Diversity Vs. Multiculturalism

[The Wrath]

I made no assumptions about the actual practices of police officers. I just disagree with what Felipe seems to be supporting. Using statistics to assume that BMW is stolen, just because it is being driven by a black man, is the same as trying to increase cultural diversity through race, as explained above.

[HaloNoble6]

I say: when there's reasonable suspicion, pull the guy over. The only people that would get offended by such a thing are collectivist-idiots who would feel like the cops insulted their race/culture.

[The Wrath]

But what is "reasonable" suspicion? If a car has been reported stolen by a black man, then it makes sense. But seeing a black man driving a BMW, in a neighborhood where most blacks are poor, does not constitute reasonable suspicion.

Why is it idiotic to think it's wrong? I've made it clear that I think it is wrong based on the fact that you are applying the attributes of a collective to an individual. I couldn't care less is the race/culture is insulted.

[HaloNoble6]

Why are you so against pulling over a black man driving a BMW in a neighborhood where most blacks are poor? Why does it bother you so much, yet I, who's a 'minority member', am unphased by it? (Perhaps, moose, it is the fox news channel influence rearing its ugly head yet again.)

What the cops are doing, in this situation, is using the fact that it is highly unlikely for a niger to be driving a BMW in this neighborhood, thus it's best to check it out. What's the problem here?

[The Wrath]

I don't care for the accusation that I've been brainwashed by FNC. I disagree with quite a bit that I see on the opinion shows of Fox News, from both conservatives and liberals. There's also no reason to use a racially derrogatory term.

It is also unlikely that an American black man is qualified to attend Harvard. Do we now check the transcripts of every black student at Harvard to make sure they haven't been falsified?

[HaloNoble6]

As I said, there is a huge difference between using statistics in situations of merit and where lives aren't at risk as compared to using it for police work. In police work, where inaction and hesitation could make all the difference, pulling over a black man to check out his credentials is nothing.

Racially derogatory term? Again, you are operating on the premise of "one's race will be insulted and thus one will be insulted." Call me a spic, moose, I don't give a damn (in fact, I'll find it funny). And anyway, the term "niger" originally wasn't derogatory (look it up, it just means black man--could the pollitically correctness of one Bill O'Reilly be playing a hand here?).

[The Wrath]

Point ceded. Something about it still strikes me the wrong way. If you're racially profiling Middle Eastern people at airports, that's one thing. There's nothing wrong with that because, as you said, lives are at risk. But I don't think that and the BMW situation are really comparable, in terms of potential danger.

[HaloNoble6]

Perhaps they aren't comparable in degree, but they are in principle.

[The Wrath]

And anyway, the term "niger" originally wasn't derogatory (look it up, it just means black man--could the pollitically correctness of one Bill O'Reilly be playing a hand here?).

As I said, I don't care for the accusation that I've been brainwashed by anything on FNC. I'd like to think I'm a little more intelligent than that.

The term "niggar" (Niger is an African country) does not, in my mind, refer to a race. It refers to an attitude that is common among many blacks. By calling a black man "niggar" without proper cause to believe he holds this attitude, you are taking characteristics that are common to a group and applying them to the individual, simply because he is a part of that gruop.

[HaloNoble6]

I was using "niger" as it is properly defined: black man. Speaking of which, I'm curious, do we have any black or other hispanic forum members (or non-white, for that matter), or are you all barbaric white exploiters of us helpless minorities?

[The Wrath]

The term actually originated during the beginning of the slave trade, if I'm not mistaken. Slaves on trade ships were referred to as negar 1, negar 2, or negar 3, etc. Yes, it was just another word for "black man," but it was derrogatory in the sense that it denied them individuality.

[HaloNoble6]

Whatever moose, I think you're just grasping in the dark for anything that will justify your belief that the term niger, properly defined, is derogatory. Would you get insulted if some guy who didn't know you called out to you by saying "white boy," if at some point in history the term was used to refer to white slaves, attempting to "deny" their individuality? If so, why?

[The Wrath]

That would depend on what the term "white boy" meant, in my mind. You and I have different conceptions of what is meant by the word "niger" or "niggar." The way I, and most people I know, use the word, it is derrogatory. If you use a different definition, so be it. I was just justifying my reaction.

[softwareNerd]

... racially profiling Middle Eastern people at airports, that's one thing.  There's nothing wrong with that because, as you said, lives are at risk. 

In this transcript of a senate hearing, the person testifying says:

...the overwhelming number of people that one need to worry about are young Arab males, and to ask them a couple of extra questions seems to me to be common sense, yet if an airline does that in numbers that are more than proportionate to their number in a particular line, then they get fined and that is why you see so many blue-haired old ladies and people that are clearly not of Middle Eastern extraction being hauled out in such numbers because otherwise they get fined.

If this is true, and airlines are being fined for this, that's really pathetic.

Contrast that with this comment reported by the Evening Standard, in London:

British Transport Police Chief Constable Ian Johnston said that his officers would not "waste time searching old white ladies".

[HaloNoble6]

That's awesome.

[jrs]

I actually am a spic ...

...  it is highly unlikely for a niger to be driving a BMW in this neighborhood, ...

Felipe, you started the use of these offensive terms, "spic" and "nigger" (which you and Moose have been misspelling), in this thread.

This is irresponsible and inconsistent with your position as an Administrator.

The fact that you are yourself one of the people to whom "spic" might likely be applied does not excuse your use of it. It is still "Offensive" according to my dictionary. And "nigger" is both "Offensive and Disparaging". Indeed, some eminent people have claimed that it is the most offensive word in the English language.

[HaloNoble6]

Huh, why isn't that term as it applies to "my race" offensive to me? I was trying to make a point by using the term, perhaps it was lost in translation. But anyway, why am not offended by being called spic?

