Black question

[Flumpy]

Re: Black question

Merry Xmas Flumpy. While you may well be right, I would suggest that AT is far from being the only cantankerous old git that inhabits this message board.

Obviously not but he is the only one whose sole purpose is to be one.

[quote="Tuariki"The point I am making, and a point which is well exemplified by jazz cyclist, is that the various descriptors we use to describe various types of people may be acceptable in one part of the world but offensive in other parts of the world. In this particular instance I just happen to think it is an over reaction to ban a person for asking questions about the term "coloured".[/quote]

But he wasn't asking a genuine question. He was being purposefully provocative. He has no interest in getting a proper answer on the subject he just wanted to be controversial. From another poster I have no doubt it would have raised any objection but from him his intention is clear. I guarantee it would have lead to a lengthy rant about political correctness and how injust the officials in UK Masters athletics are. It happens every time.

And for people to equate such questioning as being indicative of him racist is certainly wrong and over-the-top.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that.

I certainly do not find such questions to be offensive. What I find offensive is the over-the-top support of many on this message board for the right to carry and use AK47s and other automatic assault weapons. Since Sandy Hook there have literally been dozens of further instances in the USA of people being murdered with guns.

Agree 100%

Give me a debate with cantankerous AT any day.

Trust me it may seem like fun at first, but after a decade it becomes exhausting.

Merry Christmas to you too Tuariki

[mump boy]

Re: Black question

I didn't realize until 16 years ago, while on a trip to Europe, that the term "n****r" isn't universally a slur.

I don't know what part of europe you were in !! :?

Place: Munich
Time: 1996 during Oktoberfest
People: A Dutchman, a couple of Germans, a couple of Italians, a few Australians, three South Africans (two Black, one White)

Everyone was shocked when I said that word was very offensive in the U.S. and could easily cause a violent reaction if used in the wrong setting. I remember the White South African saying that he could call the two Black South Africans n****r all day with no problems, but if he called them kaffir once they'd kill him, and the Black South Africans nodded their heads in approval of what he said.

I'd definitely take white south africans as arbiters of what language is to be considered racist !!

[jazzcyclist]

Re: Black question

and the Black South Africans nodded their heads in approval of what he said.

I'd definitely take white south africans as arbiters of what language is to be considered racist !!

I guess you didn't bother to read the end of my post.

[mump boy]

Re: Black question

I read it but it doesn't mean that europeans think nigger is an appropriate word to use, it just means there are wilfully dumb people everywhere !!

[jazzcyclist]

Re: Black question

I read it but it doesn't mean that europeans think nigger is an appropriate word to use,

I didn't make any broad statements about Europeans, I only stated that the word n****r isn't the universal slur that you seem think it is, and that I was incredulous until two Black South Africans weighed in. I also mentioned that many if not most Americans wouldn't know that word kaffir was a slur, including most Black Americans.

it just means there are wilfully dumb people everywhere !!

Calling people willfully dumb just because they aren't familiar with all the world's slangs, slurs and local customs is very narrow minded and hypocritical of you, since everyone of us, including you, could potentially make fools out of ourselves if we were put in an unfamiliar environment.

[preston]

Re: Black question

#1

"All right. We'll give some land to the niggers and the chinks, but we don't want the Irish." Olson Johnson – Blazing Saddles

Wow! My faith in this site as great crowd-sourcing venue took a terrible hit in this thread. And, the most disappointing "responses" (very loosely defined) come from posters who I thought should know better (but they are ALWAYS very adept at injecting their politics in most of their posts. Lonewolf, jazzcyclist, take a bow). Oh, well…race is political. Always has been.

A mini primer: Slavery; reconstruction; Jim Crow; Civil rights movement. That should catch many of you up to a level of ignorance just above what's being consistently displayed in this thread by some posters.

The simple version is colored is unacceptable, and so is Negro (both anachronisms, and not NEARLY as offensive as nigger, but it tells the insulted [sometimes overly sensitive insulted, imo] that you don't want to/can't move on – or you're just forgetful as hell – so they won't move on ... and call you on it for not getting the memo. Circular!). Don't fucking question it! Who gives a shit what you learned in the 50's, 60's or earlier when "Blacks" called themselves what "white" people TOLD THEM TO call themselves – or that you’re even from another country/culture (Mr. Treacher?). If someone says it's unacceptable, it's unacceptable! Everything isn't up for debate; it is what it is – and why persist if you've already been told to stop? Others citing that NAACP and UNCF use those now forbidden words is just being silly in search of an unnecessary fight; or a very old ["black?"] person "stuck in their ways" (which might make you a racist despite the standard definitions of the words based upon power, or the lacktherof). The world has moved on; and it's substituting other words, rightly I would say, for those previously wrong-headed incarnations: woman for girl; homosexual/gay/lesbian for faggot/dike; Asian for chink, chinaman, and gook; and yes, "BLACK" or African American for colored/negro/nigger. When I read someone's name and I don't know how to pronounce it, I do my DAMNEDEST to learn how to say it the way they do – even if I can’t speak the language! That's not PC (for people silly enough to put stock in that made up term), that's respect. If a group wants a different recognition than the one born out of racism or that was used to justify slavery/imperialism/colonialism etc – than respect that. Why is that so hard? …Unless you see yourself as superior.

