Sharp: Closing a door [LWN.net]

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 7, 2015 13:21 UTC (Wed) by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
In reply to: Sharp: Closing a door by shmget
Parent article: Sharp: Closing a door

What he's saying, is that it is normal - AND NOT ABUSIVE - for a group of people to use those terms about themselves. So if a group of black people people talk about themselves, then they can use those words freely, but outsiders can't.

Personally, I think a lot of this is the ****** politically correct brigade, objecting on other peoples' behalf when those people couldn't actually give a damn, but too many people seem incapable of obeying the golden rule - "don't be gratuitously offensive". And its corollary - "don't take offense when none was intended". As I said - I couldn't discuss race on Groklaw because too many important people took offense at my only means of expression ... :-(

Cheers,
Wol

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Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 7, 2015 19:46 UTC (Wed) by shmget (guest, #58347) [Link]

"What he's saying, ..."
I know, but that is _not_ what was actually said. What was said is that some people are deemed to be among "equal" when they are in company of other people that share one or more superficial visible criteria, and therefore are _not_ among 'equal' with the rest of the population.

I live in the US, I'm well aware of the knee-jerk irrational reaction to some 'magic' words, and the laughable double standard that come with it. Very typical of the local culture to think that two wrongs make a right....

All that by peoples that advocate -- apparently for others, not them -- ultra-sensitivity to what other _might_ fell about what one write/say.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 9, 2015 10:47 UTC (Fri) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

So, on black people using that word between themselves as "equals", note that are some (influential) people in that community arguing that that is not the case and that they should not do so. The rapper/poet/social-commentator Akala makes a lot of interesting points on this in various interviews. E.g.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlBartyyyfk