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I hope you appreciate that the expression "Nigger merely comes from the latin word for black" is as factually true as the expression "Cocksucker merely describe

I hope you appreciate that the expression "Nigger merely comes from the latin word for black" is as factually true as the expression "Cocksucker merely describes a person as one who performs an act many people find mutually pleasant."

deleted 16y ago
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vixen99 16y ago
Interesting point! Yes I do but you are not comparing like with like. It is generally unacceptable to make comments (accurate or otherwise) about other people's private sexual acts. Let's imagine we are at a local community meeting. Black is (currently) a polite word I can use for a dark-skinned person - should skin color actually be significant in a discussion. What would you suggest is the polite word to use during the meeting, in describing someone who enjoys oral sex? My point about censorshop is that I don't think we should pander to the kind of person who thinks that uttering a word describing someone's skin color does indeed make some kind of substantive and abusive point - except to people of his own level. You may be right in that the word nigger will never lose its abusive power for some people. There are other unanswered points to make but I'd better leave it there. Seems to me that censorship intensifies the power of the n word for these kind of people.
Jun8 16y ago
Yet somehow we don't have editors replacing the word "cocksucker" with, say, "sexual performer". Non-US readers may not fully appreciate the stigma associated with the word "nigger". It has complex usage rules, incomparable to other racially derogatory words such as "goon" or "chink" (I don't think that anyone really uses "injun" anymore). I think Mark Bauerlein's comment is sport on, to a student in his class who got offended by the word he said: "Listen, you’re in college now, and that’s going to put pressure on you. In many courses you’ll have to face some awful facts of history, and to handle them well you can’t let them offend you so much."

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

vixen99 16y ago

Interesting point! Yes I do but you are not comparing like with like. It is generally unacceptable to make comments (accurate or otherwise) about other people's private sexual acts. Let's imagine we are at a local community meeting. Black is (currently) a polite word I can use for a dark-skinned person - should skin color actually be significant in a discussion. What would you suggest is the polite word to use during the meeting, in describing someone who enjoys oral sex? My point about censorshop is that I don't think we should pander to the kind of person who thinks that uttering a word describing someone's skin color does indeed make some kind of substantive and abusive point - except to people of his own level. You may be right in that the word nigger will never lose its abusive power for some people. There are other unanswered points to make but I'd better leave it there. Seems to me that censorship intensifies the power of the n word for these kind of people.

Jun8 16y ago

Yet somehow we don't have editors replacing the word "cocksucker" with, say, "sexual performer". Non-US readers may not fully appreciate the stigma associated with the word "nigger". It has complex usage rules, incomparable to other racially derogatory words such as "goon" or "chink" (I don't think that anyone really uses "injun" anymore). I think Mark Bauerlein's comment is sport on, to a student in his class who got offended by the word he said: "Listen, you’re in college now, and that’s going to put pressure on you. In many courses you’ll have to face some awful facts of history, and to handle them well you can’t let them offend you so much."