it–and the fact that is is still even being discussed is proof enough of the success of this meta-hoax–it would have been one helluva story.
the canned outrage of the Chicago Tribune has more to do with a shot across the bow: “Hey Whitey, you’re not allowed to comment on or criticize any shiboleth of the identity politics movement..that’s off-base.”
yelling “Racist” still holds a lot of power to stop debate or derail it, don’t you know?
What about honkey? Should I be upset at honkey? Because I have been called, very sincerely too, a honkey once, and kind of giggled a little. And to second Carin’s point in regards to prejudice, so prejudice is ok, now? I’m cool with that. I mean we all have prejudices. I’m prejudiced against cowardly assholes. So, I’m prejudiced against “Flagrant”.
Let’s be honest, none of the words used as slurs against white people have any real sting. Most of them make me giggle: Ofay, Casper, Honkey, Whitey, Cracker, White Devil etc. Oooh, that really burns. Words have the power you give them.
Formal definition or not – “Whitey” is usually used in reference to an individual/establishment in gov’t or society that is composed of priviledged “Whites” that have the sole purpose of preventing the minorities (especially “Blacks”) from reaching any success or happiness by oppression — at least that is how I’ve always the term used???
Sure, there is nothing to be offended by that refference.
Comment by David Wynn on 6/16 @ 12:40 pm #
“but I would be wary for criticizing an author that is adopting standard definitions in an intellectual context.”
I’d rather mock them all for misusing a word. A better solution would be for academia to create a new term or word for this power based oppression stuff. Racism means racism, not what they claim it does.
Also, considering the considerable social power of progressivism, who are they kidding about power relationships? One poorly thought out word or argument in the wrong place or time and your life can be seriously ‘changed’ by them. The hold considerable power over all of us. Ergo, their followers who are… ahem… racists… should be called that even using their arbitrary reworking of the word. If anything this is reminder of the false meme that society, institutions, and corporations are inherently ‘conservative’ that is an article of faith (re: it has no social science backing it exists) with progressives and academia. It’s false IMO. Progressives put more social pressure on society / wield more ‘power’ over us than national review readers / conservatives.
Yougottabefugginkiddingme.
Here’s the deal, bitches. Whitey has self confidence. You should try it.
Well considering everyone on the right is racist by definition,(supporting the abolishment of affirmative action, restricting welfare benefits for minorities, history of the Republican parties racism, and tax cuts for the superrich who exploit cheap labor of minorities) it is easy to want to call a Republican that is white whitey. It is not PC but I could definatly see how it could slip out in a moment of righteous anger.
But acutally, I don’t get upset very easily so it really doesn’t matter to me.
Comment by Christopher Taylor on 6/16 @ 1:28 pm #
“Let’s be honest, none of the words used as slurs against white people have any real sting. Most of them make me giggle: Ofay, Casper, Honkey, Whitey, Cracker, White Devil etc. Oooh, that really burns. Words have the power you give them.”
Lets be honest… if the person saying it is a hater… or bigger and stronger than you and saying it right next to you ‘I hate crackers’ in order to rile you…
There’s some meta meta irony happening here: Sly was most likely ironizing the use of competing racial epithets; but Sly and his family can’t be racist, because of their societal position. Which negates the irony of the original. And makes the reading of it today ironically ironic.
Okay, that was painful. I’m just going with “He meant what he said.” and leave it at that.
So, does this mean Rush will be getting his job back as an NFL analyst?
You just should not call people names based on their physical characteristics period.
I hate it when people call me stallion, or Trigger, or Hugh G., or Wilt etc.
That was a lie.
No one would put their name on that article. Interesting. But me I am dutifully not offended by what M’chelle didn’t say. I’m a good whitey that way.
Speaking of whitey –
White Trash is my favorite color though!!!
Oh and also me I love crackers but you’d be surprised at how much fat a lot of them have. I usually get those cardboardy rye crisps ones cause they don’t have a lot of fat and they also have fiber and some protein. Yay fiber and protein I guess. Hey did you know you could make your own ones? I totally definitely see that happening in cocina del happyfeet. Especially the part where you glaze the top of each cracker. Good lord these people.
i wonder if you saw this comment, Master
What’s with jen and nishi addressing Jeff as “Master”???
Does “CrackerJack®” fall in the same catagory? I need to know what to cry about.
sorry forgot the reg symbol
The dope. Racism is race-prejudice. That’s the definition.
I hate it when people call me stallion, or Trigger, or Hugh G., or Wilt etc.
I just wish that all the women who call me “tripod” would love me for my personality.
That’s mighty white of you.
Fuck off, round-eyes.
Oddly enough, there is a very similar — signed — column also at the ChiTrib by a woman of color, which invites response:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-trice-16-jun16,0,2819200.column
My response:
I disagree, but it’s a white thing, sweetcheeks — you probably wouldn’t understand.
What’s with jen and nishi addressing Jeff as “Master�??
IIRC, nishi is pushing a Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon theme. Me, I was watching “Beowulf” the other night when nishi came to mind, and I wondered if a long time ago Jeff did something really nasty in a cave.
Other than BANG HIPPIE CHICK IN A FLOWERED SUNDRESS!
“Good lord these people.”
– feets, its still just the same 15% or less of the populace that are this brain fried, in spite of all the smoke and mirrors, and tricks they use to force multiply.
– So eat your crackers in peace honkey.
Whitey is OUR word! You have no right to use it!
Oh, and the Tribune (which is supposedly a “conservative” paper) can go fuck itself. Damn crackers.
I found it very amusing that no one at the ChiTrib had the balls to put their name on that bit of leftie drivel. And the earlier poster had it right; this was a perfect example of the proggies “don’t do as we do, do as we say” mindset.
Yo, crackers, what up?
Has anyone seen my banjo? What color is your banjo?
BTW, Bob Beckel is blaming “crackers” for that Whitey tape rumor he himself put on TV.
Of course, the brilliance of this – what the hell is it, an editorial, or what – is that if you are offended by being called “whitey,” you are “ignorant,” too.
So no matter what, choke on it, white devils!
(BTW, are we enjoying the national conversation about race yet? Are we? Any more “healing” and we’ll all be ready to wring each others’ necks.)
Use of “Whitey” as a disparaging nickname in a display of race-prejudice has plenty of “impact” – it reveals that a vulgar person with ugly beliefs is speaking.
Here’s the thing: I just don’t give a fuck what Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Michelle Obama, or white progressives in hairshirts teaching collectivist guilt on university campuses, think about me.
I do, however, care about the integrity of the Constitution, and about eventually reaching the point where color-blindness by government (if not by certain ethnic pride types) is the default.
Which won’t happen so long as the political fear of instituting race-blind policies, or honestly dealing with the progressive hoax of “diversity” (hi, Justice Kennedy and former Justice O’Connor!), keeps the courts from dealing with the plain text of the Constitution.
– Beckle, who is himself that absolute archtypical prototype for the lying Left wing hack on the tube, had heard about the rumor on the net, and was trying to get out front of the story, no doubt afraid it might just be true since he knows that Michele is a loose cannon, is now trying to cover his sack of shit screw up tracks.
– He also went of on FOX on Sunday ;ambasting the terrible vileness of the Right bloggers, much much more worse in tone and widespread than anything on the Left.
– Asshole Becket is a veritable one man propaganda machine for his SP buds. When you see him open his mouth you know hes lying. Probably hes reacting even more than normal because he got caught, and hes getting his ass chewed from both sides of the divide. Fucking shithead.
– I think they keep him on FOX as an example to kids everywhere of the dangers of partisan living.
Jeff,
Granted, though presumably the post is identifying the sort of mau-mauing intended to create the climate which prevents dealing with the underlying issue.
The rule change that came along with identity politics, this idea that race should, in fact, determine how you are treated by the law- is the exact opposite of that espoused, and rapidly accepted for its moral truth, during the civil rights movement.
It makes no sense, it’s immoral, and as far as my tiny little sphere of power goes, I won’t have it.
I will have some rye crackers, though. Maybe a little smoked salmon with that.
Hey! Just because I live in Georgia doesn’t mean you can call me “cracker.”
[…]
Huh? You’re kidding, right? No?
Dammit. ‘Cause I much prefer “saltine.”
Talking to some older Atlanta music fans at our gig last night and a funny story about this band
http://tinyurl.com/4jusap
came up. Seems they got booked in DC by someone who didn’t quite get the concept, and when they arrived they were billed on the marquee as Thermos Greenwood and the Black People. The beginnings of the PC movement, and the beginning of the end for humor.
Anyone see The Onion Movie yet? Because as Pablo alludes here, the “correction” for all Whitey’s Racism is a ton funnier and more ironic then you’d expect…
smoked salmon
JOOOOO LOVER!!!!!!eleventy111
– I’m thinking of coining the term “Heathen partyâ„¢” for the Democrats/Left.
It’s hard to come up with an ethnic slur that has less of a sting than “whitey.”
How about “moron”?
See? How hard was that?
– Hmmmm, is “moron” a new Bill Blass fashion color?
You know who’s always struck me as being white is that Ted Turner. I can see how someone might could call him “whitey” and he’d probably be really sensitive about it. Just cause he’s so gosh darned white. I mean he slept with Jane Fonda and everything. That’s pretty darn white.
It’s going to come back to this.
Try this instead.
Another problem caused by language.
My interpretive dance troupe has covered this very subject quite easily by demonstrating that that when people are mean to other people, the birds and the trees become …..Sad. But when we are all nice, the entire forest is happy and everyone dances with sweeping motions of togetherness.
And please, no more “gay†comments. I was married for a number of years – until I caught the mime-fucking tramp in the act.
Being from Michigan, I prefer ‘Jack Pine Savage’.
Darn Kirtland’s Warblers ought to just evolve already.
Christopher Hitchens has an essay in Slate today that addresses another example of this same issue. Sample:
I do, however, care about the integrity of the Constitution, and about eventually reaching the point where color-blindness by government (if not by certain ethnic pride types) is the default.
And, IMHO, therein lies the reason conservatives and libertarians must hold their noses and vote for McCain. There is no guarantee he will appoint Supreme Court judges who will protect the Constitution, but he’s more likely than Obama. Appointments in the next four years will be important.
“The last dejected effort often becomes the winning stroke.”
Whitey has self confidence. You should try it.
I think that would even make Stuart Smalley proud!!!!
I like the way Bohunk rolls off the tongue. Hunky later honky is a good one too.
“I was married for a number of years – until I caught the mime-fucking tramp in the act.”
But she was so….quiet.
I vote that “whitey” is not a hurtful ethnic slur, and you don’t get a vote.
/progg
“My interpretive dance troupe…”
You really cannot get much more gay than that. Sorry. Much like “Dancing Queen” by Abba is just about the gayest song ever no matter what they intended, interpretive dance is, by definition, gay. NTTAWWT.
How pathetic can you get?
It is the natural result of identity politics, where you are a member of a group first and not an individual. And the President is above all an individual. We have had 43 white males occupy that office, and each was different with differing competencies and beliefs.
Such is part of the subject of this post, the grouping of individuals, via insult, into categories as opposed to treating each individual seperately.
Content of the character, and all that.
Is “Chez Whitey” good or bad?
I live in Georgia, and I’m kinda a cracker.
I cannot believe this shit is still going on, dig?
http://tinyurl.com/5rtvm6
The Biography Channel just did a show on noted Boston gangster/fugitive/sociopath James Bulger.
Better known by his nickname. “Whitey.”
Obviously the man was driven mad by teh hate. Also, he’s Irish, and you know how those people are.
jwest is freakin’ priceless. You fucking mouth-breathing knuckle-dragging racist sexist homophobic troglodytes.
I’ve never been called “whitey,” “cracker,” “honky,” or whatever to my face. I have no idea if it would bother me. I think I would only have a problem if there was a fight brewing. Otherwise, not so much.
However, I think we should take back the word “cracker.” Whenever white people are in a group together, and one of us says something stupid, someone else should say, “Cracker, please.” And we should call each other cracker all the time to take the power from the word, even though words only have the power you allow them to have.
I denounce myself for suggesting it of course.
“To be truly offensive, a derogatory term needs to have an ominous context that “whitey†lacks.”
That’s why when white people insult each other they tend to get personal. You know like mick,wop,kike, etc. You see it is a white thing.
Growing up white in primarily in low income hispanic neighborhoods (barrios) I was many times called “White Paddy”…. Does anyone know what the fuck that means? To this day I dont know where they got that.. Could be some allusion to the Irish whites (Paddies) I suppose.. but that seems a bit of a stretch for Mexican people, many of which were immigrants… I wasnt insulted by it.. just confused. I heard Okie alot to.. but I knew what that meant.. and it mostly came from other white people.
“Whitey” is used a lot in an ominous way on black separatist sites. It’s gross and ugly.
Whitey was once a commonplace nickname for blondies – like red or freckles. But the Trib piece was talking about the pejorative, humanity-stripping insult.
We used to call a kid in school “Whitehead” cuz his hair was so light. Just his nickname. I’m not sure what he thought of it, but it followed him from early grade school all the way through.
“I’ve got to ask… Are there really white people .. take genuine umbrage at the term “whiteyâ€Â?”
Yes, there are. any who have been assaulted or abused, or chased by mobs, growing up in predominately ethnic environments. When it is done to you or your family, historical context is meaningless and trivializing.
What about “you mama” jokes ? Are “crackers” allowed to be offended ?
#95 cranky-d:
Once when I was a law clerk I was in an elevator and a couple of attorneys were going off about WASP judges. Being a WASP (I am a very back-slid cradle Episcopalian – somewhere in my mom’s nineteenth century relatives was an Episcopalian bishop) I didn’t like it, but I kept my tongue to myself (until this post, actually). And yes, working at the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice in Detroit I had been called whitey and honky (but not by the workers – they were a pretty good crew and worked pretty hard to keep things moving along nicely – and a lot of things to move).
Now my brother, a sheriff’s deputy with the juvenile courts has been called a lot of racial epithets.
