Merged Paula Deen: Use the N word, get the axe

[Roger Ramjets]

Then why do they use it when talking to each other? Is ending it in an "a" somehow more acceptable than the traditional "er"??

I call baloney.

If the original word is no less acceptable, why change the ending? I call baloney on your baloney.

 

[Noztradamus]

I just wonder which food network competitor will give her a show.

No chance, The n-word story is just a cover. The Network was told that Homeland Security regarded her recipes as an Act of Terrorism.

 

[Piggy]

The 'n-word' only has one meaning, and it is unambiguously racist.

Come down to Atlanta, and you'll find otherwise. Unless you believe that there are a lot of anti-black racists who are black.

 

[Piggy]

I have no way of knowing if you're serious, although your next posts suggests that you are, but at risk of taking the bait, how could he have meant that other than in a "racist way?"

He couldn't. But in his mind, it wasn't racist, because you know, Obama is a ******, right? I mean, it's just a comment on reality.

And I see a lot of that in Paula Deen's attitude.

The most insidious strain of racism is racism that's so ingrained that the people who hold those ideas don't even perceive that they're being bigoted, because to them, their views appear perfectly reasonable.

 

[Piggy]

Everything about that deposition was unflattering to Paula Deen, and the handwringing of those who bemoan why, oh why, WE can't use that word but THEY can, or that WE are subject to racial slurs but THEY aren't is tiresome.

Oh, don't get me wrong, that's not what I'm saying.

After all, almost everyone I hear using the term "white trash" is white.

My point about this, in my opinion, rather silly custom which has cropped up in recent years of referring to "the n-word" is that in doing so we are granting it more power than it previously had.

Just this afternoon, in fact, I was talking with a friend of mine, who's black, and he was telling me about being out with a group of folks -- two of whom are complete idiots -- and one of the idiots starts making "black jokes", as he said.

I looked at him and said, "Dude, this is 2013, who makes 'black jokes'?" and he said, "I know, right?"

My point is that we're treating the word as though it were so powerful that merely speaking or hearing it will cause some sort of damage. If we really wanted to rob it of its power, we would laugh at it.

 

[Piggy]

I don't know why it's OK that white trash is acceptable and the other word isn't. Why is it acceptable that we enslaved a huge swath of people, denied them their language and history, built a nation on their labor, and never made reparations to them?

"We"?

 

[marplots]

(much snipped)
I don't know why it's OK that white trash is acceptable and the other word isn't. Why is it acceptable that we enslaved a huge swath of people, denied them their language and history, built a nation on their labor, and never made reparations to them?

Some of that is acceptable because it's historical fact. One can't go back and rewrite history.

 

[iangoeswest]

He couldn't. But in his mind, it wasn't racist, because you know, Obama is a ******, right? I mean, it's just a comment on reality.

And I see a lot of that in Paula Deen's attitude.

Ah! Got it. Yeah, ok, I hear ya. Indeed, I found the Deen deposition sort of refreshing and hilarious in a can't-look-away sort of way. It was just so matter of fact. Points for honesty, I suppose. Of course, it decimated her brand with one stroke, as it well should have, because it was deeply, deeply out of step.

After all, almost everyone I hear using the term "white trash" is white.

My point about this, in my opinion, rather silly custom which has cropped up in recent years of referring to "the n-word" is that in doing so we are granting it more power than it previously had.

Yeah, I think this jibes with my later point about the phrase "the n-word." I can't really speak to what gives and takes power from the word - it is a singular word in our language, and obviously there are black folks who think its use deprives it of power - a strategy I find dubious, but it isn't really mine to say.

Look, there aren't any oppression Olympics. I don't think it cool to call someone "white trash," and I don't think it cool to call a black person a ******. I am of the opinion that their relative histories lend relevant differences, and that's why - as we sit here in 2013 - the phrase "white trash" doesn't activate the autocensor. I totally take your point as quoted above, but I don't think it "totally irrational" that different racial slurs are graded somewhat differently. I myself am a Jew, which is a funny descriptor because its very use ("a Jew") can be pejorative depending on the tone and circumstance.

Not all words are created equal, and "white trash" simply doesn't equal 'the n-word' other than in the sense that decent folks shouldn't call people names like this. When I hear someone griping about how come "white trash" is OK while 'the n-word' isn't, it sounds to my ears like a cry of reverse discrimination that I just don't buy. Neither of them are OK. They're not OK in different ways, because what it is to be white is different, historically, than what it is to be black, in the "normal" American narrative.

I am not at all certain that your observation about "white trash" was intended to be this sort of gripe, and I apologize if I misread your intent.

"We"?

Touche! On one level, American folks of fairer skin benefit from a privilege that American folks of darker skin do not, and thus it's irrelevant whether your particular ancestors were a part of this system - we all reap the fruits of this system, right now, today.

