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[penguinofhonor]

Oh, @ penguinofhonor, I was meaning ridiculous for someone to make it into a slur, sorry if my aggressive speaking style came across wrong in text, yes, I understand language and slurs quite well, thank you.

Oh, okay. I thought you meant that the treatment of slurs was completely ridiculous. I get what you mean now. Still, dumb words get used as slurs all the time. See: gay.

You can be offensive whilst never saying words that for some reason or another, irrationally offend people.
And you can be considered offensive for saying a word that irrationally offends people, with absolute disregard to context.

Odds of whiteness? Social justice 8-ball says "Almost definitely."

If there's active discrimination against any group that poses any danger, physical, emotional or whatever, that is a problem. That problem should be rectified. Simply making words illegal is not going to help anything. I'd even wager it would actually make things worse.

So... where's the line that emotional danger/damage doesn't count anymore? Because apparently emotional danger doesn't count anymore if it's from a word. Which kinds are legitimate and which kinds aren't?

[Leafsnail]

@LoudWhispers: Noone wants to make the word illegal though.  The group's stated aim is to

eradicate the dehumanizing slur "illegals" from everyday use and public discourse.

IE to get people to realise the problem with the word and stop using it.  In realising the problem with the word you also realise the problem with the attitude that regards immigrants as people who just have to be kicked out rather than people who may already be integrated into society or could become valuable members.  "Unauthorized immigrant" seems to actually be a technically better description in fact.

[Loud Whispers]

Odds of whiteness? Social justice 8-ball says "Almost definitely."

Couldn't be even farther off. Though I don't see how my race would be important in this, or affect anything I say...?

So... where's the line that emotional danger/damage doesn't count anymore? Because apparently emotional danger doesn't count anymore if it's from a word. Which kinds are legitimate and which kinds aren't?

Any danger or any damage counts. Is this one word causing harm?

Is it?

Is the announcement of it literally causing them emotional distress?

Get one person to say whatever one word, in a neutrally ambiguous way. One word, by itself.
Get another person, who says something, anything, expressing the intent to cause emotional distress to another. Wording? Unimportant. Intent? The clear issue. Sidestepping it by just going on and saying "well, it's used commonly by y people to attack x people, therefore, that word is the problem," isn't going to change the fact that the word has nothing to do with it. It's a word. The words aren't hurting anyone, it's the people.
That's where the line is - when people start hurting each other.

@LoudWhispers: Noone wants to make the word illegal though.  The group's stated aim is to

(In all seriousness, I was talking about ALL the tabooey words that have actually been made illegal, or you know, extremely tabooey. Slight brain derp on my part)

[Leafsnail]

So you were talking about something completely irrelevant to the matter at hand?

In any case, it's not so much that the word is the problem.  It's more like the word is the symbol of the problem and also a way to avoid thinking about it as a problem.  Challenge the word and you simultaneously challenge the problem inside peoples' minds.

[Loud Whispers]

So you were talking about something completely irrelevant to the matter at hand?

The "I-Word." The new hate crime/hate word in the USA

(In all seriousness, I was talking about ALL the tabooey words that have actually been made illegal, or you know, extremely tabooey. Slight brain derp on my part)

I am not too familiar with America, but generally there's a hive mind consensus that says most people aren't too keen on happily going about saying hate words for whatever reason once they're taboo. Which is completely ignoring the real issue, as you yourself have said. As have I, but that's irrelevant for some reason :\
New = not the first at the very least. A succession of words getting taboo'd. And believe or not, these things happen outside of the West too.
Thanks for the well mannered discussion guys. Definitely no people trying to invalidate anyone here
(In a thread against discrimination no less).

[kaijyuu]

Odds of whiteness? Social justice 8-ball says "Almost definitely."

I'd like you to take a moment and think about what you said here. Replace "whiteness" with any other race and consider how offensive it would be.

[Johnfalcon99977]

I think its stupid to make "Illegal Immigrants" a "bad word". Are we all in the third fucking grade for godsake? Sure, it may hurt someones feelings, but if your being called an illegal immigrant, I'm pretty sure you have MUCH bigger things to worry about.

[dizzyelk]

Odds of whiteness? Social justice 8-ball says "Almost definitely."

I'd like you to take a moment and think about what you said here. Replace "whiteness" with any other race and consider how offensive it would be.

This.

And I feel that people who enter a country through an illegal mode of entry shouldn't whine that they're called illegal whatevers. If they want to be an immigrant, there's a whole process for that. If it takes a long time to go through and has lots of hoops to jump through, well, that's part of the price of citizenship. On the other hand, I don't feel we should punish the individuals, we should punish the companies that offer them work. With real punishments. $100,000 fine for each illegal immigrant employee the first time, doubled each time they're busted for it afterwards ($200,000; $400,000; $800,000; and so on).