It just depends on the level of jerks you move in.
And what is this beatdown of the English language? A “derogatory term” is used to derogate – to diminish and belittle – and when “whitey” is used in this fashion, it’s meant to diminish and belittle a race. On principle alone that should offend an ordinary sensibility, whether there is a pale Helen Keller present in the hurling of invective party or not.
And what is this beatdown of the English language? A “derogatory term†is used to derogate – to diminish and belittle – and when “whitey†is used in this fashion, it’s meant to diminish and belittle a race. On principle alone that should offend an ordinary sensibility
Neo-Neocon (linked by Jeff at the bottom of the post) made the point that if Mrs. O! really did use the word “whitey”, it would be legitimate to make negative inferences about her worldview regardless of whether or not the word is “racist” according to the latest fashionable academic definition.
What I would find more offensive and troubling than the word used is the race=prejudiced sentiment posessed by the speaker that there is some sort race collective which should be singled out for anger, or contempt, or retribution by legal or extra-legal means.
While I agree as far as Neo Neocon goes, I guess, I say it’s flat out racist. It’s a vulgar, laming torch of race-bias, and race-hatred.
and that would be flaming. Which the pork chops probably are by now, I need to go check ’em.
Jeez, wasn’t it Barry just a few weeks ago declaiming about “Words” and “Meaning”?
Sadly, the whole notion that white colored people should be considered immune to racial attack is based on that deep seated belief of the Caucasoid left that white colored people truly are the master race. It is this belief that has them mired in guilt and self hatred. They want to be good people, but they were born into the master race and can only atone for that unearned gift by seeking to harm white colored people if they can….white people they don’t know personally, that is.
Ask and you shall receive.
“Also, he’s Irish, and you know how those people are.”
Ya gotta admit they got that natural rhythm. Jes watch ’em do that “feets, do yo stuff” one time with that Riverdance and you’ll agree.
Insta-lanche!
“SEIZING THE MEANS of linguistic production.”
Heh.
Bigotry is bigotry.
Bigotry reduces the person to an object, a thing.
Bigotry makes another human appear less than human.
If another human is less than human then it is acceptable to treat him or her as cattle.
Cattle do not have human rights.
Bigotry is anti-human.
Bigotry leads to the pogrom.
Bigotry leads to Treblinka.
I am not a bigot.
I do not want the stain of Treblinka on either my conscience or soul.
Never be rude to an Arab….
An Israeli, or Saudi, or Jew.
Never be rude to an Irishman.
No matter what you do.
Never poke fun at a Nigger….. *boom*
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3ehJZJIkPk
Will someone please explain to me how making it OK for the minority to lash out in anger at the majority (regardless of the content of the individuals’ hearts) is conducive to racial harmony?
Anyone?
Or am I wrong in assuming that racial harmony is the goal?
The real irony here is that if you’re familiar at all with Black Liberation Theology, then you’d be aware that it casts Caucasians as sub-human.
Must’va been a very young writer at the Chicago Tribune who had never heard of people like Yahweh ben Yahweh, Frances Cress Welsing, or Leonard Jeffries.
Personally, I would love to see Jeff disembowel that fuckhead, Antonio Gramsci, who is undoubtedly roasting marshmallows over some fire in Hell. I live in hopes of that (hint, hint).
Karl: ‘What Color is Your Banjo?’ is a great title. Now go write something for it. (Incidentally, you’ve been doing an incredible job.)
Irony, Adam? Why single out iron for privilege, you metalsist?
Oh, and what is this “human” thing of which you speak?
Look, MLK is rolling over in his grave.
And yes, working at the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice in Detroit I
You know, I grew up a stone-throw from there. Right across 375 at Lafayette Park. I grew-up in one of those cool townhouses that are all glass on two sides. Some famous architect designed them.
And I always get a kick out of apologists for anti-white racists casting it in the collective: there can’t be any racism against whites because whites hold Teh Powah!
I’m glad my daughter is an RN now and off the streets. Paramedics wear uniforms, and I got really tired of hearing of her going on runs to treat gunshot victims or run on heart attacks in the projects and her being harassed and threatened as a “white bitch”.
And, having grown up as a minority – I got called a honkey plenty. I once “won” for my school a voice-over contest for my school. A group of the smartest kids represented our grade school, and on the spot we had to write and “perform” a radio spot. I did the reading, and we won. Guess who’s name WASN’T mentioned in the “black” newspaper (a “Black Voices” or some such)?
What about “honkey?” Doesn’t anybody get called a honkey anymore? I remember when radical black folks called white folks honkeys all the time. When was the last time you heard about “offing the honkeys!” What if it had been a rumor that Michelle O. called Hillary Clinton a “Honkey Donkey?” Or maybe a Wonky Honkey Donkey?
If The Rev. Jeremiah Wright or Rev. Pflugelhorn-whatever-his-name-is, gave sermons about “offing the honkeys!” I’d stick around for 20 years to hear them, myself. In fact, if Obama started saying “off the honkeys!” I might even vote for him…and I’m a Republican. Hell, I’d vote for any candidate who’d call for “offing the honkeys.” My vote’s for grabs anyhow this year because of you-know-who. Unless McCain calls Obama a “Semi-Honkey.” Then, as a bona fide Honko-American, I’d definately vote for McC.
The problem to be solved that is at the root of the absurdities outlined in this post (and by many of the commenters) is white guilt.
That and the power wielded by the academic intelligentsia.
Solve those and we clear the way to fix this society before it destroys itself.
If I had a hammer…
“It’s hard to come up with an ethnic slur that has less of a sting than ‘whitey.'”
Where does “typical white person” rank?
Whenever an old black man sees an old white man, the old black man always
kisses the old white man’s ass.
”How you doing, sir? Pleased to meet you. Whatever l can get you, you let me know.”
As soon as the white man get out of sight, he’s like: ”Cracker-ass cracker! l’ll put my foot in the crack of your ass, cracker-ass cracker! l wish that cracker would’ve said some shit
to me, saltine-assed, motherfucking cracker! Cracker, kiss my ass, you fucking cracker!”
The white man comes back. ”Howdy, sir?”
l got an uncle real crazy. My uncle B., [inaudible] years old, hates the white people, married to a white lady. And he sits around going, ”These crackers ain’t shit, except for Susie.”
He tried to explain the whole thing to me one day. He said, ”Yeah, l got a white wife. l love her,
she love me. That’s all that matters. But l’ll tell you this: if the revolution ever come, l’ll kill her first just to show these crackers l mean business!”
”Motherfucker, cracker-ass, motherfucker cracker! Shit, cracker, motherfucker! Hi, honey. Motherfucker cracker. l’ll kill my cracker kids, too!”
We’re dancing around the core issue. The core issue is that for the past 40 years, whitey has been indulging blackey in a double standard. The double standard has had a cost. If you’ve ever wondered why there’s so much homophobia or misogyny or anti-Hispanic anti-Semitic bigotry in the Black community, it’s because if one kind of bigotry is indulged, they all are. What we have now is a social understanding where there are no responsibilities in the Black community to any other groups. You reap what you sow, whitey. And so does everyone else.
#122 – Carin.
That would be Mies Van de Rohe. One of the ‘the shoebox is good enough for the proles’ school of architecture. Good forbid any structure should be made deliberately beautiful or interesting. I always called the Frank Murphy ‘our basement in the sky’ for the lovely effect of brushed concrete panels. Of course the nearly unrealieved black with no natural lighting in the public areas I always thought was a nice touch; you know – let’s pile on the despair, comrades!
Those avant-garde communist architects of the twenties and thirties who inflicted their bile on the world in the post WWII years should all be dragged out of their graves and burned for the anti-human monsters they were.
Take a hike, Chuck Moss. I’ve been called plenty of racist epithets, as has my brother.
If you want a “whitey” word that will give you the creeps, try Bhulu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKiePbTcAfY
“whitey”[…]the word has no ugly history and hints at no particular stereotypes.
That has to be a joke for the insiders, I mean, there’s no hint of stereotyping?! I would point out that the next president may be the one that called his own grandmother “a typical white person”, and pushed her under the bus.
This is no more than propaganda, conditioning the herd.
Darleen wrote, I got really tired of hearing of her going on runs to treat gunshot victims or run on heart attacks in the projects and her being harassed and threatened as a “white bitchâ€Â.
That is the most messed up thing I’ve heard in a long time. A woman, literally saving lives, is harassed like that? Unreal.
“…hints at no particular stereotypes.”
Off the top of my head, I’m thinking uptight, reedy-voiced, stick-up-the-ass, condescending, oblivious, painfully unhip, etc.
Basically, about 40% of any comic’s standup routine on BET. Or about 50% of Dave Chapelle’s show.
Whizzle in the hizzle!
What about “you mama†jokes ? Are “crackers†allowed to be offended ?
Let’s try one:
Your mother is so adequately employed that she carries two briefcases to her office!
“Honko-American”
Teh Funny.
Many funny and perceptive comments, commenters #1-136. When I read the rumors about Mrs. Obama’s alleged rant, the “whitey” crack went right past me, the term matters so little. What bothered me was the supposed content of the supposed rant: that The Man (Whitey or whatever you call him) still systematically keeps black people down. If Mrs. O. really believes that, there’s a good chance Barack does too, no matter how post-racial and post-political he claims to be. If that’s how he thinks, I don’t want him any closer to the White House than, say, Tulsa.
I took something very different from this little blurt. I think the writer knows the tape of Michelle exists and is getting out in front of its appearance, planting the idea that it’s no big deal.
I’m partial to gringo myself.
I’m a white guy..I was once called a “Jive-Turkey -motherf*cker” by a bunch of black people.. Now I’m not sure if that means like “evil white devil that keeps the brothers down” in black people slang.. or if it just means I’m a total uberdouche.. but whatever the case I didnt like it…I vowed (to myself) right then and there that I’d never do Open Mike Standup night at The Apollo again..
I think Mr. Jeffersonian has a good point cause the why of the article is really a lot not very compelling without that sort of idea behind it. It’s pretty gratuitous really. M’chelle is very whitey-averse plus she went to that hateful church for decades, so for real I think it’s likely this is one of them where-there’s-smoke thingers.
#96
I’m rather fond of “white devil” myself. Sounds kind of sinister.
Don’t call me Beaver, Whitey.
The wetbacks here don’t much like the nigs. Competition you know. Us gringos, well, we don’t like either.
Clearly, you guys have never met a black person in your entire lives. Idiots.
And Darleen, I call bullshit on your story.
“Clearly, you guys have never met a black person in your entire lives. ”
Does my shoe shine guy count?
So, when black people make racist remarks, it is outrageous. But jerkoff proteinwisdom regulars? Edgy and hip!
Actually, my cracker, I think what we are doing here is recognizing the double standard in the other direction.
do musicals count?
There’s just something about people who have it a little easier complaining to those who have a little harder that they don’t have it easy enough that’s really, really annoying.
Poor white guys. All the money and power, but it’s just never enough. Don’t fret, though – you shall overcome!
Actually, my cracker, I think what we are doing here is recognizing the double standard in the other direction.
Uh, huh. It’s all so… nuanced. It’s funny, it almost looks like a big excuse to make nigger jokes. Crazy how that works.
My kid’s baseball coach is a racist jerk. He called my kid “whitey” in front of all of his teammates. And he’s stupid, too. He was trying to talk like a freaking rapper: “Andrew’s another Whitey. Word!” but he pronounced it like “Ford”.
“Clearly, you guys have never met a black person in your entire lives. Idiots.”
Yeah, that’s it. We’ve never met black people. We all live in Mongolia.
But we have met white Lefties and academics and been subjected to their endless rants on how awful we are for being pallid-Americans and how we’re guilty by virtue of our pigmentation for all the world’s ills.
We’re not criticizing blacks: we’re going after the moronic white people who hold blacks to a different standard, as if they were poor little children who are incapable of behaving themselves.
In fact, they allow blacks to use the epithet “whitey” because they imagine that “whitey” is conservative, and the Lefties dream endlessly of hurling epithets our way.
Demonization by proxy is what it is.
Let it out, ya’ll! Damn it feels good to be a gangsta. If being a dickhead is good enough for those guys over there, it’s good enough for us here at proteinwisdom! That’ll show ’em… YEEEEE-HAAAAA!
You know, words have as much power as you want to give them. There have always been slang terms for white people just as there are for every other racial or ethnics group, but white people have never given them the power to really hurt us… Annoy us maybe, but not hurt. On the other hand the word ‘Nigger” has been around a very long time but it’s only fairly recently that black people gave it the power to traumatize when uttered by a white person. A crime on par or even worse than physical assault to hear some talk.. which of course makes it the “go to” word for the real racists.
I’m a white man and I’m proud of my heritage.. Specifically a long line of working class blue collar workers and farmers that stretches back through California’s Central Valley to dust bowl Missouri and Arkansas… to the losing side in the War between the States.. to indentured servants from the old country.. A line of unremarkable people for the most part but one that also includes men like Gen. Robert E Lee and Sir Thomas More. When people spit out words like ‘Whitey’ or ‘Cracker’ at me I say “Why yes I am.. Thank you” and take it as a left handed compliment.
My point here is that because I’m truly proud of where my people (my ‘tribe’ if you will) have come from, where they’re going and what they’ve accomplished in getting here, there’s no mere pejorative slang term that can hurt or embarrass me.. I think that kind of oversensitivity comes as a result of a big chip on ones shoulder.
“Poor white guys. All the money and power, but it’s just never enough. Don’t fret, though – you shall overcome!”
If you whiney progs would shut up and go away that would enough. And take your minstrel players Al,Jesse, and Spike with you.
Jeffersonian and HF, yup. The authors at least fear the tape is real, and the aim of this little opinion piece has to be a sort of attempt at diminishing its feared effect. (Sort of that new vaccine they are working on for early onset type I diabetes that might reduce damage from the immune attack on the pancreas.) It wouldn’t make sense to kick up dust about it otherwise.
