4 ms·

Maybe because I'm not American, but it sounds fine to me. Whoever wrote the text is not using those words, just reporting. When there is a murder with a knife

Maybe because I'm not American, but it sounds fine to me. Whoever wrote the text is not using those words, just reporting. When there is a murder with a knife everyone says person A murdered person B with a knife, not "he m'd person B with a k-thing". How come people can cope with describing murder and violence and not slurs?

mercer 9y ago
I suppose the difference is that in the case of words, the weapon is the meaning of the word. A knife, on the other hand, does not 'mean' murder or violence.
Cthulhu_ 9y ago
American puritanism, PC culture, and double standards I guess; I mean why are people fine with violence but not the sight of a nipple on TV? Why is fuck and shit bleeped out - but partially, so you still know what they're saying - but crap etc aren't? It's not to protect the children, they pick up that shit from school anyway. Same with "PG" swear words, I mean, flipping heck it's not like the gosh darn intent is any fudging different. Racial slurs are a different category from "regular" profanity though. I think in this case they wanted to indicate it was two marginalized communities flinging racial slurs to each other?
katastic 9y ago
>Maybe because I'm not American, but it sounds fine to me. Whoever wrote the text is not using those words, just reporting. Yeah, you'd think that. But then you'd be living in a place that uses it's brain instead of replacing it with political correctness. Here, it's literally "wrong" for me to write out a direct quote of a racial slur and I could be fired for it, or chased out of town by protesters. Meanwhile, I can literally call you "one ugly, thieving n-word" (literally saying 'n', 'word') and somehow, under PC guidelines, that's okay, when the context is horrific. [edit] lmao, downvoted in less than 60 seconds. You like downvoting handicapped people? This site is a perfect example. The disable peoples' opinions don't matter. We're to be seen, not heard. Trotted out to make people feel sad and donate. It genuinely makes me smile watching self-righteous white people get offended "for me" and "at me" using my own minority status against me like I'm somehow brainwashed for not believing what some rich white kids think I should think about my ability to succeed in this world. "Oh no, Jim used a racial slur at work. I guess I'll never be a doctor." When did white people become the official spokepeople for every minority group? Damn, I love it when I'm right.
- jlgaddis 9y ago
  > You like downvoting handicapped people? This site is a perfect example. The disable peoples' opinions don't matter. We're to be seen, not heard. I can assure you that any disability you may have has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the downvotes you received. (How the fuck would anyone else even know that you're handicapped? It's not who you are that matters, it's the quality of your comments -- or, in this case, the lack of quality -- that dictates how many Internet points you're awarded.) In addition, I suspect that claiming you were downvoted because of a disability isn't helping your case any either.
  - tripzilch 9y ago
    I'm also a bit confused about the edit bringing disabled people into it. But FWIW I clicked the "vouch" button. I think that is what it's for (correct me if I'm wrong), I don't like seeing perfectly reasonable and constructive comments marked [dead], because no one can reply and often it sticks around for a bit and I've seen people write super constructive comments for months, unaware they've been shadow/hell-banned because of one ill-thought comment they made a while back. Otherwise I think the mod-team is doing a GREAT job (seriously kudos). But this is one of those warts on HN that I think is just sad. People spending effort contributing to the site, for weeks, but almost nobody reading it (except those with showdead enabled, what's the percentage on that btw?). If they're dicks that deserve to be banned, at least let them know. The occasions when its better to not let them know (aka hellbanning) are so extremely rare, only for extremely persistent trolls re-registering on new IPs, it should be done and decided manually by more than one person on the mod-team. Definitely not automatic thing after getting too many downvotes, that should just trigger a manual review.
aninhumer 9y ago
Because a slur is not a description of a slur, it is the slur itself. You can argue about whether it's appropriate to use in different contexts, but pretending it's the same as the word "murder" or "knife" is a false equivocation.
- grkvlt 9y ago
  There's a concept called the 'use-mention distinction' [0] that is very important here. It is fine to mention the word 'nigger' in the context of reporting speech, for example, but not fine to use the word, in which case it becomes a racial slur. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use%E2%80%93mention_distinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use%E2%80%93mention_distinctio...
woolvalley 9y ago
If your not living in the USA, there isn't nearly as much of an emotional charge around such words, so it seems like not that big of a deal. About the level of saying 'fuck'. It's even in rap music all the time! Even up north in Canada people are not as sensitive about those words. Then when you move to the USA, you start to see how much of an emotional reaction it gets there, especially in a place like the bay area. Thats why they used n-word. If they didn't you would get even more outrage machine generation. If elon musk put the word fuck every second sentence, not nearly as many people would care.

mercer 9y ago

I suppose the difference is that in the case of words, the weapon is the meaning of the word. A knife, on the other hand, does not 'mean' murder or violence.

