What? Inviting Obama for watermelon and fried chicken isn't racist, everybody eats those. You are making the association to his race.
How was I the one making association to race ? If I had seen the comment about Cain being a pimp I honestly wouldn't have even thought about the fact he was black plus pimp. I personally am thoroughly use to the word being a slang word without the racial slur connotation to it that others seem to have, for whatever the reason. I'm not that young (34), but I am used to being the minority ...
Yes I have never seen or heard of a white pimp. In the documentary American Pimp (which admittedly was probably biased) there is a discussion of this very fact.
Are you saying it is racist to think that most if not nearly all pimps are black? I really think that's just the reality. Which is why I thought what he had said was racist.
By the way I am aware he said "pimp hats" (ostensibly meaning headware) but I think he chose the word pimp specifically to single out Cain as a black man.
I would say it's racist to claim that most if not nearly all pimps are black ... but to be fair it's because of my use of the word "pimp". I'm a good example of a person who doesn't associate it strictly with the prostitute/"profession" aspect. I would call any adept playa of the game a pimp, a G, and any sufficiently tight bling that's sick and legit is pimpin and gets my props. No need to bring skanks and hos into it at all
So to be fair, context is everything there, because the use of the word has changed and is no longer strict per se.
To that end ... within the "real pimp" industry, whatever the statistically dominant race is for pimps, I honestly don't even care.
Are you familiar with the concept of privilage? Because right now I'm seeing a lot of "privilage blindness" here. A lot of the usual justifications for why one shouldn't have to change one's speech or perception.
Unfortunately, I am nowhere near as good at explaining these things as the folks who beat the concept into me are.
Hmm ... I had to google it to see what you're specifically saying.
In some ways, I might be an example of someone who is "privileged blind", but not naive of the connotations and associations of such words. There are plenty of things I say around some people and not others, but it's typically reverse from what a lot of others might be used to because I'm often a minority within a group, so I use speech that others might view as derogatory or racist even, but I mean nothing by it because it's "common" in the circles I run with. So whilst I'm not "blind" to the idea that some words and phrases shouldn't be used around some people, I also might be "privileged" to the fact that I'm continually surrounded in environments where words have different meanings and are okay for me to use and no one views me as offensive because I use them. In fact the opposite is true. And again ... it's not because I'm "blissfully ignorant" of how those typically associated with such words and slurs would view it ... because those are the very people I'm surrounded by, friends with, work with, etc. I usually watch my mouth around my own "race" when I don't know them because they do take the most offense interestingly enough, or they might use the terms in derogatory manners which I don't encourage or usually tolerate.