Ah, heet. Downright holy, you are. It’s a pleasure to be in the present of such a morally advanced individual as yourself. And it’s damned clever of you to hide it behind that frothing moron facade.
Peace be with you, ya white devil.
negro… it’s the new black
I always enjoyed “what you looking at white boy, Opie motherfucker call your Aunt Bee” because it was creative and humorous but conveyed plenty of hate and menace. Nicely done.
enter stage left: Poor white guys. All the money and power, but it’s just never enough.
audience: oooo, look dear, it’s the herd.*
“Poor white guys. All the money and power.”
Man, I wish I had some money and power.
Sitting around one night, watching the traffic go by,(small town, don’t ask). When suddenly a Cadillac pulled out of an alley,(no lights), directly in front of a motorcycle. Horrendous accident. The rider was thrown more than 50 feet before he hit the pavement on his head. We ran over to assist and I was the first to reach him. His helmet was crushed and he had pulled it off. Blood everywhere. It was hard to tell he was black, there was so much blood. It was obvious to me he was severely injured, but consious and combative. He kept trying to get to his feet, but it appeared that he also had internal and possible spinal injuries. I removed my shirt and fashioned a bandage and asked him to press it on his head and facial wounds while I tried to calm him and keep him from flopping around. Within three minutes we were completely surrounded by at least 60 other people, all of them black. The biggst three treatened me, cursed me and finally pulled me away for the victim. The last time I saw the victim, they held him on his feet and were walking him in cirles saying all he need was “the air”. I realized that I would have had to literally fight 60 people to save him from himself and them. The police arrived shortly thereafter and had to chase the crowd back with dogs. I sometimes wonder whether that man survived. I re-learned something that night, when they call you “Ofay”, they mean it, literally.
VICTIM™
(wipes tear from eye)
My god, man. You are truly a hero for almost helping that black guy. If only those niggers weren’t so dumb, your incredible heroism would have been recognized. I mean, you “fashioned a bandage”! With your shirt! It could have saved his life.
Go home and get you a shine-box, thor.
Oh man, Roboc has trademarked the word ‘Victim’.. Why didnt I think of that? At say, .10 a use I’d make a fortune off the Democratic Party alone… I coulda been the rich & powerful whitey famed in song and tale.. now Roboc gets the riches.. Lucky.
excuse me but this isn’t a conversation I’m comfortable having until Obama brings it up. Then it will be ok to discuss.
How much does Gulermo owe you, Ourboros?
Gulermo, maybe they thought you were fashioning a noose instead of a bandage! It’s a common mistake.
heet (aka nobody)
I don’t give a flying fuck what you believe.
Let me tell you what, I’ll take you to some of the areas #1 used to roll on, kick your ass out of my car and yell “nigger” at the top of my lungs and drive away. We’ll then see how much of you makes it outta the hood.
As long as Whitey’s still in charge, I don’t mind being called “Whitey”.
Oops, sorry. I should have used “neck tourniquet” rather than “noose”. My bad!
Gulermo, you did the right thing. Virtue has surprisingly few admirers.
steve
Poor white guys. All the money and power
Which “white” guys would that be?
get out of your little collectivist, miserable hairshirt for a bit and look around you. Power and money is an individual thing and can be expressed in context.
When Kevin Cooper hacked a family of four to death, just who was the one in power?
“Or am I wrong in assuming that racial harmony is the goal?”
Yes. You are. You most certainly are.
if the person saying it is a hater… or bigger and stronger than you and saying it right next to you ‘I hate crackers’ in order to rile you…
I might be intimidated by their size and strength, but not the words. I like crackers, especially Triscuits. Yum.
Can I call black folks animal crackers?
Oh shit I denounce those remarks.
Pretty droll, flip and witty.
But the truth is that language is the currency of society, and our currency is debased.
We have insult inflation and meaning deflation and progress stagnation.
You are all terrribly cute and clever (especially feets), but do you have any solution?
Remember, very few people are going get Foucalt and the Theory of Forms.
This little ditty from the same crowd that cries anti-Semite!!!! any time someone criticizes the government of Israel (with nukes, for a number of years)for its occupation and settlements.
Cute.
Sure Jen, how about for a start we arrange a judiciary that will adhere to the constitution?
anyways i prefer the halle berry model of integration– “lets all have sex together until the babies are all the same color”.
if u think about it, color and gender are both regressing to the population mean.
hey jen
It’s called mocking the double standard until the double standard is irrelevant.
Yes, words can be hurtful. “Fighting words” is a phrase that has popped up in legal statutes. But adhereing to a standard of social politeness must be a street everyone walks on.
ONE standard. Not one for the melanin-enriched and another for people of pallor. One.
#179
how is that done?
consider cali.
the bill to be voted on in nov has exactly the same language as the one the judiciary overturned.
“This little ditty from the same crowd that cries anti-Semite!!!! ”
How about muslim ass kisser?
Masui
Criticism of Israeli policies/actions can be legitimate. Holding the state of Israel to a different standard than the countries that surround it, wondering if Israel as a state was “a mistake”, questioning its legitimacy.
THAT IS anti-Semitism.
so, a little Judenhass on your part, eh?
This little ditty from the same crowd that cries anti-Semite!!!!
Actually Masui, around here there are no cries of “anti-Semite!!!!”
We prefer the sarcastic “It’s the Jooooooooooooooooos fault!
You’re not from around here, huh?
“the bill to be voted on in nov has exactly the same language as the one the judiciary overturned.”
self government vs rule by penumbra spewing elites.
feh, you’ll listen to your betters and like it.
but what will happen?
will same judges have the ruling spawning an endless loop of constitutional amendment and judicial activism?
mean will, the gays that marry will go home to their respective states and spread the virus.
eventually the concept of “marriage is a man and and a woman” will be eaten away.
Proposition 22 wasn’t democratic enough! It’s not like there was a vote or something.
is the meaning of the word “marriage” being corrupted or evolving?
how about niggah, nigger, my nig?
do those words mean different things dependent on context or speaker?
the concept of “marriage is a man and and a woman†will be eaten away
and that is sad, because while “race” is a biological myth, gender is not. Heterosexual monogamous marriage is the ultimate blending of two opposites. A prime example of the reaching out to learn, accept, love The Other.
Same sex couples – loving, monogamous, supportive, etc, just are not the same as opposite sex couples.
An ideal isn’t a slam on those that cannot achieve it.
We are Bergeroning our culture.
do those words mean different things dependent on context or speaker?
Ask the hip hop culture.
Oh, “evolving” words.
Jeff…, Jeff Goldstein…curtain call!
is the meaning of the word “marriage†“gay” “queer” “Liberal” “fascism” “diversity” “human rights” being corrupted
or evolving?how about niggah, nigger, my nig?
do those words mean different things dependent on context or speaker?
Maybe we can vote on it? How many signatures are required to get it on the ballot?
“how about niggah, nigger, my nig?
do those words mean different things dependent on context or speaker?”
Nah just means low class black folks just ask the trailer trash.
Fucke off, nobody. Some of my best friends are negroes.
“Ask the hip hop culture.”
A great contribution to musical excellence right up there with Muzak.
Proposition 22 wasn’t democratic enough! It’s not like there was a vote or something
Judges are getting more like mullahs, or Mugabe, every day —
your vote only counts when it confirms their pronouncements.
Darleen, are you a walking mass of silly internal contradictions or what. Telling someone they can criticize Jewish folks without being called an Anti-Semite and then calling the commenter an Anti-Semite! How droll. You are either hysterical or crazy.
Roboc, were the two times the California legislature voted to allow civil union democratic or do you only only find poor turnout electoral referundums democratic? Don’t worry, it’s rhetorical. We know what you’re for whatever messes with the gays.
Jen, I think this is Free Republic West
Are you kidding dre, hip hop ain’t fit for elevators.
Port-a-potties maybe…
Fucke off, nobody. Some of my best friends are negroes.
Then I’m sure you will have no problem if they read this comments section, right? Cause they’re all enlightened and shit and they would totally get how this is reversing the reverse racism in an irreverent way. Fight the power, Slart!
What do Israel and gay marriage have to do with any of this?
Personally, the word “whitey” doesn’t bother or offend me. What does offend me is the whitewashing of its intent (which IS to bother or offend me, in most cases), and this moronic attempt by the paper’s writers (and a few unnamed commenters, as well as the ubiquitously muddleheaded steve) to excuse it as nothing more than a minor irritant to the MAN, when what we need to be doing is acknowledging that it is precisely this kind of whitewashing and excuse making that perpetuates the racial divide.
Why, it’s almost as if progressives would like to see victimhood perpetuated, and the “races” separated. Imagine!
hiphop is the ultimate dance form, the pinnacle of the evolution of dance.
hiphop started as youth counterculture, and spread all over the world from America.
i wrote a paper in school on the globalization of hiphop.
no no no, moretruth. Darleen’s daughter told her that some black people were mean to her, so now she can hate them. Don’t you see?
Hi, Darleen! The opertive word is can, no? Who determines that? I think you all do most of the time. And then the criticism that doesn’t fit your predetermined ideas is, you guessed it! Anti-Semite.
lee, I’ve actually tried to not do that strangely unfunny thing you all do here. I’m sure it’s funny somewhere outside of this blog, but I’d have to think about it.
Thanks for your input, though.
jen, happyfeet is my favorite — like a pet rock or a tellatubby. ya know?
Seizing the means of linguistic production.
okfine.
how do you do that? Hiphop culture is a means of linguistic production now, in our society.
Oh! or a carebear.
We know what you’re for whatever messes with the gays.
Gay means merriment. I think the word you are looking for is queer.
“Why, it’s almost as if progressives would like to see victimhood perpetuated, and the “races†separated. Imagine!”
You make it sound like the progs are running some sort of plantation.
happyfeets is more like a superhero in disguise.
PW is just his day job.
“i wrote a paper in school on the globalization of hiphop.”
Now we know why the world hates us.
moretruth = hpennypacker
nobody = heet
jen = nishi
Just so we can get it clear what’s happening here. The funniest thing in the world is going to my moderation queue and seeing just how many comments heet has left since I asked him to leave. It’s like he’s having a conversation with himself.
Seriously, don’t you people have better things to do?
As for “jen’s” question about how you seize the control of linguistic production…well, I should think that obvious. You redefine words to suit your needs, in the process destabilizing the grounds of meaning, and turning communication into a (theoretical) farce.
What that has to do with hip hop culture I have no idea.
Then there’s this:
They mean different things depending on the intent of those using them. Context or speaker is something we use only to try to gauge intent.
And what we’re talking about here is “whitey” used in a particular way — like, for instance, the way Rev Wright used it — and how the intent to offend is airbrushed away by the same people who claim that, say, “tarbaby,” used inoffensively and with no intent to hurt, is still somehow racist.
The mind boggles. But this is where we are. And this is INEVITABLE AND INEXORABLE when the post to which we agree to tether meaning in the speech act, namely, the intent of the speaker, is sawed off and replaced by the “consensus” of any number of arbitrary “interpretive communities.”
It really is that simple.
Sustainability.
Everyone wants sustainable this or that.
Whitey hatin’ on the Negro never goes out of style in the Progg playbook. It’s sutainable.
I guess it’s too late to disinter MLK and ask him what he thinks.
hiphop is the ultimate dance form, the pinnacle of the evolution of dance
You poor child. That your education of dance would miss Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Twyla Tharp, or Bob Fosse.
Such a pity, but a fine example of the devolution of public edumacashen.
What’s an elided ess among, um, uh, friends.
Heet, you’re a bore
an indecent one for sure, but still a bore
I don’t hate groups of people. Period. Never have. I do abhor behavior, especially collectivist behavior no matter where it arises.
My daughter was the target of racism. I find the individuals that targeted her as indecent as you.
i thought you knew i was jen.
didnt you read the thread?
Mr. B said i was Jen to your Li Mu-Bai.
and no, i meant how do you take it back, the source of linguistic production.
i wrote a paper in school on the globalization of hiphop.
hiphop glorifies misogyny, materialism and violence. I’m sure you mentioned that in your paper!
jen = nishi?
well, the spelling was improved, even if the maturity level was still at grade school.
Hey Jeff! Did you get a little tingle typing that blog post title — and yet another everytime you see it on memeorandum? And do the rest of you get all giddy in response?
Just asking.
happyfeets is more like a superhero in disguise
Now that’s funny.
good work.
“and no, i meant how do you take it back, the source of linguistic production”
Round up all the progs and send them on a long vacation to N Korea.
The opertive word is can, no? Who determines that?
The reader by the clues you leave.
Whenever someone opens a conversation some variation of “I can’t criticize Israel without you people calling me an anti-Semite!”, dollars to donuts, we’re dealing with a “those damned Joooos!” person.
Usually the Judenhass are a bit more circumspect and don’t jump to that line right away. They usually try to prove their non-Jew-hating bondfides by saying (unironically) they read Noam Chomsky.
I knew it was you, nishi, but I’m not sure others did.
As to how we take back language, well, I’ve been going on about that forever. We point out the incoherence of a linguistic communicative model that would tie interpretation to anything other than intent. The we point to the need to try to decode the “speaker(s)’s” intent if we wish to claim that what we are doing is “interpreting”.
“Hey Jeff! Did you get a little tingle”
Only the O! can cause that condition.
No, Jeff, jen=ichi
i mean, the progs own the media and academe and hiphop culture and th judiiciary….
how do you take the engines of linguistic production? can you?
is it even possible?
im sorry, i wasnt trying to conceal my identity.
i thot u read the thread, i riffed on it quite a bit.
Aldo is Sir Te and dicentra is Yu Shu-Lien.
;)
like, for instance, the way Rev Wright used it
You are reaching here — I’m not sure where — but you are reaching somewhere.
A tingle? No, why would I. It’s the title of a song by Sly and Family Stone, and — given how the song is constructed — it seemed particularly apropos.
I haven’t been to memeorandum, so I haven’t seen it there — nor was I aware it was there. But now that I am, no, no tingle whatsoever.
But I’ll bet that you got a tingle running right up to the edge of calling someone you don’t know a racist without actually having to come right out and say it — the thrill of even hinting at such a thing makes you feel so self-righteous and strong that your dick could probably cut glass right now, I’d venture — which means that one of us is at least getting something out of this exchange.
Roboc, the interesting thing about the globalizition of hiphop is that each culture it spread to individualized it.
Like in Japan and SK it is just about dance battles. there are no drug references or misogyny in those instantiations at all.
I guess it’s too late to disinter MLK and ask him what he thinks.
Kelly, given that some have decided to clip both the context and the meaning from his speech, I think you would end up on the wrong side of that gamble.
Maybe you are just a child and don’t remember/never have read about understood the state of the nation when he spoke.
Sorry little lady.
Right, Masui. What King really meant was fuck Whitey. Including all those who marched with him.
Mmmmmmartin…Mmmmmmmalcolm.
Such a pity, but a fine example of the devolution of public edumacashen.
That’s really funny Darleen. You managed to insult yourself and another at the same time. WoW!
hiphop in the ME is radicalized, about fighting and blowing ppl up, like the “i am a suicide bomber” by DAM.
hiphop is protest culture. it crystalizes around the core themes of the youth in the particular culture.
Roboc, were the two times the California legislature voted to allow civil union democratic or do you only only find poor turnout electoral referundums democratic? Don’t worry, it’s rhetorical. We know what you’re for whatever messes with the gays.
Poor voter turnout is undemocratic! Then I guess the polls that show the majority of America is against gay marriage wouldn’t convince you either! Can’t get no satisfaction, can you?
And do the rest of you get all giddy in response?
Nope. Mostly just disappointed at how many of you are too stupid to understand the point.
Ever hear of Lenny Bruce, by the way? Probably a hero of yours, I’m guessing.
The reader by the clues you leave.
So, that means always. Never a criticism that can’t be criticized even better, with spice.
I like it.
This country is lost, so far as I’m concerned. Each day I get more and more depressed fending off willful ignorance, or cynical disinterest in anything not involving power at all costs.
It’s a losing battle, keeping this fight up — particularly when you can’t even gain traction on your own supposed ideological “side.” All anyone cares about anymore is partisan bickering and political gamesmanship. Or internet traffic.
I used to care enough to teach. Then, I decided to write. Now, I just want to retire to Idaho and run a turnip farm. So long as I can get satellite TV with a DVR.
Beyond that, feh. Why waste my time with arrogant know-nothing morons like heet, or hpennypacker, or steve, or datadave, or this newest, Masui, who I’ll bet has been here before under a different name? There’s simply nothing to be gained by any of this. It’s over.
Tend your gardens, people.
what i mean Jeff, is that right now you own 1/2 of the blogverse and talk radio.
those are the only engines of linguistic production that the right owns.
how can you change anything?
hiphop in the ME is radicalized, about fighting and blowing ppl up,
and that is the pinnacle of dance?
So, I suppose taking a sledge hammer to Michelanglo’s David would be the pinnacle of sculpture?
gawd you’re shallow
hiphop is the ultimate dance form, the pinnacle of the evolution of dance.
You’re shitting me, right?
Why do ya gotta yank my chain like that?
wow…this is just like Li Mu-Bai giving the Green Destiny to Sir Te.
:(
without actually having to come right out and say it
I feel you, Jeff.
oh, we can’t have nice things.
I can’t, nishi.
So let’s just throw in the towel and live like good little progressive lemmings under the rule of philosopher kings and their unelected bureaucratic henchmen.
I’ll get the organic baby carrots and ginseng-infused vitamin water. You bring the DVD of whale noises.
hiphop dance incorporates ballet, jazz, modern, stunting, voguing, poppin and lockin and caporeira.
it is the ultimate dance form.
it incorporates all that has gone before.
i wrote a paper on the evolutionof dance too, too. ;)
what i mean Jeff, is that right now you own 1/2 of the blogverse and talk radio.
those are the only engines of linguistic production that the right owns.
how can you change anything?
Do you have any concept of the past or the future at all? Is evolution just something that happens in a textbook to you? I swear to God reading nishfong makes me think of nothing more than Cesar Milan talking about how all dogs live completely in the now.
Jeff,
since you just outed moretruth as hpennypacker, can I mention all of his other sockpuppets?
hiphop dance incorporates ballet, jazz, modern,
and can’t do any of them with any kind of talent or excellence
haha, well i will have to steal the Green Destiny and fight you with it if you try to give up.
You don’t “feel me,” Masui. You haven’t the balls to call me a racist, yet you keep dancing around it.
Here, let me show you how it works: I think YOU are a fucking racist, and I think people like you, who try to use any kind of actual discussion on race as a way to forestall such discussions (by intimating that the very questions raised rise to the level of racism) have a vested interest in keeping racial interests divided.
Probably for something so noble as votes. Because you don’t give much of a fuck about the people involved. They’re just props to you.
So fuck off. People like you no longer are worth saving. You sicken me.
There. Not so hard, is it.
What King really meant was fuck Whitey.
No, that’s not what I said or he said. I know I don’t have to lecture you, but if you are asking for it, I will. King was making the point that people not be judged negatively because of the color of their skin. Those who use King’s words to justify treating everyone equaly badly or well while there are still people who actually in the 21st century judge people solely on the color of their skin are twisting his words.
And before you get all defensive, I’m getting quite tired of Bill Bennett and others trying to tell one community or another what is wrong with it while ignoring the problems in his own.
But that’s just me.
Sure, Karl, please do.
Hiphop is a fucking joke. It is the sonic equivalent of a Warhol painting. One of these days it will be as significant as that asswipe is now.
or learn catch wrestling.
;)
Probably a hero of yours, I’m guessing.
You would be wrong. Thanks for trying!
“i wrote a paper on” is like your version of “one time at band camp”, isn’t it jen, or nishi, or whoever the voices in your head tell you who you are this minute.
well, Roboc, once you write a paper for school, you’re an expert!
240 Mas
JeffG has the expertise and the terms, but what clues you leave to your intent is the only thing the reader/listener can go by. If you are an untrustworthy narrator then the reader has to dig deeper.
I put forth at least some of the clues of what I consider when I hear someone whine about their criticism of Israel isn’t “real” anti-Semitism. I’ve heard it before, so many times.
It is akin to hearing a husband (or wife) publically berate their spouse, in nasty visicious terms, over and over again, accompanied by “oh why did I ever marry you?” and such. It is foolish then to take the berater at their word that they are only “criticizing” their spouse in a constructive way. Their intent is at odds with their assertions.
I notice you’ve never offered up one criticism against Israel for scrutiny. You just assert that others call you anti-Semite FOR criticizing.
I’d say your credibility concerning your assertions is a bit lacking.
Jeff @ 10:39 = GBCW
Really? Can the intertubes please be rid of the backhanded slime of this site for real? Can I help?
well, Roboc, once you write a paper for school, you’re an expert!
Or a band member!
Huh? So long as a single bigot exists, it is to “twist” King’s words to suggest that he would have preferred people not be judged based on their skin color, but rather on the content of their character? Unless that judgment was positive? As in, “those blacks sure have been bred to jump high and run fast! Let’s draft them in the first round!” Is this what you’re arguing?
And really, why not use your regular posting name?
I’m getting quite tired of Bill Bennett and others trying to tell one community or another what is wrong with it while ignoring the problems in his own.
Oh lord.
Outstanding. I warned this mope at least three times about the sock-puppetry.
Hpennypacker is also:
White Goodman
Earl Warren
RDibble
ericd
the occasional “anon”
…and at least one other that I believe to be his real ID, which I’ll withhold. For now.
Can the intertubes please be rid of the backhanded slime of this site for real? Can I help?
How fucking retarded are you?
and can’t do any of them with any kind of talent or excellence
You’re showing your ignorance there, Darleen. But that’s normal. Good try though.
Sure thing. I mean, this is what you guys are good at, after all — shutting down others’ speech when it doesn’t track with your own.
After all, people might get dangerous ideas if they are exposed to them. And it’s up to you — who knows backhanded slime when s/he sees it — to protect them.
Sure, they may bitch and complain about their freedoms being taken away. But in the long run, when they’re happy in the Utopia you create, they’ll thank you.
GO GET ‘EM, HERO!
JeffG
Yes, you’re casting pearls and pigs like Masui would rather remain in the slime, because basically to be human is just nothing they want much to do with.
O! will make everyone one equal! Free Food! Free Jobs! NO Work! All play! Utopia!
Gotta make the omelet.
Sorry, Masui. Jeff sometimes retires for a time, but then he always comes back with a vengeance, always able to make mincemeat out of your lame arguments and taunts.
Okay, folks. I’m gonna go watch a movie and give my son a hug while he’s sleeping.
I don’t have the stomach for this stuff anymore — at least, not right now.
Any chance of implementing troll quality control?
please promise me it will be better than Moonraker. (beginning to regret that agreement to watch all the Bond films in order)
Karl —
There are a bunch of Cincinnati Reds names in there. Which means the person in question is probably Timmy.
So fucking sad that he just can’t find someplace else to call home.
Mas
There is not one “hip hop dancer” worthy of tying Gene Kelly’s shoes.
It’s like trying to compare Ithak Perlman with someone who plays nose harp.
Jeff @ 10:48: You know, this is the only place in my entire life that I have been called a racist. It is noted that on a blog post which you titled that I was called a racist. I will wear this rebuke like a flag on my underwear, clear for all to see. I will point all of my friends to this post for as long as the intertubes exist. Thank you Jeff, for pointing out something that in all these years of my long life I never knew from anyone I have interacted with outside or inside of the internets.
Thank you , Jeff, for opening my eyes. But for you, I might have blundered into a situation where my racism would have been exposed in a very public way. Thank you Jeff. Thank you so very much.
How can I ever repay you? Do you have a wish list somewhere that people can buy you things? A link would be nice.
I gotta ask… Does anyone (besides Nishi/Jen) understand the whole ongoing Crouching Tiger/Sir Te/Chao Su Bao thing? Am I the only one too slow to follow it?
maggie —
I’m either going to watch a couple episodes of “Psych,” or else a flick called “The Signal.” Haven’t decided yet. The first scotch will let me know. Or maybe I’ll just have a Guinness tonight, instead.
Before everything but red wine is made illegal.
Jeff,
The undisclosed handle might suggest it’s not Timmah, as it is a name asssociated with a business e-mail that checks out. It would be pretty elaborate. But Timmah always was a little stalky.
It’s like trying to compare Ithak Perlman with someone who plays nose harp.
That a little racist don’t you think Darleen? I mean you’ve got the intertubes, but can’t make your keyboard type his name right. What’s up with that? Is it you or the keyboard? Have you disabled your “z” key as a protest?
You know, this is the only place in my entire life that I have been called a racist.
Maybe you should get out of your echo chamber more often?
Just a thought.
P.S. Your sarcasm skills suck.
mmmm, we had some kind of dark Shiner here tonight.
It’s about time you met an honest person who doesn’t speak in code, Masui, or who doesn’t pretend you aren’t a racist simply because you lay claim to good intentions and a particular political identity.
And again, the title of the blog post has a specific referent. But just keep bracketing that out and pretending I haven’t already mentioned it.
Pretending, along with projecting, is what people like you do best.
Jeff sometimes retires for a time
Night night Jeff.
I didn’t proof before I hit submit
sorry my typo caused your hyperventilation
but I see, how many comments later, you can’t quite figure out how to offer up a legitimate criticism of Israel. You assertion was just the usual ruse.
How quaint.
you = your
at least, not right now
Yay that we get qualifiers now I think. Qualifiers are good. Me I’m trying to figure out how to keep a stomach for this sort of thing and also read the news, which I can’t remember ever being more confusingly disingenuous. NPR doesn’t even work anymore cause it’s become a parody of propaganda. AP, too. Some of the Washington Post and some of the WSJ is about all I got left anymore. It worries me that I might end up just chucking it all and become one of those Reason people. Either that or Xbox.
Thanks Jeff for waking up from you sleep. I feel honored.
But you knew that your title would catch you some hits, no? Be honest. And you were chomping at the bit to post it, no?
In all honesty, you are the only person who has ever called me that. That it happened in a post that you opportunistically titled makes me feel just right. An angry man who wants to either lash out or hide — that you were the first — and probably only ever — is a sign of your politics and thinking more than mine.
Jeff, shed these radicals and come back to the rational side of politics — where things aren’t black or white, won’t you?
Take care Jeff and we’ll see you around.
Oh. Pet rock meets Halo. Don’t think it can’t happen.
but I see, how many comments later, you can’t quite figure out how to offer up a legitimate criticism of Israel. You assertion was just the usual ruse.
*sigh* Darleen, that wasn’t my point. I’m afraid you will have to scroll up for it.
In all honesty, you are the only person who has ever called me that.
It’s pretty clear that you are one, though.
Hint: just because it’s a shared dirty little secret in the milieu of soft bigotry you inhabit doesn’t mean it’s not there.
Yay that we get qualifiers now I think.
My first Barney sighting. YaY!
Jeff, on reading this thread, I have to ask: did you just actually engage this Masui fool as some kind of equal? Were you slumming it or what?
Aren’t you giving this clown a little too much credit? He’s a mid-grade “progressive” point-sputterer, complete with bugaboos about Israel and Pavlovian reactions to a word in a title based on a song, for pete’s sake.
The most he’s good for — other than delivering the most hilarious “Well I never!” line ever posted on this page — is the occasional fantasy about shutting down speech he doesn’t like. (Most progressive of him. A Chavez fan, surely.) He’s not indicative of anything, except perhaps the lax troll policy at PW.
…Which is a good thing. Personally, I enjoy going through comment threads looking for the likes of Masui. Not only is the empty false bravado entertaining (remember: this is the same bunch that ran en masse for the Paxil when Kerry lost), but frankly, it’s just reassuring that people who hate you are just this dumb.
It’s not the quality, E. Nough. It’s the quantity that so dispirits me.
yep, stoooooopid.