Cthulhu_ 9y ago

American puritanism, PC culture, and double standards I guess; I mean why are people fine with violence but not the sight of a nipple on TV? Why is fuck and shit bleeped out - but partially, so you still know what they're saying - but crap etc aren't? It's not to protect the children, they pick up that shit from school anyway. Same with "PG" swear words, I mean, flipping heck it's not like the gosh darn intent is any fudging different. Racial slurs are a different category from "regular" profanity though. I think in this case they wanted to indicate it was two marginalized communities flinging racial slurs to each other?

katastic 9y ago

>Maybe because I'm not American, but it sounds fine to me. Whoever wrote the text is not using those words, just reporting. Yeah, you'd think that. But then you'd be living in a place that uses it's brain instead of replacing it with political correctness. Here, it's literally "wrong" for me to write out a direct quote of a racial slur and I could be fired for it, or chased out of town by protesters. Meanwhile, I can literally call you "one ugly, thieving n-word" (literally saying 'n', 'word') and somehow, under PC guidelines, that's okay, when the context is horrific. [edit] lmao, downvoted in less than 60 seconds. You like downvoting handicapped people? This site is a perfect example. The disable peoples' opinions don't matter. We're to be seen, not heard. Trotted out to make people feel sad and donate. It genuinely makes me smile watching self-righteous white people get offended "for me" and "at me" using my own minority status against me like I'm somehow brainwashed for not believing what some rich white kids think I should think about my ability to succeed in this world. "Oh no, Jim used a racial slur at work. I guess I'll never be a doctor." When did white people become the official spokepeople for every minority group? Damn, I love it when I'm right.

jlgaddis 9y ago
> You like downvoting handicapped people? This site is a perfect example. The disable peoples' opinions don't matter. We're to be seen, not heard. I can assure you that any disability you may have has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the downvotes you received. (How the fuck would anyone else even know that you're handicapped? It's not who you are that matters, it's the quality of your comments -- or, in this case, the lack of quality -- that dictates how many Internet points you're awarded.) In addition, I suspect that claiming you were downvoted because of a disability isn't helping your case any either.
- tripzilch 9y ago
  I'm also a bit confused about the edit bringing disabled people into it. But FWIW I clicked the "vouch" button. I think that is what it's for (correct me if I'm wrong), I don't like seeing perfectly reasonable and constructive comments marked [dead], because no one can reply and often it sticks around for a bit and I've seen people write super constructive comments for months, unaware they've been shadow/hell-banned because of one ill-thought comment they made a while back. Otherwise I think the mod-team is doing a GREAT job (seriously kudos). But this is one of those warts on HN that I think is just sad. People spending effort contributing to the site, for weeks, but almost nobody reading it (except those with showdead enabled, what's the percentage on that btw?). If they're dicks that deserve to be banned, at least let them know. The occasions when its better to not let them know (aka hellbanning) are so extremely rare, only for extremely persistent trolls re-registering on new IPs, it should be done and decided manually by more than one person on the mod-team. Definitely not automatic thing after getting too many downvotes, that should just trigger a manual review.

aninhumer 9y ago

Because a slur is not a description of a slur, it is the slur itself. You can argue about whether it's appropriate to use in different contexts, but pretending it's the same as the word "murder" or "knife" is a false equivocation.

grkvlt 9y ago
There's a concept called the 'use-mention distinction' [0] that is very important here. It is fine to mention the word 'nigger' in the context of reporting speech, for example, but not fine to use the word, in which case it becomes a racial slur. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use%E2%80%93mention_distinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use%E2%80%93mention_distinctio...

woolvalley 9y ago

If your not living in the USA, there isn't nearly as much of an emotional charge around such words, so it seems like not that big of a deal. About the level of saying 'fuck'. It's even in rap music all the time! Even up north in Canada people are not as sensitive about those words. Then when you move to the USA, you start to see how much of an emotional reaction it gets there, especially in a place like the bay area. Thats why they used n-word. If they didn't you would get even more outrage machine generation. If elon musk put the word fuck every second sentence, not nearly as many people would care.