Racial Slurs and the like

I'm sure this topic has been discussed previously, and as I am at work and only went through thr first few pages worth of threads I'm making a new topic here. I apologize in advance if this is as dead as Mr. Sinatra.

Here is the situation. Another website I belong to just booted someone permanately from the site for quoting a comedy that used the racial slur which I will call "THE N WORD" The said bootee was obviously being light hearted, as the entire thread was the same way. I replied to the thread with the following:

To which I recieved the following reply (by the equivalent of an executive VP of the site) *removed names for sake of anonymity

Let me give you a breif explanation of this site.
Average Age of User: 33
Youngest User: 18
Oldest User: 61
Ratio Male to Female: 9:1

It's a gaming site. People talk shit to each other.

So my question is this... do you feel its justified to ban someone for life from a site that hundreds of people use for entertainment, simply because he quoted a movie that had "THE N WORD" in it?

I'm more then a littler angry about the whole thing despite my name being "Apathy"

Could you please name this site so i can go get booted ....c'mon it'll be fun to stir the shitpot.........

does it begin in stile and end in project?

Does it begin with AintItCoolNews.com and end with Fascist Hypocrates?

It's worse when they pretend to be cool then ban you without a warning. CoughMoriaritycough.

i think it's rediculous that someone got kicked out for that. people are way too sensitive these days. it's just a word. i must be one of the few that took the old "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me" phrase to heart. that webmaster needs a nice kick in the nuts.

My college alumni message board uses all sorts of racial slurs. It's ok because we're all white and its used ironically



[Edited on Nov 13, 2003 by stockula]

another reason that people get uncomfortable about racial slurs is because racism is still alive and well today. though you may be an enlightened human being, by using racist slurs or making racist jokes, even if part of the humor is that this joke is so blatantly racist that only a complete fuckwit could take it seriously, you are implying that racism isn't a really fucking horrible thing. no really, you are, even though you may not realize it. honestly, it's not very funny stuff. funny as the jokes may seem. yes, they are just words, yes they can be shrugged off, but don't forget that there are people who use those words in all seriousness, and who beat the fuck out of other people because of their skin color or sexual preference.
i fully agree that our age of ultimate political corectness is fucking annoying as all hell. i used to think that racism was so obviously horrible and stupid that no one believes in it anymore, and getting upset about slurs used in jokes isn't that big of a deal. but i'm coming to realize that the casual, joking use of racial slurs is in many ways a lot scarier than being blatantly racist. it frightens me how many people out there can bitch about "those damned mexicans" without realizing that they're racist.

I have a good friend who is black and we've had conversations about this. The problem as we see it is that even though african american's can use the "N word" like it's going out of stile. It's frequent use has not successfully rendered it meaningless. Just try and use it once the same way if you are white.

No matter how fast and loose you like to call things. Some things are better left unsaid. Even on the internet.

I largely have to agree with wigglefree and kasia. It's all well and good to say that people shouldn't be offended by words (sticks and stones, neh), and I'm all for reappropriation rather than censorship. But the fact remains that racism, sexism, anti-semitism, homophobia, and the like are alive and well today, and the use of certain forms of language both plays into perpetuating them (how would you feel coming out if everyone around you tossed around 'fag' as a generic insult?) and taps into a long history of pretty serious violence and discrimination (the "N" word is associated with lynchings and getting crosses burned on your lawn; I have trouble laughing at anti-semitism given that a number of my ancestors were made into soap and lampshades, etc).

That said, you're right that banning someone for *quoting* the speech is overkill. Hey, I live in DC, where a gov't official had to step down over the outcry about his use of the word "niggardly," which doesn't even share an etymolygy, it just happens to sound similar.

Don't tell me............

They quoted "Blazing Saddles?"



Ayayay!!

Ok, I read a bit more on it... he was apparently quoting some obscure "B" movie that I've never seen. The thread was deleted but one of the members has most of it in its entirety as a .jpg The person booted was getting shit because he likes to talk shit. People was saying that they could "own him with their mommas dick" and other such nonsense. He replied to the above quote with something from the movie that most (not all of the members posting on that forum) had seen. I suppose had EVERYONE seen it, it might have been different. The quote itself was "Damn bitch, get off my jock, what you think you are my *N* and shit?"

He did put the line in quotes and ended the post with a

I don't get some moderators I suppose. I moderate the boards for my company and something like that would get someone banned from our site, but our site is not the same type of community. I suppose I was wrong in thinking a gaming site for friends would be looser.

Maybe it isn't. "Quite frankly we've reached a point in history where "racist" has replaced "cannibalistic mass murderer" as the worst thing you can possibly be."

Nigger may be just a word, but it's a word that makes me completely uncomfortable. I don't even like to hear it.

When someone uses the word nigger, I immediately lose all respect for them and discredit anything they might possibly have to say.

And as far as white people wondering why black people can say it but we can't.........we kind of abused that priveledge a ways back.

Fuck it, "words" have power when we give them power. Call me a Kyke all day and I'll call you whatever name has been assigned to whatever group you identify with. Doesn't bother me in the least.

I agree with you, but it goes both ways. I can't tell you how many times black kids called me a cracker in middle school (with teachers standing by, turning a blind eye). It's not the fact that it particularly bothers me, but it doesn't give them any more right to spout off racial slurs because their case of oppression and slavery is more prominent than any other ethnicity in our society.

thing is 'nigger' has gone from being simply a racist word, to something kids just use. you see some white kid in baggies acting all bling bling calling his white mates his 'niggas'...

its meaning changes according to age and geography, there are those who find it utterly offensive, and those who dont even regard it as an insult.

its become of of those words where context is everything - and thats hard to get across on something like a BBS.

I think it's because they don't want to feel like they wasted both their time + money by investing themselves in the forum, as opposed to just their time.

I run the (unofficial) mailing list for a fairly big UK music mag. I didn't found it- the person who did was eventually run off in an exercise in seeing how well Godwin's Law worked. The first thing I did after taking over was making the subscription process moderated- people must be approved by me before they can join the fray. Even though I do nothing more than automatically approve everybody who wants to join, the amount of flamage, criticism, and shit-stirring is at an all-time low, while traffic is still decent. It's something of a mystery to me, other than the possibility that making a slight barrier to joining deflects a lot of the rubber-neckers and people who just want to stir up things.