E.Nough, like the others Jeff identified, Jeff knows who I am. I’d suggest you butt out with your suggestions. Darleen has yet to get it. Perhaps you are better on the uptake?
Magggie = dense
riiiiight, you can take everyone literally, but I can’t?
I settled on scotch AND Guinness.
Incidentally, I don’t know who Masui is. That’s why I asked it to identify itself by the name it generally uses here.
But really, I don’t much care either way. A ruse by any other name…
would be just at dumb.
Masui
You’re not…not the posted excerpts author!
AAAAGGGHHHHH!!
Seriously, why the coyness?
Settle down, Tony. Just tell me where I can buy Jeff some coffee cups, ok?
Also this country is so not lost. I promise. There’s no mandate at stake in this election. Cap ‘n trade? Renegotiate NAFTA? Polar bear petting zoos? National health care? Hah. As freaking if. These two wankers aren’t the vanguard of anything. It’s all inchoate ferment for whatever comes next. I find that sort of cheering.
Settle down, Tony. Just tell me where I can buy Jeff some coffee cups, ok?
Bored now.
Masui
I’ll tell you how to invest Jeff with your affluence if you tell me why you are so coy about your identity.
I don’t know who or what this Masui is, but it sure has some serious delusions of adequacy.
and maybe a case of Redbull.
Jeff,
You misspelled rube.
Trolls originally were, if you recall, not cutesy pink dolls with blue polyester hair and plastic sparkling eyes, but horrific miscreants of the dark that had to stay hidden to avoid being wiped out by decent folk.
But then there are the trolls on this thread, panting and drooling for the metaphorical blood of anyone not Progressive, not enlightened to modern self-abasement. It’s times like these I’m thrilled I will never have to actually meet people as depraved as your kind, and that your kind are too cowardly to bellow your hatred in public, in person. They haven’t the conviction or nerve to lecture the rest of us at the grocery, or on the sidewalk, or in an elevator. Trolls prefer to lurk behind the safety of their sticky keyboards, grimy with fingerprints and spittle. Besides, no one intelligent would want to address such cretins as if discourse were feasible. Nevertheless, it is best your kind stay in the dark, cursing the thoughtful people who live above you, in sunlight.
E.Nough, mediocracy is not a crime. In fact, Masui seems to have made it a life long goal.
Oops! mediocracy s/b mediocrity.
Heh. It’s getting late. Let me just say this:
I know that Jeff and some others are opposed to voting for McCain, thinking he won’t be much better than Obama. Fair enough; not rehashing that tonight. But how’s this for incentive: think about the sheer misery amongst progressives when The Distinguished Gentleman loses. You remember Kerry’s loss — the tears, the recriminations, the despondency? This will be worse. I’m anticipating mass cry-ins, the wearing of black for four years (in mourning, Masui, don’t start ranting), and possibly for-real, honest-to-God moving to Canada.
Think of the entertainment! Think of the hilarity! Think of the stunned celebrity circus!
Surely putting Maverick in charge of the country is worth that? Think about it!
Surely putting Maverick in charge of the country is worth that? Think about it!
They’ll just say it’s proof that America is a racist country, and the UN will send a special rapporteur on racism…Oh wait, they already have! And isn’t it hysterical that his name is Doudou!
I think it’s time Masui departs.
Masui might just have been Timmy, too. Best not to take any chances.
Incidentally, it’s Kazuo MaTsui. Dumbass.
Jeff,
From the admin panel, you can check the comments for this thread; click on an IP address for a comment and the past comments associated with that address, regardless of “handle,” are displayed.
Time for a black and tan, Guinness and Harp! Aaaaaaaahhhhh!
I know, Karl. Different IP, associated only with this new poster.
But there are other clues.
Remember, Timmy was always offended that I held fundraisers.
Then he tried to parrot a Caric argument, and botched it up totally. Which about fits his intellectual m.o.
No matter, he’s gone now. Again.
I collect stalkers like Fonzi collects phone numbers.
Really Jeff, Timmy?
‘Cuz to be honest, I thought that Masui person was more clever and articulate than Timmy.
Course that’s like saying a hairball is wiser than a rock, so never mind.
“Boutique Marxism”? only three Google hits using quote marks to keep the phrase intact? even i knew vaguely what it meant….a sort of shopping for effronteries that appeal to you….while being a limousine liberal…
while ignoring the “underlying issues” as Karl says it: wombats flying out of my ass.
s–t–r–e–t–c–h
more bleach please
[…] Don’t call me nigger, Whitey It’s hard to come up with an ethnic slur that has less of a sting than “whitey.†[…] More a taunt than a threat, the word has no ugly history and hints at no particular stereotypes. It may have been hurled in a menacing fashion in ugly personal confrontations from time to time, but it’s never been used to keep a people down, to put them in their place, to rank them as subhuman. […]
Hey, I’ve been gone for most of the day. Did I miss anything?
good grief-er.
Im not racist.
I just don’t like YOU.
Tony
South Haven,MI
“#
Comment by jen on 6/16 @ 10:18 pm #
i thought you knew i was jen.
didnt you read the thread?
Mr. B said i was Jen to your Li Mu-Bai.
and no, i meant how do you take it back, the source of linguistic production.”
I do it by making fun of illiterate assholes like you, nishi.
[…] really lit Jeff Goldstein’s fuse with this one. Jeff […]
I was wondering when the wicked word would come unchained. This conversation has been dancing on the lips of so many for so long. Look, Jeremiah Wright is a racist dick. You may or may not come down hard on his congregation for sitting around listening to him. You might say Obama is a fruitloop for sitting around listening to him. However, it would be a mistake to use Wright, or some slightly arrogant editorial as your free pass cavort about in your skivvies saying niggerniggernigger.
No one is telling you how to feel about the word whitey. You can feel how you want. You know that, Jeff. Don’t be obtuse. They are saying that nigger has about 400 years of icky history that is so much more nasty than whitey – which is some bullshit 70s crap that was last used by Wilona on Good Times. I don’t doubt that it is offensive to some white people. But you and I and everyone on this blog knows that nigger is not the same as whitey or honkey.
I am disturbed and disappointed at what I am (hopefully mistakenly) interpreting as the point of this post. It seems like you are doing what Larry Johnson at No Quarter is doing: Trying to find a reason to justify bringing something really ugly to the surface – a reason to say “hey, you started it with this whitey stuff”. I need a few more days or even weeks to see where this all goes before I come back to the internets – I am just too creeped out to even read shit like this.
Oh, and Jeff: Welcome to my world. I live with constantly being told what I should be offended at and to “get over” nearly every shitty, racist thing that is said to me or that I am exposed to. “Oh come on, rappers say it all the time” or “Oh big-lipped ape is SOOOO not racist. Stop your whining!” are par for the course.
;-)
Actually, Lisa, the point was that it’s not OK for anyone to use any racial slurs. That’s Jeff’s point — the opposite of the one from the Chicago Trib. That Jeff chose a Sly and the Family Stone song title to riff off of was more for effect than in order to excuse either word.
I don’t know what your interpretation was, but, seriously, give people more credit.
But you and I and everyone on this blog knows that nigger is not the same as whitey or honkey.
Only because you give the word that power, Lisa. A black man can say it, with far more evil intent and its no big deal, the word is given power by the receiver. Whitey or honkey are different because white people don’t empower them, even if the utterance is given in complete hatred and contempt.
This conversation has been dancing on the lips of so many for so long. Look, Jeremiah Wright is a racist dick. You may or may not come down hard on his congregation for sitting around listening to him. You might say Obama is a fruitloop for sitting around listening to him.
Heh. Remember what you posted about the first time you posted here?
I’d say with Julia Roberts and Angelina Jolie, big-lipped has become decidedly not racist. Do you know how much white women pay to fill their lips up?
#335: Yes. I totally conceded that I was wrong. I really thought the Trinity United thing was trumped up. But I have had to admit that Rev. Wright is a crank of astounding proportions. My cousins, who attended regularly for years, have stopped going due to the negative press and the constant presence of newscrews asking them if they hate white people.
Yeah – big lips are hot, but adding the ‘ape’ part generally makes it a different kind of statement, maybee.
If somebody really wants to call me something hurtful, it should be “Late for Dinner.”
“I used to care enough to teach. Then, I decided to write. Now, I just want to retire to Idaho and run a turnip farm. So long as I can get satellite TV with a DVR.”
I’m sure you were kidding but I’ve had this exact daydream for a very long time.. Just walking away from it all.. The city.. politics.. computers.. corporate america.. and moving someplace small and quiet to take a a job working with my hands.. Maybe farming like my grandfather.. I think maybe youre right.. Our society is lost.. irreversibly messed up..
#333: I think the intent of the original article was to say that whitey is not equivalent to nigger. Not to say that whitey is a nice term of endearment. I see it as heading the gleeful “now I get to call you a nigger – squee!” crowd off at the pass. (Since the whole “rappers use nigger all the time!” excuse never really got any traction.)
My cousins, who attended regularly for years, have stopped going due to the negative press and the constant presence of newscrews asking them if they hate white people.
Yeah, but your cousins had you convinced it was just a great church. You were so convinced that you came here to defend them. I guess sometimes we lose perspective of “normal”.
Sorry, I just woke up and I read “ape” as “are”. You are right that ape would make it racist, but are you referring to some smear in particular there? Has someone been called a big lipped ape and someone defended it as not racist?
#334: That is only marginally true. I can’t go up to a Jew and call him a kike or a dirty bignosed whatnot and say “you are only offended because you give this power….embrace it!” There are a whole lot of evil doings behind racist language – and the evil gives the language power – not the recipient. Yes, you are right that there is a point up to which you have to ignore stupid assholes an their dumbfuck racial slurs. But to completely ignore trends in its usage or disturbing spikes in racist imagery is to be naive (especially considring the history of antiblack and antisemetic language and the way it was used to dehumanize groups of people before atrocities were then enacted against them.)
: I think the intent of the original article was to say that whitey is not equivalent to nigger.
That may have been the intent, but (apparently) people don’t completely agree with the premise.
Not to say that whitey is a nice term of endearment. I see it as heading the gleeful “now I get to call you a nigger – squee!†crowd off at the pass.
Of course, the idea that I don’t use the word nigger, you don’t use the word “whitey” isn’t -perhaps- a larger point?
Sure Lisa, see it headed wherever you want, because that allows you to ignore where it is right now, which is saying that bigotry is acceptable so long as it is pointed at the right crowd.
I need a few more days or even weeks to see where this all goes before I come back to the internets…
For real I think there’s a lot of this sort of thing going on out there. I really do. Both candidates have peaked, and the question of how the hell we got here is every bit as top of mind as where the hell all this is going I think. It reminds me of that thing where people tell poll people that personally they’re doing fine but they think economy totally sucks.
Seems to me people who think like that are sort of on balance tipped towards being wary of change, not enthuselated about it.
#340: Well my cousins are nice people. They do nice things for their community. They were really defensive when this whole thing started and I felt very sorry for them. I believed them when they said this whole thing was bullshit and that this guy was not as crazy as he is being portrayed. I don’t know what a “normal” church is since everytime I have gone to anyone’s church there was homobigotry, political wankery, and general craziness being spouted from the pulpit (except for the couple of times I went to a Catholic church – they were pretty mellow).
Yes at some point in the early 90s, one of my roommates buddies came over and recounted a story in which he called a girl (a black girl – he made that clear) at his job a big-lipped ape. A conversation ensued wherein I was asked why I did not find that shit funny. My roommates and their friends – all white – tried to convince me that calling her a big lipped ape was not racist. I demurred. That was not the first or last time. I didn’t even bother to argue that much. I just gave him the stink-eye.
Lisa,
I don’t think that was the intent, though I agree with how you put it. But that’s a difference of degree, not kind.
I don’t know what a “normal†church
I didn’t mean a ‘normal’ church. I meant normal, decent thoughts toward your fellow man. You seem to be saying there’s a queue of people waiting for the opportunity to finally! say ‘n*gger’. I don’t think that’s true, but we have a perfect example of a group of people that got together at least once a week to say racist things about the horrible white people. They were so steeped in their thoughts they didn’t think there was anything wrong with it, and in fact discussed the goodness of it with people outside the group.
The stink-eye is a fabulous tool, and often has excellent results.
I don’t take offense at being called “whitey” but it reveals the mindset of the person using the term. If Obama and his wife sat under the preaching of Wright and heard that for 20 years without objection, then that’s enough for me to know they should never be in the White House other than as invited guests. I want a color-blind president.
Lisa
Who is the gleeful crowd? And why, if they are disposed to say what you say they are, might they be ‘headed off’? Given the presumptive intent you attribute to them, wouldn’t we say they would likely care nothing for being ‘headed off’? Or do I mistake them as described by you?
The thing is though, leaving race aside, if you find yourself working at a place with a preponderance of unattractive people you better make sure you’re getting paid I think.
#343: I disagree. I didn’t see any endorsement of bigotry. I saw a “don’t equate one with the other”. They are both bad. But one has more weight behind it than the other (and I read an implied – don’t get your hopes up – even if there is some tape of Mrs. Obama using the term “whitey” it does not carte blanche (pun intended) to whip out the word “nigger”.)
Somehow I knew Jeff G. wrote this – it had the stench of “bitch” all over it.
Uh no. I insulted Jeff G. Now he’ll half to call the cops and lie and say I was threatening him and his family and cry like a little fucking girl like he did before when some insane woman said something that hurt his feelings like the fucking cunt he is.
What an insightful comment ! It certainly takes a very, very brave soul to write a weak, anonymous insult on a blog. FIGHT ON! Now, run along. I hear your momma calling for you. She says it’s time to put away the stack of porno mags and find a job.
#347: I don’t agree Maybee. You seem to think these people were obsessed with All Whitey All of the Time. They sell tapes of ALL of their weekly sermons. People have been poring over them to find more juice. They found enough, but nothing close to “at least once a week of racism”. That is an overstatement that is nearly as egregious as my orginal soft-peddle. Apparently, they do actually crack open their bibles and yammer on about that most of the time.
