[split] PSA: Hate Speech (discussion of video etc)

[pocaracas]

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No, that's not it.
I'd expect some negative feedback to any insult.
It's the especially visceral reaction that you guys have due to that particular word that baffles me.

See?... would that be the same reaction to any of the other available insults? such as "bitch" "whore" "retard" "stupid" "motherfucker" "douche"... etc...?

Of course it depends on the context... clearly, not on the usage of that particular word... but that word does seem to cause an escalation that other insults do not. Why?

Perhaps not, but I'm still curious as to why that particular word is worse than any other insult, to you.

Because, in my non-native speaker point of view, that word is just one more in the huge arsenal of insults in the English language. It's an insult that only works when targeted at a particular group, yes, but such is the nature of many of them, isn't it?
e.g. "son of a bitch" and "wanker" should probably only apply to men. "orange buffoon" applies only to Donald Trump, "four eyes" applies only to people who wear glasses... I don't know what else... I'm not very good at curse words.

I've heard that it carries a history of slavery, abuse and dehumanization... But how do those apply to the generations that never lived those things? How does that apply to those who utter the word and never were slavers, abusers or dehumanizers? Do you think that by using the word they are actually wishing that things would go back to the way they were? Or are they merely using the words as a generic classifier of black people, while understanding that it is insulting to those black people and, in some cases, due to being racists, such insulting character is perceived as good to preserve? If so, then removing the grievous insulting part of the word, by ignoring those who utter it, perhaps society would move quicker in eradicating the use of the word. As it is, from what I see, the visceral reaction to hearing that word is just perpetuating the hatred that these two groups of people have towards each other...
Just to add a difficulty into it, I am fully aware of racism flowing both ways.
Heck, I'm aware of racism in between neighboring African populations, between different skin colors in India and Bangladesh, and between China and Tibet... and so many other struggles between different ethnic groups around the world.
Just as I'd like to see the hatred in America subside, I'd like to see it subside everywhere around the World. America, however, is still perceived as a sort of example to follow, so I think that if you guys can overcome that, other ethnic struggles would follow suit.
Can you Americans talk about it among yourselves without worshiping the word as some holy grail of insults? Or is that impossible and banning the usage of the word is the only way that people can understand?

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As I've said before, N**GER is the quintessential verbal expression the white supremacy and anti-black hostility. That designation has been used a desensitization tool, justification, and a rallying cry to subjugate, murder, debase, dehumanize, and discriminate against people for centuries. The racial hatred behind it very much a driving force in the US to this day and it is still utilized for the very same purposes.

If you think that relegates the word to nothing more than a mundane, everyday insult rather than hate-speech (and that those who don't take kindly to being called N**GER are somehow the real problem and the real racists) there's nothing I can say that will convince you otherwise.

Lol...Baffled you shall remain. 


If you're sincerely looking to "understand" things, my suggestion would be for you to pick up a book.

I can't help you.

Bah... a book...
I don't care that much about that idiot word...
But I care enough to check the wiki

""
In its original English language usage, nigger (then spelled niger) was a word for a dark-skinned individual. The earliest known published use of the term dates from 1574, in a work alluding to "the Nigers of Aethiop, bearing witnes".[2] According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first derogatory usage of the term nigger was recorded two centuries later, in 1775.
[...]
During the fur trade of the early 1800s to the late 1840s in the Western United States, the word was spelled "niggur", and is often recorded in literature of the time. George Fredrick Ruxton used it in his "mountain man" lexicon, without pejorative connotation. "Niggur" was evidently similar to the modern use of "dude" or "guy". [...] It was not used as a term exclusively for blacks among mountain men during this period, as Indians, Mexicans, and Frenchmen and Anglos alike could be a "niggur".[8] "The noun slipped back and forth from derogatory to endearing."[9]
[...]
Nineteenth-century literature features usages of "nigger" without racist connotation. Mark Twain, in the autobiographic book Life on the Mississippi (1883), used the term within quotes, indicating reported speech, but used the term "negro" when writing in his own narrative persona.
""

And then it goes on to show how, in the 20th century, it became less and less accepted.
From this, something tells me that there's some history that's not being told right to the younger generations, and that connotation of each individual use of the word should be taken into consideration, instead of your reported blanket reaction to hearing it as "I think they're an absolute piece of shit".
Sure, on some locations it was probably used as you say it was, but clearly it wasn't everywhere. So the meaning of the word is not just the one you've been taught.
Perhaps you guys can endeavor to make society reduce the word to being just another insult... and, like so many others, not particularly effective at arousing violence.