Wait now I remember, I think the point was that the use of the term may be offensive based on context. My friends call me spic because many of them are from the northeast and have never known any 'latino' like me, so they try to pull my chain. I find it hilarious. Same with the word nigger--which, back in the days of the deep south, wasn't used to express something foul--and black friends of mine with self-esteem. What I'm against is acontextual formulations that "words" are offensive.

The ideas a word or passage expresses are what can be made to be offensive, not the word itself. I was also trying to make the point that those racial terms, when people try to use them in a way to insult others, manage to offend only people with collectivist tendencies. For example, I don't have any "pride" in being "hispanic," so when people pass a judgement on me that is based on some race-specific generalization, I could care less, because I'm Felipe, not some latino. A politician can call me a spic to my face all he wants, it won't offend me, I'll simply consider him moronic and act accordingly.

Basically, what I'm saying is judge what people say based on context, not based on some arbitrary standard whereby someone somewhere decided to label certain "keywords" offensive. What is a person saying with such words? Why is he saying it? Etc. Judge based on the facts, not on some floating abstraction of "offensive words."

There are many issues involved here, one is the arbitrary ascertion that "some words are offensive, in and of themselves," and the other is being offended when you are insulted by having your race insulted. I reject both: I judge based on context and I am never insulted if someone insults my "race."

[Free Thinker]

I am a black man. Whenever I hear the word nigger, regardless of the context it is used, I feel uncomfortable. Why? Not because I am offended by the original definition, but because all I hear when someone says "nigger" is the connotation: white racism.

I had started a thread previously on the Definitions and Connotations and I didn't receive a proper answer to it. What affect (or is it effect?) does a word's connotation have on its definition? I realize that a word (in it's proper usage) is describing a facet of reality (and will/can never fundamentally change). What then, does a connotation do to a word? Why am I not able to separate the two in the word "nigger"?

[Hal]

I was using "niger" as it is properly defined: black man.  Speaking of which, I'm curious, do we have any black or other hispanic forum members (or non-white, for that matter), or are you all barbaric white exploiters of us helpless minorities?

I'm not sure what you mean by'properly defined', but why do you think that you can erase all the connotations of a word from its meaning? The word 'cunt', 'properly defined', refers to a women's vagina, but does this mean that it is suitable to use in polite conversation?

Edited August 2, 2005 by Hal

[HaloNoble6]

I understand what you're saying, just like all the connotations of "selfishness" can't be simply erased, thus the pharse "rational selfishness" is used. Amongst people who understand the word, however, selfishness is enough.

Perhaps I'm the only one that thinks the term refers only to "black man" if properly defined. If that's the case, so be it.

Note also that I'm not advocating common usage of these terms, as you suggest I am, I only used them to make a certain point.

[HaloNoble6]

... all I hear when someone says "nigger" is the connotation: white racism.

And why does white racism make you feel uncomfortable? Why wouldn't you just judge such people accordingly and move on?

Perhaps it is the fact that I grew up with racism all around me. Up until the age of 11, I grew up in a predominantly black neighborhood, one in which the kids at school would talk about white people being bad. Heck, they had this thing called "white day" at school when they'd beat up any kid that had pale skin (no kidding, that's how populous blacks were relative to non-blacks).

After that, I lived the rest of my childhood in a heavily Cuban town, and the Cubans there looked down upon all other hispanics from other countries, thinking themselves "the best" because of their nationality.

Equally as horrible, though, was the incessant droning about multiculturalism at my school in undergrad. "Reverse racism." Perhaps these experiences are what make me suspicious of people who I might precieve as overreacting in discussions about race and "racial language"; on the one hand I think minorities tend to "stick together" and take pride in their race and hence feel offense at such language, while on the other I think multiculturalists give minorities a moral sanction for doing so and thus get alarmed when such a view is questioned.

Edited November 28, 2005 by Free Thinker

[Free Thinker]

And why does white racism make you feel uncomfortable?  Why wouldn't you just judge such people accordingly and move on?

I'm not sure. I haven't hit much of it, and not any that has stopped me from what I wanted to do, but I think it has to do with the fact that white racism is so primitive, so low an idea. I don't understand how people, both the multiculturalists (whom I think are worse - they hide under the guise of fighting racism) and the white racists still suscribe to such a backward mentality; an idea better suited to the 1600's medieval Europe, not now and here.

[HaloNoble6]

Racism, whether white racism or otherwise, is a very disgusting, mindless trait, but it's actually just another flavor of collectivism, though a more explicit one at that. You should feel revulsion for those who express such ideas, if that's what you mean by discomfort.

[HaloNoble6]

Let me just state again in case I wasn't clear above. I cede the point that connotations can't magically drop in word usage. I reason that my desensitivity to "racial terms" stems from my childhood and personal experience with those terms. I never meant to use them in a derogatory fashion.

[Hal]

Let me just state again in case I wasn't clear above.  I cede the point that connotations can't magically drop in word usage.  I reason that my desensitivity to "racial terms" stems from my childhood and personal experience with those terms.  I never meant to use them in a derogatory fashion.

In all honesty, I agree with you. I think this taboo we have about treating certain words as almost having occult power is absurd, and the reaction some people have to 'swear' words and racist terms out of context is highly irrational. The FCC bans on certain words appearing on broadcast stations is bordering on cultural voodoo.

But at the same time, when you are engaging in conversation with someone, your choice of words will betray your attitudes, and he will have the right to judge you based on this. Theres nothing magical about the word 'nigger', but addressing a black person in that way is likely to cause him to (justifiably) judge you as a racist. There's no other obvious reason why you would choose to use that word over something less loaded like 'black'.