And yes, I believe there are a group of people who feel aggreived that thye can’t let loose with the racist crankery without being ostracized from polite society. They really feel they should be able to say the word nigger because rappers say it. They feel very offended that they are left out of the party. Rappers often exhort people to suck their dicks as well. But I don’t feel that we should all greet each other with “suck my dick” because rappers do it. Obviously they don’t give a shit what rappers do, they just want to be able to use the word nigger the way people used to use it a hundred years ago…
#350: Heh. That would be anyone working in politics. There are many ugly people in politics – except for the interns – they are almost always hot (and, according to Jessica Cultler, they will totally let you fuck them in the ass at lunch).
Interns are hot a lot. They’re new and shiny and undisillusioned and they tend to project self-confidence cause they don’t know any better.
I was an intern once.
And young.
And yes, I believe there are a group of people who feel aggreived that thye can’t let loose with the racist crankery without being ostracized from polite society. They really feel they should be able to say the word nigger because rappers say it. They feel very offended that they are left out of the party.
I guess I’d have to wonder how this “group” of people is defined. I do think you can find some number of people at anytime in the US that want to do any one thing. Furries, for example.
If you are imagining it to be some large proportion of the white population that is just itching to release it’s hate against the black people, I think that puts you in with the fine people of TUCC. Imagining that white people are secretly against you and it is only some thin membrane protecting you from the unleashing of the hatred is what was going on in that church. Maybe not hate the white person every week, but a fine helping of the victimization.
Now, if we’re going to talk about words other than n*gger- I might agree to an extent. I do think people are tired of being called “racist!” for some utterance or stated opinion. I think identity groups have gone about vaccuming up words that cannot be used because what someone really means by saying it is ____ (something awful). The whole PC thing.
I have no desire to say the n word. I have no desire to do anything racist, quite frankly. I do have the desire to be able to say that I’m against affirmative action without being called racist. I do have the desire to say I think the inner cities are a mess without being called racist.
I’m ranting and making little sense.
The gleeful crowd is made up of marginalized racists. They are not the people behind the curtain pulling the levers of power, I mean, who marginalized them, if not the lever pullers? But this narrative is contrary to Dr. Wright’s narrative, yes, since he sees the lever pullers as racists? Wasn’t the titillation over the false Michelle Obama story that she was to be found advocating Dr. Wright’s thesis? Hmmm.
Racism, Race-bias expressed with derogatory labels = vulgar, lowminded, and offensive on prinicple and an offense to good taste. It goes without saying one grants every exception for ironic use or meta-commentary on the insults and racism.
That blacks feel entitled to have more sting from an ugly label because THEY were the down-trodden ones or perceive that to be their lot, misses the real moral question. The point is to get away from disparaging and belittling or lumping together as a target of contempt and derision someone because of their RACE. I say that “equality of evil” must be accepted, you have to act like there is no difference, not notice differences and support and coddle them and cling to them bitterly, to get to a place where race is irrelevent.
Who was that 4/chan type in here last night? What a brat.
Actually, Sly and the Family Stone said it, in a pointed rebuke to racial epithets being launched by all sides. Which, in addition to making it the perfect post title, should, too, have signaled to you how it was being used.
Uh, the…editorial, is it?, says that the word has no sting, and that those offended by it are morons. As I say, I’m not personally offended by it anymore (I was moreso when, at age 6, the mother of a black friend of mine who lived up the street had a bad day and told me to keep my filthy white hands off her storm door), but the idea that, were I to become offended, I’m simply a “moron,” is the clear thrust of the piece. And that to me suggests that the bailiwick of “authentic” offense is being circumscribed, and who even can lay claim to “victim” status is being carefully plotted.
Not the same in terms of history. But the same in terms of the way it is being used and the intent behind its being employed. And of course, you don’t get to “400 years of icky history” without allowing those first 30 years a pass.
Well, I’m really disturbed that you’d interpret it that way. But I think that speaks more to your fears than it does to my positions. The Sly and the Family Stone song is the frame here; and again, that song (lyrics: “Don’t call me Nigger, Whitey / Don’t call me Whitey, Nigger”) put the use of racial epithets on an equal playing field — recognizing that, despite the “400 years of icky history,” a rhetorical double standard resulting from linguistic payback would only exascerbate the problem of racial division.
If you read my posts on race (categorized under greatest hits), you’ll see that my position is always to look for ways beyond the current racialist dynamic. To my mind, excusing the use of a racial epithet launched with malicious intent by way of some dubious (and idiotic) academic loophole is precisely the wrong message to be sending.
And I pointed that out here.
Get over it. If you can read Faulkner’s “Barn Burning,” you can surely live through a post that uses the word “nigger” not maliciously, but to illustrate a point about the use of racial epithets originally made by Sly and the Family Stone that speaks directly against the thesis of this Chicago Trib article.
Now, if you want REALLY to see the kind of person who waits around, chomping at the bit for a chance to launch into truly hate-filled mouth foam, look no further than “anonymous j3rk,” who waits for an opportunity to feign outrage simply so he can call me a cunt, a bitch, and what have you from the safety of a great distance.
Were I you, I’d be more worried about that type, who is on your “side,” politically, than I would about someone who uses a Sly and the Family Stone reference to answer the charge that some intended racial epithets should simply be ignored because, well, Whitey has all the power.
That’s nonsense — and worse, it only instigates racial tensions that might not otherwise exist.
heet’s chain, it is unusually easy to yank. It almost has a “yank me” sign hanging from it.
The identity politics that the Left is using to divide this country include as tools ‘protected’ words. It’s always a good thing to remind people who think that these words can, and should, be disarmed. Otherwise more and more words will become tools…and weapons.
Thanks, Jeff, for your brilliant analysis. As usual.
anonymouse jerk = olsenflizz; r4d20; libarbarian
Some of his previous comments include:
****
****
****
****
So, here’s an idea. Why not tell me who you are — you know, show the courage of your convictions, and we’ll see if I can’t speak with you man to man. At which time you can call me a bitch, a cunt, a coward, a loose pussy, what have you.
It won’t end well for you, I don’t think. But then, at least you wouldn’t have to live the rest of your life knowing that, if it weren’t for anonymously launched internet aspersions, you’d be completely impotent as a human being, with a grubby black grease mark for a soul.
RELEASE YOURSELF, BIG GUY! FEEL THE LIBERATION!
Oh. And just in case people have forgotten…:
How fucking sad is this person?
I’d almost feel sorry for it, if it wasn’t quite so loathesome.
Now, having answered the charges of racism (and having very carefully composed myself and not launched a search party to find the douche who questions the legal measures I took to protect my family from someone who is, by all accounts, seriously crazed — sorry, but my wife wouldn’t let me just go beat her to death with a pipe), I’ll take my leave for a bit.
As I said last night, I don’t have the stomach for these kinds of people anymore — and talking to them does nothing, nothing, but turn them into defensive assholes, so invested are they in their political affiliation as a integral part of their identity and worth.
I’ve changed my mind. If someone can find me the name and location of the olsenflizz@yahoo.com or r4d20 (olsenflizz@yahoo.com) or libarbarian@gmail.com, please let me know.
IP, used consistently for at least a year: 12.109.50.209
Thanks.
Arlington, Virginia. I can’t get it any closer than that.
Jeff G.
You dont want to do that.
Interesting. He/she apparently works here.
Perhaps a starting point: http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=297110102
[this could be something different, though I did find a “libarbarian” who is also into “mixing.” Perhaps he’s moved.]
IP resolves to 1525 North Wilson Blvd, Arlington, Virginia. Claritas.com.
Or maybe this: http://www.youtube.com/user/libarbarian and this: http://www.artofthemix.org/AOTMCommunity/profile.asp?intmemberid=18536
You might want to screenshot it, just in case he takes it down.
Something for the scrapbook, perhaps.
Arlington VA, huh?
Okay. Then this is probably the right track: http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A14457719XCILV/ref=cm_aya_pdp_profile
Seems you know less about me than you think.
I’d put a double-sawbuck on that his IP resolves statically to his office computer. Which would kind of suck, if you notified his corporate headquarters the kind of vile crap he’s been leaving about. I’d further guess that they’ve got an internet usage policy that he’s violated even more frequently than he’s violated that half-pound of calve’s liver in the fridge.
Tell me more, Slart.
I mean, obviously anonymous jerk believes resistance to cyber assaults is for “loose pussies” and the like. So let’s watch him stand his ground.
Just wow. I can’t decide who is more wrong: the troll, the host, or the person putting addresses on a public website. Nice work, “slartibartfast.” Perhaps, you could out yourself now?
I mean, after trying to take a person’s livelihood because they were offensive on someone else’s blogpost, it’s the least you could do.
This isn’t worth it.
I’ll slink off and prefer if you left it at that.
I sent an email to jobswest@claritas.com…Subject line, “Employee Internet Abuse”
Because I know how Corporate People think. I am Corporate People.
Sorry, Gabrielle, but perhaps you aren’t aware of the history of my run-in with a deranged stalker — the incident that cost me a year of my life, and that this asshole has now on three separate occasions seen fit to come after me on. I no longer take this shit lightly, nor am I any longer a forgiving soul. Some people don’t deserve courtesy.
So. Which is gonna be, anonymous jerk? Howsabout a name? Or should I find it out some other way?
Come on, bitch. Cunt. Loose pussy. Girly man coward. Out with it.
Some companies have abuse-reporting email address. In this case, it’d be abuse@claritas.com. Or you could report it to the corporate technical POC, which is Russel Vorce (rvorce@claritas.com). He’s physically out in San Diego. I can get you his phone number, assuming their domain info is up to date.
(Oh. And the NRA. I am the NRA.)
Jeff: A simple yahoo search returns this; http://www.transterrestrial.com/archives/005673.html A corrected comment post that follows his own previous post, a Kevin Parkin, it appears. Regards, W.
Caritas put the address on their site. What, you think it’s secret?
I didnt threaten anyone nor am I stalking or otherwise a danger to anyone. I used harsh language. But screw it. Its not worth it and I’m going to leave Jeff G alone from now on.
Nice work, “slartibartfast.†Perhaps, you could out yourself now?
Jeff actually knows who I am, so I think between the host of this weblog and I, we’re on the up-and-up.
…but if it’d make you feel all better about things, I can give Jeff my telephone number. He already has my email address.
So, no mystery there.
“Whitey” is O.K., although I much prefer being called “White Devil”!!!!
an0nymous.j3rk has also worked over neo-neocon, this morning http://tinyurl.com/6yomvo
Just give me your name, anonymous jerk/r4d20/libarbarian. Then we can talk.
I have a theory that people who use multiple aliases to comment on sites would behave completely differently were they required to post under their own names. Civility, you see.
You’ve proven yourself incapable, under 3 different names, now, to be civil. Instead, you’ve hit again and again upon the most touchy subject you can think of as a way to try to hurt me. Do you have a family? Has anyone ever threatened the publish kiddie porn with your son’s name? Or to report you to Family Services for child molestation?
Probably not. And I wouldn’t wish that upon you.
“Harsh language,” though? Try again. What you did was to try to diminish and belittle what my family was put through — all from the safety of your little office cubicle, unmolested by those you keep at a distance through a series of anonymous handles, even as you have the audacity to call them cowards and pussies and cunts.
You haven’t a shred of decency, which is why you’d even take that tack in launching your internet assaults. You are just as I thought you were — a fucking coward without the courage of his convictions.
Now, I don’t advocate anyone trying to contact this douche’s employer. I just wanted him to say what he has to say to me using his own name. Seems he’d rather just slink away than have to stand up for himself.
Not surprising. Let the little bitch go.
No, I wouldn’t do that, Jeff. This is between you and anonymous.skidmark. He offends me, but it’s not my fight.
Well, the thread may be locked, or maybe my last comment was just blocked because it linked to the company and another site with information…
Suffice it to say that Libarbarian may have just discovered that you can’t recall a bullet after it’s fired… and you own the consequences.
Maybe he’ll let us know how the job hunt goes.
Wow. Here’s what this douche wrote to neo-neocon:
I’m guessing neo put in the asterisks.
A real class act.
This sort of thing happened to me, when I started blogging a couple years ago. I spent a lot of time on a local newspaper forum, and encountered a nassty troll who did threaten me. He turned out to be a high-level State employee, using State-owned PC’s to do his dirty work. After my legitimate complaint to a State attorney (eventually involving the TBI) there was much soul-searching in Tennessee government circles, resulting in some changes to employee PC privileges.
In the end, he got two weeks of unpaid leave and a ‘promotion’ that kept him away from PC’s at work. I’ve not heard from him since.
You may remove my previous post if you so desire. I can see that you are well ahead of my humble skillz. Please feel free to email me. Regards, W.
I just saw his IP disappear suddenly from the internal “Claritas iMark” list I was checking. He can’t really undo what he’s done elsewhere, but it looks like someone may have “that sinking feeling.”
Claritas is pretty cool though. They had a conference a few weeks ago in San Diego and Nielsen was all about sort of pushing a Nielsen Claritas cobrandingness thingy. Like they really wanted you to come away with the Nielsen name more than the Claritas name. I thought that was odd cause Claritas has plenty good brand equity already. So what’s up with that, troll person?
Oh. Nielsen is the owner so that’s more clear.
Is thor next?
Point taken about your family Jeff. I apologize for pushing those buttons.
Doing the right thing starts when you get out of bed in the morning, not when someone traces your IP to your cubicle.
Thank you Jeff, Slart, et al for sweeping up the trash.
It is predictable that an0nymous.j3rk, Retardo, Brave Thersites/NYMary, et al require anonymity to exercise their rights of free speech in an attempt to suppress the speech of those they disagree with while claiming to be champions of – you guessed it- free speech.
Free for me but not for thee.
I’d be anonymous too if my kernal belief was a contradiction.