On another level, every generalization is an overgeneralization at a certain level of remove, as you point out with one word. Fair point!

Some of that is acceptable because it's historical fact. One can't go back and rewrite history.

Well, I don't think either of them are acceptable, and I do not see the logical connection that an uncorrected historical wrong is "acceptable" simply because it is a "fact." I was not suggesting we re-write the history books. I was suggesting that the failure of any systematic compensation or reparation for the unconscionable crime of slavery - a failure that has not in my mind passed its statute of limitations simply because we've sat on it for awhile - is of more significance to any discussion of race in America than why it's OK for black folks to use a word that it isn't OK for me to use.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

The most insidious strain of racism is racism that's so ingrained that the people who hold those ideas don't even perceive that they're being bigoted, because to them, their views appear perfectly reasonable.

You are absolutely right. Unfortunately I live in a community which thinks it has eliminated 'racism', but in reality it has just been swept under the carpet. I'm sure that many racists don't even realize what they are doing - not that they don't know what they are saying, but they don't consider it racist because blacks really are inferior!

My point is that we're treating the word as though it were so powerful that merely speaking or hearing it will cause some sort of damage. If we really wanted to rob it of its power, we would laugh at it.

Perhaps the people in Atlanta are able to 'own' the word by laughing at it. However I don't think that will work here. To some of us it is just too offensive, and the only way we can 'rob it of its power' is to never speak it. Perhaps after the current generation has passed it may loose its bite.

 

[NoahFence]

If the original word is no less acceptable, why change the ending? I call baloney on your baloney.

I didn't change the ending. Blacks did.

 

[marplots]

(Snipped much)

Well, I don't think either of them are acceptable, and I do not see the logical connection that an uncorrected historical wrong is "acceptable" simply because it is a "fact." I was not suggesting we re-write the history books. I was suggesting that the failure of any systematic compensation or reparation for the unconscionable crime of slavery - a failure that has not in my mind passed its statute of limitations simply because we've sat on it for awhile - is of more significance to any discussion of race in America than why it's OK for black folks to use a word that it isn't OK for me to use.

So you don't accept that slavery happened? Isn't that what historical fact means? Something we all accept as true?

It could be that where I am using "accept," you are reading, "approved?"

 

[fuelair]

Hamburger sandwich?

Do you also wear a jacket coat?

No, but: Hamburger sandwich: a sandwich of a type eaten by many persons in the city of Hamburg.

But, actually a fairly common phrase when I was growing up (early-50's) in Tennessee. "You boys want to go get a hamburger sandwich?" (etc., ad. inf.) seemed to be southernish - and I had limited experience (televison, film, print, radio - media) beyond Southern until after 1964. That summer I found real seafood, the worlds's fair, the neatness of the subway (interestingly I helped s couple of locals fing the right train - I had located through an odd source the subway maps and memorized them. Found New Yorkers were no more unfriendly any more than anybody else and genrally had a grand and exploratory time. Even met Toni Lee Shelley - who become temporarily famous earlier in the year - a very nice young lady - autographed a magazine for me (I had found info that the mag would hit the newsstands the day I had a perfect op to hit the theater she was at). It was a good summer!!!!!

 

[Piggy]

You are absolutely right. Unfortunately I live in a community which thinks it has eliminated 'racism', but in reality it has just been swept under the carpet. I'm sure that many racists don't even realize what they are doing - not that they don't know what they are saying, but they don't consider it racist because blacks really are inferior!

Perhaps the people in Atlanta are able to 'own' the word by laughing at it. However I don't think that will work here. To some of us it is just too offensive, and the only way we can 'rob it of its power' is to never speak it. Perhaps after the current generation has passed it may loose its bite.

Living where I do can give you whiplash.

Some places you go, things are so highly integrated -- not just black/white, but gay/straight and everything else -- that racism seems clownish.

Other places, people see that you're white and feel free to make the most ignorant and even violent racist comments you've ever heard.

Still other places, there are black supremacist temples.

A lot of times, I just want to get the hell out of here.

But is there anyplace to go that's better?

 

[Brian-M]

He couldn't. But in his mind, it wasn't racist, because you know, Obama is a ******, right? I mean, it's just a comment on reality.

And I see a lot of that in Paula Deen's attitude.

The most insidious strain of racism is racism that's so ingrained that the people who hold those ideas don't even perceive that they're being bigoted, because to them, their views appear perfectly reasonable.

On the other hand, the only thing that makes the word ****** racist is the fact that people perceive it as racist. If the word is used by someone who is genuinely unaware of its negative connotations, then in that context the use of the word cannot honestly be regarded as being racist.

(Although, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone in the English speaking world unaware of the negative connotations of the word.)

 

[iangoeswest]

So you don't accept that slavery happened? Isn't that what historical fact means? Something we all accept as true?