[preston]

Re: Black question

[cont #4]

"Blacks" didn't want to be part of Africa (though with time it has modified) and "Blacks" was also more all-encompassing in a political sense – it grabbed more common people, of disparate backgrounds, to serve in a single constituency – so its acceptance became stronger. "People of Color" is an attempt to co-opt even more people into a super minority/majority (or is that vice-versa) and including all "minorities" that aren't "white"; it includes Asians of all stripes, Caribbean/African/European "minorities" as a way around geographically challenged terms like "African-American". But, politics also had a downside to people who thought they could just co-opt the largest numbers…it forgot about the people who wanted to opt out. So in the last decade or so you’ve seen the bi-racial, multi-racial and others…because as Malcolm Gladwell so eloquently stated in his New Yorker piece Black Like Them http://www.gladwell.com/1996/1996_04_29_a_black.htm , "nobody wants to be the nigger". Bi-racial and multi-racial, (half-caste? Really? Wow!) … many believe, don’t want to be "black" not because multiracial and some of the other terms are more accurate – they are – but because of the stigma attached to being of/from Black, Africa, African-American and all points in between that they are desperate to shake. So now we have the different names and designations (which were always a debate among "academicians") … it's the f***ing Sneeches, Dr. Seuss!

[preston]

Re: Black question

[cont #3]

THAT is the reason why some felt that there HAD to be a connection to Africa, hence the mangled and contrived, but completely acceptable to many … African-American. However, many American and Caribbean "Blacks" had no connection to Africa and felt that it was a stretch – in addition to the fact that American and Caribbean blacks looked down upon Africans and Africa in many respects; "blacks" saw it as they learned it from their white overlords: as primitive and uncivilized – The Dark Continent.

[preston]

Re: Black question

[cont #2]

In the beginning of the movie Deep Cover, Jeff Goldblum’s character (David Jason) asks Laurence Fishburne’s character (Russell Stevens, Jr) the following question: "What's the difference between a black man and a nigger?" Fishburne answers, "the nigger's the one who would even answer that question."

To be honest, I'm tired of Black folks changing what we call ourselves. When I was growing up, my grandmother used the word Colored, and I doubt that the nation's oldest and most prestigious civil right organization would have incorporated this word into its name if was considered a slur at the time. Then we became Negroes, then Black and today African-Americans. Personally, I'm the most comfortable with the word Black, probably because that was the term of choice that was in fashion when I was a kid growing up - "Say it loud, I'm Black and I'm proud". However, I don't get offended when I hear the other terms being used. Even the term Colored doesn't bother me, especially if used by someone over the age of 80; however, if I hear some 20-year-old White guy using this term, I would suspect the he was being intentionally provocative. Some folks seem to be constantly looking for new reasons to be offended.

Please tell me you’re kidding? Speaking of "Black people" as monolithic and iconoclastic is just arrogant. "Black's" aren't going around changing the name(s) to piss off people in Louisiana (who've been known to have their own issues with race…sambo, mulatto, quadroon, etc). There was never a vote taken and it was never up for the consultation of most "blacks". "Black" changed due to "black" academics (and politicians) feeling a need to answer the question "what do we call ourselves" BECAUSE everything else is what "blacks" HAD BEEN called (this had some validity) - and most time not out of love. This is how self-determination happens. You try to define a way forward. The initial recoil to "black", like "colored" was that it was the same thing: a color…and treated as a "taint" and "white" was treated as "pure" (if you were 1/16th "black", you were "black" – even if you were obviously 15/16th "white"!). Plus, "black" had no origin; and it was believed – and still is – that a people without a place of origin could never know who they were (Most "Black" Americans [or "blacks of the Americas"…Brazil, South America, Caribbean] have no clue where in Africa they are from or which tribe/peoples (yet many Europeans can point out the origin of their forebears going back to the 16th century - if not further). But, I guess all is forgiven now that there are DNA tests that can be done with a swab to the mouth :roll: ).