I didn’t use anything that’s not freely available over the Internet, FWIW. I usually regard trolls as being unworthy of serious effort, and usually they don’t require it.
thor is not at all like anonymous jerk. Neither is nishi. They are provocateurs, mostly, and I get the sense both just like playing devil’s advocate sometimes.
It’s no secret that I seldom post these days, and one of the reasons is, I don’t have the energy anymore to combat the attacks on my name. Or rather, I do — but doing so would leave little time for more important places to exert my energy. My son is 4 and a half now, and I like teaching him to catch a football, or I like to watch him play, and join in to the imaginary worlds he creates (if he’ll let me: sometimes, these are private moments).
My family means the world to me. And watching what’s happened to Michelle Malkin’s family (we had the great fortune to eat dinner with them recently) has made me truly question the sanity of what it is I do here.
I started this blog with the idea that people wanted conversation, that they wanted to learn, and that adults would act like adults. Boy, was I naive.
Heh. I just had a comment from Timmah.
I was DeNoUnCeD!!!1111!!
Most of us do want to learn, Jeff, but sometimes we get hooked by the long-liners.
Let me just make sure I’m being clear. I think Lisa, for instance, and cynn, and nishi, and thor, and others who post here (forgive me if I’m forgetting your name; I’m not thinking clearly right now), are worthwhile contributors. And as you longtime readers know, I even once had Jeralyn of TalkLeft guest blog (and invited others from the left, as well).
I have reached out repeatedly to leftwing sites that I thought were more about ideas than partisan sniping, trying to get conversations going. On only a rare few occasions did such experiments succeed.
I appreciate the regulars here — and I appreciate the give and take among them. I also respect it when you all disagree with me, because we’ve built up something of a trust. But beyond that, what’s the point, really?
The media has given up even the semblance of objectivity, and they are able to rationalize this in a way that I have long described as inexorable, given the predominance of their political world view.
What we’re going to need is another Boston Tea Party — one involving the AP, and many of the major newspapers. But if we try such a thing, we’ll all be arrested for contributing to global warming or some such, heating up the ocean with the ink from the newsprint, and likely tried by some international court.
Best just to grow turnips and play X-Box, then wait to die.
Find a balance that works for you, Jeff. If that balance winds up meaning that you don’t post or comment anymore: our loss, not yours.
But I suspect that won’t happen; writers gotta write, and idea people gotta ideate.
Timmy is a tool. The idea that, if this libarbarian guy gets canned for his own actions, he has legal recourse to come after you for finding publicly available information and using it to report an abuse that offends your sensibilities, just shows that he’s a delusional tool.
I very much doubt he’d be calling for someone who is fired for a “hate crime” to sue the company that let him go for launching into, say, a sexist attack on a co-worker.
You had me at Timmy is a tool, Jeff.
Jeff, I think you’re staring into the abyss a bit much. Sure, we all think we can change the world, but really things always come down to immediate surroundings; family and friends and what one can do to help around the house. Dishes, for example.
We’ll all get by. Maybe with a little help from behind the sofa cushions on occasion…
And turnips, they suck. I’ve red peppers and green peppers and something yellow I haven’t identified yet. Not a turnip, though.
“What we’re going to need is another Boston Tea Party  one involving the AP, and many of the major newspapers.”
That would be far too kind. I’m enjoying the slow strangulation too much to wish for it to come to an end while the boots are still jerking. Really, who can read about the McClatchy layoffs or watch the shareholders being crucified by the incompetence of the Sulzberger dimwit and not cheered?
I understand that I’m on private ground every time I post a comment. I support the owner’s right to throw bums off his property as he sees fit and if he chooses to shoot them before throwing them off I will offer criticism only should he miss.
I gave up this troll-catching business a while back, when I realized that getting JadeGold’s yearbook picture was never going to be even close to a peak moment.
Ooh. Email me that sumbitch. Would love to see it!
Better to document it for our post-apocalyptic descendants to heed.
Nice smackdown, guys.
Then there was Retardo, which, I don’t care who you are, that’s funny right there.
Leo Strauss points out that Aristophanes ‘Clouds’ depicts Socrates and Phidippides retiring to private space for their most important conversations…the content of those conversations are mysteries to the public. That content, from Aristophanes point of view, may be harmful or it may not. The public however, in the form of, Strepsiades, Phidippides stupid father, burns down Socrates house. Soc gets his of course, for reals, many years later, from the actual Athenian public, though he attributes some of the public misunderstanding of his life to Aristophanes silly comedy which has prejudiced their views and confused him with actual sophists. Sure it’s ugly, but he didn’t seem to have a choice in the matter. Learning was just what he did, or as Luther put it, he could do no other. Persecution was just part of the gig.
Jeff I am not sensitive to people using nigger. I was concerned at what I interpreted as your line of reasoning. Don’t be coy. It doesn’t become you.
And listen Goldstein, you have a lot of damn nerve uttering the words “get over it” after you just finished twisting your leopard g-string wearing ass into a knot about someone telling you how to feel about the word “whitey” – essentially telling you to “get over it” – so YOU get to tell people how to feel about words. But no one gets to tell Teh Zohan how to feel. I see, G-unit.
I know what your point was. I said that I was disturbed at what I possibly mistakenly read as a set up to excuse the use of racial epithets aimed at black folks because you feel that there are people excusing the use of racial epithets aimed at white folks. I admit that I was reading more into it (after being barraged by idiots from my own party like Larry Johnson and his band of knuckledraggers coming very near to forming a lynching party, I transferred my disappointment/horror wrongly to you.)
I agree that the media just sucks. I think they think they are much more important than voters or politicians – the feel they do as much newsmaking as reporting. Notice the non-stop coverage of the Tim Russert eulogizing. That was a sad event. But when a newsman gets as much or more coverage than the death of the pope or a head of state, that tells you where our elite, pompous, useless media has descended (or in their opinion – ascended) to.
Caveat to #422: I am sensitive to the word nigger, but not as sensitive as you think. I can read Mark Twain without wincing. And I collect antebellum items that say “nigger” on them because it interests me. I have wrappers for “Nigger Joe’s Soap” a box for “Nigger Tees” and a “Nigger Hair” tobacco can. I am not a serious collector but it always makes my jaw drop so that I have to purchase the item.
A lesson for all the kiddies out there, you are only as anonymous as other people allow you to be. Also, if you treat your anonymity not as a way to attack but as more of a brand not directly associated with you, a brand that you can rely on as a proxy, then you will be better off. Say nothing you wouldn’t say in person, and you will probably never turn into someone you wouldn’t like.
I’ve never been to sniper school, but I imagine they tell the students something along the lines of, Once you fire your first shot, it’s only a matter of time before somebody finds where it came from.
Of course, a sniper can leave the scene. A troll posting vile comments from his work computer, not so much.
It’s all up to the host, it just seems to me that the “open discussion” idea, great as it may be, has been particularly abused by a certain few, to the point where the majority of the discussion is about their inanities.
I mean, sure, it’s a little entertaining, until it becomes rote repetition.
Over time, the level of discourse goes up and down, that’s just natural. Maybe this is just a low point, or maybe it’s just the normal election-season troll-explosion.
I admit I skip over a lot of the troll-comments or even troll-heavy comment sections, but from what I do read they’re not actually adding anything of any substance… but like I said, it’s not up to me.
I also admit that when Nishi said murderous terrorism was just a “youthful indiscretion,” I lost any interest in what it had to say.
Summation: The open discussion thing is a good idea, but requires occasional thinning of the retarded and/or critically anti-social members of the herd.
It’s TOTALLY not up to me whether constant spittle-flecked accusations of racism, regardless of topic, or a simple inability to address or even recognize the topic, constitute a disability with regard to the open discussion.
I’m biased anyway.
I don’t need Jeff Goldstein to tell when or if it’s OK to use the word nigger. I’ve got that one covered.
I need Jeff Goldstein to help me square and expound on thematics such as the above. The symbolic New orders! The othernesses! The multiplication of reflections of alternative temporalities and spaces within the New Narrative! Because I think I agree with some of these sweeping passages, but, you know, it’s hard to know for sure when language acrobats put on spandex and take to the highwire, the way they always do.
Lisa —
The “get over it” was meant in the context of having to come across the word used in either antiquated circumstances, or (as is the case in my post) illustrative contexts. I would never tell you to get over it in a situation where it was used with malicious intent. And, because I am an intentionalist, I don’t confuse the way the word is used by, say, rappers, with how it is used by David Duke.
I’m not particularly coy, by the way. Just forced to be as exact as I can be, give that I’m a longtime target for those wishing to quote me out of context.
Sounds as if you’re quoting Barack Obama, frankly. Eee ee ee. :-)
Yup. I think though that in a blog context, you generally have to keep firing to get serious attention. Acting as if the first shot will be enough tends to make one more careful about aiming, or even deciding if pulling the trigger is really a good idea.
I think I wore your analogy out.
Oh, man, did that sound wrong. Sheesh.
Hey, three in a row. I feel like the autobot!
That is only marginally true. I can’t go up to a Jew and call him a kike or a dirty bignosed whatnot and say “you are only offended because you give this power….embrace it!â€Â
Well, you could, but probably shouldn’t.
There are a whole lot of evil doings behind racist language – and the evil gives the language power – not the recipient.
I would say both do, I was a little country kid who got bused a long way into town after elementary school, and heard hick, white trash and redneck regularly. It took a couple of fights and some detention for me to realize my reaction was playing right into the hands of the insulters. I was giving the words the power they wanted by reacting so strongly to them.
Yes, you are right that there is a point up to which you have to ignore stupid assholes an their dumbfuck racial slurs. But to completely ignore trends in its usage or disturbing spikes in racist imagery is to be naive (especially considring the history of antiblack and antisemetic language and the way it was used to dehumanize groups of people before atrocities were then enacted against them.)
Point taken. But because some people don’t understand the history of the words redneck or white trash don’t mean those words don’t carry the same power among those who do.
You’re saying people should think before they click? Imagine that! ;-)
because you feel that there are people excusing the use of racial epithets aimed at white folks…
I think that’s more the negative space in the stupid Chicago Tribune piece. I think what this person is saying is your epithets for us are ouchier than our epithets for you and you know the ones I mean. Yeah. That one especially. Meditate on that for awhile, you stupid no-perspective-having white person.
But then I read the piece and I think hey you brought it up I didn’t say nothing. Why are we talking about this again? This really is more your deal I think. I already done said that if there’s anything at all at stake in this election it’s the ratification of stupid climate change schemes which is totally not a racial thing. So far. Well if you’re Inuit maybe. I don’t know me any Inuit epithets.
Great thread and awesome discussion. Especially you, Prince Tinkleshorts Goldstein.
I need to catch up on some work from being laid up with the plague for a week.
#109 ccoffer – Bingo.
I can think of a few white friends who are ‘liberal’ Dems because they think those Blacks just can’t do for themselves.
Sorry, am I allowed to say ‘bingo’?
I don’t think it’s very nice to call anybody Prince Tinkleshorts. This a lot matters cause of the…
Well SRS got it first I think at #34…
I was kind of surprised that this comment didn’t guide the conversation more. Cause the deep thinker person at the Chicago Tribune was pretty disingenuous I thought. It may have been hurled in a menacing fashion in ugly personal confrontations from time to time… See? Actually, no, deep thinking Chicago Tribune person. It’s hurled more at a disembodied “The Man” figure like how SRS says, and it bespeaks a deep estrangement from society and a bitterness that can only be derived from a chronic lack of fresh fruit.
I just don’t think it should be trivialized is all. Using the word “Whitey” is as radical a rejection of the church on Sundays, capitalism, apple pie, American Idol, and also capitalism again status quo as other epithets are a rejection of a common humanity. Both are pretty startling, at least when you’re me. But none of this gets those damn whiny Eskimos off the hook I don’t think.
I do, however, care about the integrity of the Constitution,
HA! No, you don’t.
Well argued, Duros Hussein 62!
Whatever. Par for the course.
I have Michael Jackson’s son on line three, and he’s pissed.
His pants.
Honestly, Jeff, how do you compete with the rhetorical powers of Duros? He is a master(de)bater. CARRY ON.
Richmond is home of the Eskimo pie.
I can kiss my bonafides goodbye.
**********
She’s my Eskimo baby,she’s my Eskimo pie
She lives south of the North pole and I know the reason why
“get out of your little collectivist, miserable hairshirt for a bit and look around you. Power and money is an individual thing and can be expressed in context.”
I never said all white people were rich, and that needn’t be true for my point to stand. It’s just alot easier if you happened to be born white than black in this country by just about any metric, and anyone denying that is deluding themselves.
When white people cry about race, they’re whiny ass holes, that’s all. Like Jeff, e.g.
Fixed that for you.
Boob.
And, why would that be Steve? Because whitey keeps locking the brothers up, right?
Gee, steve, do you count your own whining about race in that?
If not, why not?
I don’t think you should be agreeing with me that Jeff’s whiny, McGehee. He may call you names.
When did I whine about race? I AM whitey. Now go get me some iced tee, MFer!
Steve: What ro you be hoe’n?
Man, fuck that shit, beeyotch
Steve, the name-caller that should worry you most is named ‘mirror’.
“Steve, the name-caller that should worry you most is named ‘mirror’.”
Wow. Did you think of that witty quip yourself? You should be writing bits for Conan.
As part of my new progressive zero tolerance policy, steve is now gone, too.
Line ’em up, and I’ll knock ’em down. Life’s too short to suffer ungrateful fucks who shit where they live.
Applause.
#454: Indeed.
Ironically, steve fails to recognize that it is precisely the metric(s) he alludes to that some of us are trying to address. Whereas self-righteous white guilters like he are content merely to describe a condition — as if to do so somehow makes them empathetic.
What it does is makes them part of the problem, especially inasmuch as they are less interested in changing the metric than ostentatiously bemoaning it — and by extension, bemoaning themselves. Who aren’t really themselves, but rather those like them who are uncaring. Unlike themselves.
Fuck that. Go pay a woman in a rubber bra to whip you if that’s your fetish. Stop trying to make me pay for your private parties.
