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I can't deny, that's uncomfortable to read. Stepping back from my discomfort, and trying to understand the context in which that statement was made, the impres
by korethr 8y ago
I can't deny, that's uncomfortable to read.
Stepping back from my discomfort, and trying to understand the context in which that statement was made, the impression I get is that he's using white-supremacist stereotypes of white_people==good and black_people==bad against white supremacists. If a white supremacist holds a worldview that white people are polite and civil, and black people are the opposite, then it seems to me there is no more just and cutting insult to a white supremacist than to point out to said white supremacist that he is acting not like the paragon of white virtue he imagines himself to be, but like the black stereotypes he denigrates. The video clip linked downthread seems to support this.
IMO, this falls into the same bucket as feminists using the misogynist language of male chauvinists against them, or pointing out to a homophobe he's acting like his negative stereotype of LGBTQ people. That is, more generally, pointing out to a bigot his hypocrisy.
But if use of slurs generally associated with negative stereotypes is verboten, period, regardless of context, that worries me. There is no better way to take down bigots than to call to light the inconsistency of their ideas and hypocrisy of their behavior. And if someone who'd call out bigots can't do that safely, you've taken away a powerful tool for fighting bigotry. Worse, if you do it inconsistently, you've just handed bigots a powerful rhetorical weapon, for now they can point out your own hypocrisy to cut down your anti-bigotry position.
- makomk 8y agoIt sounds like he's also referencing the old and tired racist tactic of arguing that they don't hate black people, just the ones who are "acting like niggers", and turning that argument back on the people who use it. (Also, the use of slurs isn't verboten period. It's still - so far as I can tell - within the bounds of publicly-acceptable discourse for people with the correct political views to refer to black people with the wrong, conservative views as "niggers" and every other slur. Possibly even whilst threatening violence against them.)