[preston]

Re: Black question

[cont #5]

"Shvartses!: No, no, zayt nisht meshuge! Loz im geyn! Cop a walk, it's alright. Abi gezint! Take off! Hosti gezen in dayne lebn? They darker than us! Woof!" -Indian Chief, Blazing Saddles

And, what does all this Indian stuff have to do with a thread on "black"? Are you trying to trivialize and marginalize people trying to find who they are without input from the Vice-Chancellory (The Man!)? Are you not a Star Trek fan? Don’t like the prime directive? Why are you so hung up on rolling your eyes and calling things politically correct? You do it a LOT! Newsflash, it's about respect, not the vomit inducing, made-up term, politically correct. You also point out that you've never experienced discrimination when it appears, according to Marlow, that the likelihood of you "passing" (a term used by “blacks” for very light skinned "blacks" [or "skind-did" in the south sometimes], usually women, attempting to conceal that they were "black" by Western standards to fit into the larger "white" world) was very high. Not trying to minimize YOUR experience, but your ability to blend in could be a reason why you never met some of the challenges you seem to be dismissing. I'm just guessing…and I concede ahead of time that I could have completely misrepresented what you were trying to say. If I have, it's not my intention; I'm just letting you know how it reads – to me.

There are many regular posters on this forum who have identified themselves as of Negro ancestry. I am not aware there is any discrimination against them or that they have ever been disrespected here because of their race.

Please show where a "black person" on this forum has identified themselves as "of Negro ancestry". Show the use of those exact words. I don't think you can. And, your "aware" test is fraught with danger, because if someone says, "yeah, I love to be called N-word" then everything is alright? That would be "horseshit" - which would NOT be a play on an Indian name by the way. (that would also be a joke. Or is that too insensitive?)

It would be informative to the forum if we could hear from them if their objection is to the word Negro or to the admittedly derogatory "n-word". Do they really favor the ambiguous term African-American?

N-word is always wrong; you don't need confirmation information to decipher that. Yup, even when "black" people use it (and disgustingly try to defend it); and what’s more…"black" people know it’s wrong.

[preston]

Re: Black question

[cont #6]

But, that hasn't stopped the word from being used and "exported" to the Caribbean, Africa and elsewhere in modern pop culture when only 15- 20 years ago "black”" Caribbeans would kill someone who associated them with "American Blacks" much less the universally* derogatory term of n-word. I personally don't know why preference matters to you; some like "black", some like African-American others even like Afro-American (remember that one?). I don't see it any different than Holland or Netherlands (which are distinct…I've been following gh's trivia thread) or people who live in Texas who identify themselves as Texans BEFORE saying they are American. Even if it made a difference, who made you or others who are contorted by their usage the judge?

[preston]

Re: Black question

[cont #7]

Over 20 years ago I had a Jewish friend tell me a story about buying Chinese food. It was in response to a joke which will follow. He said that while at college in his first year that he wanted to eat Chinese food. He had no idea which restaurant had the best Chinese food so he looked in the phone book and found the most Jewish surname he could and dialed. He told the Jewish surnamed people from the phonebook he was new in town and that he wanted to eat great Chinese food and they gave him the name to best place for Chinese food in the city. He said that Jews love Chinese food and they would know. I said, "everybody likes Chinese food". He argued, "not like Jews". I told him that made no sense and he got some of our other Jewish friends to "confirm" that he was right. He said, "it's a Jewish thing…you wouldn't understand" and laughed and I was comfortable with that. Sometimes we have to acknowledge that we’re just different. I didn't get whatever they shared and I was comfortable with that. Jokes, cultural anecdotes, what we call ourselves/each other … they all mean something to one group and nothing to the other (or are dangerous for another group [N-word, holocaust…]; not too different than removing a molecule from an atom and changing salt to poison) and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. In fact, in my opinion, our differences make ALL of us more interesting.

Chinese comedian in NYC: Do you know how old the Jewish Calendar is?
NYC audience: 2000 years old!
Chinese comedian in NYC: Correct, you knew that one. Do you know who the oldest calendar in the world belongs to?
NYC audience: The Chinese!
Chinese comedian: Good, you know that, too! But there's always something that has always bothered me: how did Jews last 2000 years without Chinese food!
NYC audience: erupts in hysterical laughter

My friend was rolling on the floor laughing and I was looking like Rainman trying to figure out Who's on First?. He explained it…or tried to, but aside from the timing and the punchline, I didn't get it.

One last thing: from where I sit, Mr. Treacher deserved to be banned even though Tuariki doesn't find "AT" offensive. On the other hand Tuariki does find talk about the right to carry assault rifles offensive and he's down right righteous about it. About as righteous as he is about prostitution...GOD bless him!

*whatever, jazz…

[gh]

Re: Black question

Thank you, preston, for the most eloquent expression of "please stop me before I post again" imaginable. And in your first effort back from a vacation. Fortunately, we have heard your pleas, and granted them. You shan't be posting again.