That would be a heckuva new entitlement.
Dissent is fine. Discussion is encouraged. Passion is expected. Unprovoked attacks on the host expressed by way of ad hominem will result in whatever the fuck I feel like doing to you that day.
Learn it. Know it. Live it.
Steve: You don’t know me, I don’t know you. That is an colloquialism (sp?) that simply means you cannot speak as to the condition of all persons born white or black, just as I cannot. I can tell you from experience that poverty doesn’t have a skin color. I want to know where you think you fit into this situation, you seem very vocal regarding who can and can not be descriminated againest, who si poor and not. You want to discuss your condition and life have at it. And why do you assume that I am “white”? Please show me some respect and I will return the courtesy.
Get ready for the new progressive rhetoric, folks. That “frank discussion about race” this country is going to have? It won’t be so much a “discussion” as a lecture. Any reply by whitey will be construed as “whiny ass hole”-ishness, and will be waved away as so much inauthentic racial complaining from those who have never suffered.
Because, you know, a name like Goldstein has opened so many doors for me in my life.
Um, isn’t that what you expected?
Hmmm. Something has changed. My keyboard feels all minty.
Now Serr8d needs to do a nice “Trespassers Will Be Violated” sign. Maybe with the ‘dillo as Yosemite Sam?
“A new resolution to the tragedy of the commons.”
Man, this thread has everything! I think it could be made into a movie.
Hell, it should be a mini-series!
Oops, sorry about the reckless use of bolding.
It was supposed to be only “everything”…
#461: Waves naggy finger at Jeff and lectures him on his whiteyness. Also calls him a jive time muthah and tells him he had better like it.
1) My “white privelege” check is WAAAAAAAY overdue – do they use tracking on that delivery?
2) w00-fucking-t, Jeff. You just earned that $5 I sent you that one time… (runs, fast). :)
you have a lot of damn nerve uttering the words “get over it†after you just finished twisting your leopard g-string wearing ass into a knot about someone telling you how to feel about the word “whiteyâ€Â
Damn Lisa, you spunky.
Gotta love the passion!
I am, however, as our host said, troubled by your interpretation.
That you would jump to the stereotype that white people derive pleasure in hurling the forbidden word, and any cry of “foul” over the slur whitey is only calculated justification to indulge in a fly rap, well, it bothers me. Makes me sad for the pain you must have endured from the white people you have personally known.
I wish we discussed more language and literature versus the amazing crypto-pinkness of Michelle Obama’s tongue.
And I clearly blame KK!
#469: Yeah I think that was really erroneous. I really have to back up and apologize on that one.
I actually have not had terrible relations with white people ever. But as an adult I have had some very odd pieces of crankery passed my way quite a bit by rather earnest and many times well-meaning people. I was not raised to be a reactionary, but I still think I become one anyway, sadly. I hate that – it annoys me when I see people spotting racial boogeymen everywhere. Then I do it. Bad knee. Stop jerking like that.
A predictable email from the recently banned steve:
Nevermind the fact that steve seems to think calling someone a “whiny ass hole” for being white and having the gall to talk about race is “forcefully oppos[ing]” them — what I find funny is that someone who’s been posting for, gee, how long now? …can say with a straight face that I can’t “deal with the fact that not everyone agrees with me.” Lord knows how many posts I’ve put up where people haven’t agreed with me that I’ve dealt with by way of protracted back and forth rebuttal.
Simply astounding.
But again, par for the course.
#472: And you are very tolerant of me calling you Prince Twinklepants and Leopard Banana Hammock Boy. Very nice.
Speaking of that frank discussion on race we were gonna have, the United Church of Christ picked a Sunday to have it, and that was the Sunday that our good friend Father Pfleger did his little tap dance at Trinity.
Layers of irony.
Good night, white devils.
Timmy is a tool.
One of those really cheap Chinese Phillips heads that’s stripped all to hell after about two screws, I’d say.
nishi, on the other hand, is one of those super-expensive respirators designed for use with isocyanate paint. Unfortunately, the positive-pressure air supply has been plumbed into the exhaust manifold of the gas-powered compressor by mistake.
Bye, steve! But you know, at least you could type which makes you one of the better trolls around here. Pissing on the host is never a good idea, though.
Back on topic,
I’ll disagree with that. You can be born white in America and be Completely Fucked from the moment you draw your first breath. You can be born black in America with the proverbial silver spoon in your mouth. Or, sugartits.
Anyone can be anything they want to be in America, (unless they happen to be Hillary) and there are plenty of black people who are doing fabulous things and living exceptional lives, mostly because they’ve valued advancing themselves and they’ve taken advantage of the opportunities that America presents. America is not keeping the black man down. Why, look at Tay Zonday! OK, maybe Keith Black would be a better example.
Lisa, spunkyness and grace. Sweet!
I actually have not had terrible relations with white people ever. But as an adult I have had some very odd pieces of crankery passed my way quite a bit by rather earnest and many times well-meaning people.
Yeah, the equivalent kneejerk is from stories posted above, emergency responders being hassled by a mob composed of “the other”, or the hundred other scary variations the tales take.
Kinda cuts down on productive communication.
G’night, Black She-Ra.
steve was a typical passive-aggressive troll – throw a punch and then cry victim when they get socked.
Does anyone remember anything substantive steve ever said? Or was it all just reflexive leftist talking points liberally sprinkled with personal insults?
The e-mail was just a final spitball, essentially the same message with a different tone – barely.
Does anyone remember anything substantive steve ever said?
I think, a few years ago, we were talking about WWII, how it was more analogous to the present situation than Vietnam, and he came damn close to making a point.
Nope, I got noth’in
[…] Jeff Goldstein also had his fee-fees hurt that black people can call him whitey but he can’t call them the n-word. So unfair. […]
I’m not going to call you dastardly names nor preen of my supreme awareness, P-blo, but calls for ending affirmative action actually center around have the question of aggrieved parties having received due justice. At one point in our history affirmative action will benefit mostly, possibly exclusively, non-aggrieved persons and that was never the logic behind affirmative action, namely, to be an infinite institutionalized hand out.
To speak in terms of today without recognizing why there is affirmative action in the first place is to belittle the history of segments of our population who suffered true, indisputable and undeniable racism at the hands of our government and various other institutions of power. Maybe you can think in terms of baseball. How do you repay the Negro League players their rightful due in baseball legend and lore? The truth is you can’t ever fully redress the discrimination against them. There place in history will never truly be where it could have been had they been able to play for the Yankees. Nothing can turn back the hands of time and make it fully right.
Framing questions of ending or extending affirmative action can be done without callous disregard for the what-fores of its existence or the denial of its original thoughtful intentions. You just have to admit there was a major problem with appreciation that at least now one can be fairly comfortable speaking in the past tense.
Certain Blacks, Mulattoes, Africans – whatever your preferred reference – were hindered like no other ethnic group in American history. Don’t insult decency with any one-off exceptions. They got a bad ride. Maybe we should ask them “has America done what little it can do as repayment” and listen to their reply instead of telling them how damn good they have it nowadays. I think we might be surprised at their answers.
You can now shackle my typical Liberal apologetic being and hang me long in the sun for my thoughts, ye spirited winged angels of Lady Liberty’s righteousness.
Aggrieved by whom, thor? What due justice? Michael Vick’s doggies got due justice.
It’s 2008. You can join us if you like.
If you’re going to deny the U.S. government and state and local governments and various other instruments of power didn’t engage in wonton discrimination against blacks then go for the full-Monty and deny segregation and Jim Crowe laws existed as well.
Do yourself right, my man, go big.
Go on thor, tell us how much we gotta pay for reparations…
oh fuck off jill
u still can’t dance.
He should be grateful, Jeff. You saved the stevester from himself.
lookie Jeff
in light of what you told me about the republican party rejecting creationism,
i think this is pretty interesting.
what will Jindal do? Allahpundit thinks he will sign.
Read Gogol and write your own ending.
I wonder if “jill” is one of nishi’s various other personalities.
if he signs, its goin right to the supremes i betcha.
isnt this blog amazing?
on the front page u have ToE deniers like BBH and Bmoes…and at the Pub, Aldo an me are discussing the Red Queen theory of the evolution of sex.
;)
I wonder if “jill†is one of nishi’s various other personalities.
oh, hahahahaha
jill an me, we hate each other.
goes back a long ways.
;)
[…] Jeff Goldstein also had his fee-fees hurt that black people can call him whitey but he can’t call them the n-word. So unfair. […]
on the front page u have ToE deniers like BBH and Bmoes…
When did I ever deny evolution? Are you seriously that dense or do you just not give a shit about the truth at all?
#483
Certain Blacks, Mulattoes, Africans – whatever your preferred reference – were hindered like no other ethnic group in American history.
You fergot Indians..err Native Americans. The white devils and some buffalo soldiers killed us a mess of em.
The above would be all well and good,thor, but you spent your outrage currency here some time ago. So even with that you’re still a dickhead.
Ok, nishi, I get that you hate someone named jill. But why are you talking to her here, when she’s not here?
Or maybe I missed something. It happens.
The pingback from Jill at feministe. Unsurprisingly, Jill reduces my argument here to “Jeff is upset he can’t run around calling people nigger.”
And people wonder why I’ve just about given up.
I responded here.
Oh. Nishi was talking to a pingback. Might as well talk to a traffic signal, I guess.
I think that’s the objective, Jeff: to stifle the opposition.
500!
And one
At the end of the day, it appears that JG’s blog commenting policy, for better or worse has tried to error on the side of encouraging debate. I may have not made the same choices he has w/r/t commenters (although there hasn’t been a clear trend towards either more or less leniency) if I were in his shoes, but as far as I can tell there’s only one really, really big sin – don’t get into that ad hominem business with the host.
In that respect I guess the quality of dialog on the internets and in the blogs sort of resembles a public good problem yielding an intellectual tragedy of the commons debased by lack of fundamental civility. To this, the answer is even less clear than how one tackles the misappropriation of language.
Timmy showed up again — under a new IP and after his third or fourth different banning, all under different names — to chastise me for saying that I get stalked.
He didn’t seem aware of the situational irony.
Anyway, I added the comment to the spam filter.
TAKE THE HINT, TIMMY . I DON’T WANT YOU HERE.
aw, you’re no fun, Jeff.
#485 thor
It’s still 2008. You can still join us if you like.
And to clarify, I’m from New England. My daddy didn’t play those games and his daddy didn’t either, though I understand that yours may well have. In fact, my daddy spent the better part of his life teaching (mostly) black kids to read. Still, there’s no accelerator there in the back seat. If you want to drive, you’re gonna have to climb up front. You can bring the booster seat if it makes you comfy.
…but calls for ending affirmative action actually center around have the question of aggrieved parties having received due justice.
On the left side, maybe. The right tends to focus on is it working, a much easier concept to qualify than justice.
Well, he isn’t very magnety.
So yeah. It looks like an Obama presidency will give us a frank discussion on the issue of race. If by “frank†we mean, “shut up and quit you’re bitching, whitey. We’ll tell you what racism is.â€Â
Thomas Sowell recently wrote words to the effect…”be wary if someone tells you we need to have a conversation about race”
(Excellent advice.I keep repeatin’ and repeatin’ that Sowell sentiment, it is so right on)
Leftist liberals are, generally, mean-spirited, hateful, jealous small minded people who only “pretend” to have compassion for you.
It’s part of the shtick Nietzsche identified long ago (I think it was N) as the phony “religion of human kindness.”
In truth, you should never trust any LL to have your back.
The left can live in the past or completely ignore it as is convenient to them, without batting an eye.
It’s all about the lies, and they don’t even know it.
dr. yes links this as seizing the means of linguistic production.
Ave Goldstein! Mighty Meme-Warrior! Morituri te salutamus!
[…] at The Bellman takes issue with a prior pw post from our host Jeff, the offending portion of which read as follows: …those who constantly […]
I read somewhere that Michelle actually stole and used drugs from a charity she worked with  and was addicted to said drugs. Barack had to quietly intervene behind the scenes to avoid possible prosecution for his wife’s illegal behavior. This, of couse, was an elitist act on his part. It is very likely this is true because it’s utterly believable, and thus is fair game as a campaign issue.
> So yeah. It looks like an Obama presidency will give us a frank discussion on the issue of race. If by “frank†we mean, “shut up and quit you’re bitching, whitey. We’ll tell you what racism is.â€Â
I’m sorry, but attributing a view expressed by a Chicago Tribune article to what the Obama presidency will be is outright bullshit. A typical right-wing tactic. Lump everyone you disagree with together and use guilt by association to make any criticism of any of them apply to all of them.
The original essay makes no point. We are all supposed to be in on the “falsity” of the quoted article from the Chicago Tribune. Some rhetorical mush occurs after the quoted paragraph making no other “point” than “whites suffer”. It then goes on to make its only argument – which is a simple Strawman about an Obama presidency doing some imaginary action with respect to discussing race – and thus not really an argument at all but an example of how 5th graders write “persuasive essays”.
If this is what passes for intellectual thought among wingnuts, Academia is safe from the fruitcakes, although America is still doomed as long as republicans have an ounce of power.
I guess if whitey isn’t a racial slur then either
is tree swinging ape like stinking shit colored nigger!
When I was younger (about 40 years ago) I thought that by the time I got old that race haters would be a thing of the past. After reading all of these blogs I see I was very wrong. Why do you people hate so much? By the looks of your posts I’m sure you are about to tell me and probably inform me about how naive I am. Thanks anyway but I will read your words.
Remember, when you get upset because whitey has called you a nigger, you are actually shooting the messenger. You should actually direct your anger at the nigger, and their misbehavior for causing others to label your race, as niggers.
yeah i will stop calling them niggers when they stop calling my people whitey, white devil, etc. niggers are the biggest hypocrites and bigots i have ever seen.
>If you’re going to deny the U.S. government and state and local governments and various other instruments of power didn’t engage in wonton discrimination against blacks – see history of demonrat party for more<