4 ms·

45 short years ago, use of the n-word was typically followed up by turning a firehose or a pack of dogs on people who just wanted to be treated like human being

by jbooth 16y ago

45 short years ago, use of the n-word was typically followed up by turning a firehose or a pack of dogs on people who just wanted to be treated like human beings -- this was happening, in modern America, while your parents were in grade school or high school (presumably). You might not have been aware of that, given that you seem to think that everyone should just get over it and not be offended by things that don't offend you.

rbanffy 16y ago
The question is not what happened, but what can we do so it never happens again. By the time the events you mention happened, my family was still coping with having to leave its ancestral home after WWII and having to move to Brazil as refugees. We can hold grudges for many generations if we want, or we can learn from the past and move on.
- kenjackson 16y ago
  I think one of the main lesson we learn is that the past influences today. And asking children to read books from the past, without giving them the tools and context to understand it, is asking for trouble. US high schools are a playground of intolerance. At least where I went to high school, having the class read a book that made use of "nigger" would have certainly meant that the Black kids in class would be called nigger after class -- of course when the students were confronted they might say something like, "I was just trying to memorize some key lines from the book". I'm not against reading books from the past, but I think the teachers need to be prepared to teach it. In this case it appears that the teachers weren't.
  - rbanffy 16y ago
    It seems to me the teachers were neither prepared to teach the book nor to defend the book in front of the parents. Making a second mistake - taking an important book (after all, we seem to have avoided 1984 just to fall into BNW) off the curriculum - does not correct the first one (not preparing teachers to... teach). Like I said elsewhere, this whole mess is depressing. Sometimes I wonder if our species will be able to find a way out of this or if I will just wish the cockroaches better luck...
- jbooth 16y ago
  I'm just saying don't be a jerk about it -- it's one thing to say yes, we should teach Huck Finn, another to demean the idea of being offended by the word.
  - rbanffy 16y ago
    We can only move forward when words like "nigger", "savage", "nazi", "polack", "redneck", "commie" or "yank" provoke no reaction. We don't have to like or approve the past (and certainly not be proud of most of it), but we must limit ourselves to learn from it and not seek retribution for crimes rooted generations ago. If we don't, we will perpetuate cycles of injustice across generations and invite the worst of our past into our children's future. We must constantly draw lines and learn from our mistakes, even the ones made centuries ago. We must also be careful on how we preserve our culture and our ways of life. The NA/AD culture shock that's in the root of this present discussion shows us how little progress our species made in deciding where to place the assimilation/integration divide. We try hard to be multi-cultural but, in the end of the day, we are much closer to naked apes than we may be comfortable thinking. Most of the battles we must fight were bred into our brains and we must fight them within ourselves.
    - jbooth 16y ago
      In America, the n-word is worse than all of the other words on your list, and you still don't seem to understand why. One generation ago, or the present for that matter is not some distant "generations ago". So go ahead with your one-man culture shock, the rest of us will just think you're a jerk.
      - rbanffy 16y ago
        I do understand why the "n-word" brings up the worst in us. That's why we must fight, not the word, but the worst in us. Please, don't think I am a jerk. Our differences, be them skin color, language or cuisine are not as important as we make them. If we face those differences, I trust we can solve them. If we had done that a couple generations ago, we could have prevented a whole lot of suffering.

by jbooth 16y ago

rbanffy 16y ago

The question is not what happened, but what can we do so it never happens again. By the time the events you mention happened, my family was still coping with having to leave its ancestral home after WWII and having to move to Brazil as refugees. We can hold grudges for many generations if we want, or we can learn from the past and move on.

kenjackson 16y ago
I think one of the main lesson we learn is that the past influences today. And asking children to read books from the past, without giving them the tools and context to understand it, is asking for trouble. US high schools are a playground of intolerance. At least where I went to high school, having the class read a book that made use of "nigger" would have certainly meant that the Black kids in class would be called nigger after class -- of course when the students were confronted they might say something like, "I was just trying to memorize some key lines from the book". I'm not against reading books from the past, but I think the teachers need to be prepared to teach it. In this case it appears that the teachers weren't.
- rbanffy 16y ago
  It seems to me the teachers were neither prepared to teach the book nor to defend the book in front of the parents. Making a second mistake - taking an important book (after all, we seem to have avoided 1984 just to fall into BNW) off the curriculum - does not correct the first one (not preparing teachers to... teach). Like I said elsewhere, this whole mess is depressing. Sometimes I wonder if our species will be able to find a way out of this or if I will just wish the cockroaches better luck...
jbooth 16y ago
I'm just saying don't be a jerk about it -- it's one thing to say yes, we should teach Huck Finn, another to demean the idea of being offended by the word.
- rbanffy 16y ago
  We can only move forward when words like "nigger", "savage", "nazi", "polack", "redneck", "commie" or "yank" provoke no reaction. We don't have to like or approve the past (and certainly not be proud of most of it), but we must limit ourselves to learn from it and not seek retribution for crimes rooted generations ago. If we don't, we will perpetuate cycles of injustice across generations and invite the worst of our past into our children's future. We must constantly draw lines and learn from our mistakes, even the ones made centuries ago. We must also be careful on how we preserve our culture and our ways of life. The NA/AD culture shock that's in the root of this present discussion shows us how little progress our species made in deciding where to place the assimilation/integration divide. We try hard to be multi-cultural but, in the end of the day, we are much closer to naked apes than we may be comfortable thinking. Most of the battles we must fight were bred into our brains and we must fight them within ourselves.
  - jbooth 16y ago
    In America, the n-word is worse than all of the other words on your list, and you still don't seem to understand why. One generation ago, or the present for that matter is not some distant "generations ago". So go ahead with your one-man culture shock, the rest of us will just think you're a jerk.
    - rbanffy 16y ago
      I do understand why the "n-word" brings up the worst in us. That's why we must fight, not the word, but the worst in us. Please, don't think I am a jerk. Our differences, be them skin color, language or cuisine are not as important as we make them. If we face those differences, I trust we can solve them. If we had done that a couple generations ago, we could have prevented a whole lot of suffering.