It could be that where I am using "accept," you are reading, "approved?"

I don't think that's it, I think you are reading out a portion of my point (whose run-on sentences, to be fair, are susceptible to much snipping). I am using "acceptable" in the fairly common sense of "adequate, satisfactory."

In post #59, I wrote

"Why is it acceptable that we enslaved a huge swath of people, denied them their language and history, built a nation on their labor, and never made reparations to them?" (emphasis added)

and went on to reiterate the point in #68. It is the failure to make things right that to my mind is not rendered "acceptable" simply because it is a historic fact. Yes, there were slaves, and I "accept" that in a historical sense. America freed them but did little to undo the wrong that had been wrought, and I do not consider our solution - our general failure to address the wrong done or seek to right it in any meaningful way - satisfactory, that is to say, "acceptable."

Reasonable people can and do disagree as to how to approach this issue in 2013 and it is perhaps the better subject of a separate thread. I do not ordinarily hop up on this particular soapbox - there are in my world (and in most everyone else's, apparently) more pressing priorities. My point in 59 and 68 was that - as regards race - there are much bigger fish to fry than why the autocensor catches some words and not others, and why black folks can use that word and I can't. Those strike me as small issues against the larger pastiche of the racial experience of - and racial issues still plaguing - our nation.

And apologies to Piggy, whom I am not attempting to pile onto; he correctly adjusted and helped to tune my point somewhere between 63 and 66. But teasing out this "acceptance" issue required digging up those bones a bit.

 

[Upchurch]

Should I have?

I was just trying to understand how you and Ice Cube are relevant. If you or Ice Cube have a show on the Food Network and are publicly associated with them and Food Network didn't fire you, then they are hypocritical bastards.

Otherwise, cool story, bro, but you missed the point.

 

[Mumbles]

So...we're going with the idea that the "plantation wedding" with black servants dressed like slaves didn't happen, or are folks just not aware of that?

You could say that the word was a problem for, say, Michael Richards. But this was much more like Dr. Laura, where the word was actually mild, compared to other things she said.

 

[Piggy]

On the other hand, the only thing that makes the word ****** racist is the fact that people perceive it as racist. If the word is used by someone who is genuinely unaware of its negative connotations, then in that context the use of the word cannot honestly be regarded as being racist.

(Although, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone in the English speaking world unaware of the negative connotations of the word.)

I can see where you're coming from.

Now I'm going to suffer the wrath here, because I'm going to say something that I know some other folks will find either offensive or indicative of a profound fault in character on my part.

I don't believe that the terms "white trash" or "******" are always empty slurs.

There are some people who I see around here who I simply cannot deny are best described by those terms.

When I meet people who take their garbage down the road and simply dump it off the hillside, and who neglect and abuse their kids, and who take no care for their own property, and who pour diesel fuel on their land to kill fire ants, and who keep their dogs tied to trees in the summer heat, and who poison their neighbors' animals with antifreeze because they're angry at them, and who don't bother to cover themselves properly in public when they ought to, to me those people are white trash. That's what the word means to me.

And if I expunge that word from my vocabulary, I'll simply need a new one to put in its place. It's not a kind word, but I do not have kind feelings for those folks.

And although I won't go into a description because to do so would be incendiary, there are folks who are black who live somewhat similar lives -- with cultural variations -- to whom I think the word under discussion here applies.

I will give one example from recent memory, tho…. If you see a young man standing in the median of highway 60 in downtown Gainesville, GA, in the summer, and he has on 3 shirts, a hat on backwards, uncut hair, pants falling down around his thighs exposing his boxers, boots with no laces and the tongues hanging out, gold in his teeth, grabbing his crotch, and walking out into traffic rather than use the crosswalk at the light just 20 yards down the road, it's difficult for me to conclude that he has not chosen a lifestyle that is accurately described by that word.

Flame away, y'all.

 

[Piggy]

And apologies to Piggy, whom I am not attempting to pile onto

No worries. No offense taken.

 

[Aepervius]

Perhaps the censor only recognizes single words?

The 'n-word' only has one meaning, and it is unambiguously racist. 'white' and 'trash' are neutral words that may be considered racist when used in certain contexts.

Unless you know what criteria the censor uses, you cannot rationally make that claim.

I hate being labeled by skin color, wealth, class, gender or culture. None of these things should make any difference to how you treat people or think of them, and you shouldn't corrupt words by making racial slurs out of them.

White: free from color.

Trash: something worth little.

'White Trash': pejorative term referring to poor people who aren't 'colored'.

This shows that 'white trash' is an implicit slur against people with dark skin. Why? Because the term 'black trash' is (in the minds of racists) redundant.

That remind me of the story of the auto censor which removed niger the country/river or even people protesting against niggardly as if it was a bad word. Or how to denigrate has actually the exacte same root as wella s other simialrly built word.