[Frumple]

I think its stupid to make "Illegal Immigrants" a "bad word". Are we all in the third fucking grade for godsake? Sure, it may hurt someones feelings, but if your being called an illegal immigrant, I'm pretty sure you have MUCH bigger things to worry about.

Like being Latino? Yeah... I guess that is a pretty big trouble sign for a person in th'localized hellpits characterized by a substantial population that'd accuse anyone non-Caucasian of being an illegal immigrant

And I feel that people who enter a country through an illegal mode of entry shouldn't whine that they're called illegal whatevers. If they want to be an immigrant, there's a whole process for that. If it takes a long time to go through and has lots of hoops to jump through, well, that's part of the price of citizenship.

Yeah... I'd feel a lot less troubled by this line of thought if I didn't have a decent idea of the localized hell a lot of these people are running from. Especially considering the whole "huddled masses" thing. Of course, and being fair, there's major economic issues involved (that are trumping the hell out of the moral ones), but that only makes us slightly less of a collective bastard when we do what we do.

As for the whole word thing itself... I'd rather we'd be trying to fix the underlying causes to the general problem (like our immigration process, the degree we're implicit with causing the unholy fuckups our illegal immigrant population is jumping ship because of, etc.), but if -- and only if -- recognizing the word as part of what can make someone complicit of a hate crime helps reduce said hate crimes, then, well... go for it. We can always adjust the law back once the bigger problem's been dealt with.

As for penguin's faux pas... replace "whiteness" with "socially dominate demographic for your area," and you'll get what penguin probably intended.

[Leafsnail]

I am not too familiar with America, but generally there's a hive mind consensus that says most people aren't too keen on happily going about saying hate words for whatever reason once they're taboo. Which is completely ignoring the real issue, as you yourself have said. As have I, but that's irrelevant for some reason :\

...Huh?  I pointed out noone wanted to make the word illegal.  You seemed to indicate you weren't talking about this particular word but other unspecified words.  Which leaves me confused as to why you're talking about words that aren't the one that this thread is about.

Thanks for the well mannered discussion guys. Definitely no people trying to invalidate anyone here
(In a thread against discrimination no less).

If you say something that I see as invalid or irrelevant I will point it out.

As for the whole word thing itself... I'd rather we'd be trying to fix the underlying causes to the general problem (like our immigration process, the degree we're implicit with causing the unholy fuckups our illegal immigrant population is jumping ship because of, etc.), but if -- and only if -- recognizing the word as part of what can make someone complicit of a hate crime helps reduce said hate crimes, then, well... go for it. We can always adjust the law back once the bigger problem's been dealt with.

Isn't one of the underlying causes that people regard immigrants as "Illegals" to be chucked out rather than "Unauthorized immigrants" to be potentially granted citizenship or sent away depending on circumstances?  You can get people to think about this by challenging the word that enforces this idea, although not if they get sidetracked by thinking it's just about offensiveness I guess.  And again, there's no proposition to make this word illegal (although the irony of making illegal illegal would be brilliant), the thread title is simply incorrect.

[Loud Whispers]

...Huh?  I pointed out noone wanted to make the word illegal.  You seemed to indicate you weren't talking about this particular word but other unspecified words.  Which leaves me confused as to why you're talking about words that aren't the one that this thread is about.
---
If you say something that I see as invalid or irrelevant I will point it out.

I was replying to your pre-edit post

[Leafsnail]

Is that... actually relevant?  Can you explain how?  The stuff I was talking about was in the initial version of my posts.

[kaijyuu]

As for penguin's faux pas... replace "whiteness" with "socially dominate demographic for your area," and you'll get what penguin probably intended.

So it's okay to make prejudiced accusations and assumptions about groups of people provided they're in the majority?


"You're ignorant about x subject? Oh, you must be in y group" is a ridiculously prejudiced statement, no matter what you replace x and y with. Depending on context, it could be a faulty assumption about the person, the group, or (as in this case) both. (Don't take it too personally though Penguin. You're still cool to me )

[penguinofhonor]

Odds of whiteness? Social justice 8-ball says "Almost definitely."

Couldn't be even farther off. Though I don't see how my race would be important in this, or affect anything I say...?

My point was that a white person would be most likely to dismiss racial slurs. LW, I apologize for assuming your race. It was pretty dickish in retrospect, but I let my snark get the better of me.

So... where's the line that emotional danger/damage doesn't count anymore? Because apparently emotional danger doesn't count anymore if it's from a word. Which kinds are legitimate and which kinds aren't?

Any danger or any damage counts. Is this one word causing harm?

Is it?

Is the announcement of it literally causing them emotional distress?

Get one person to say whatever one word, in a neutrally ambiguous way. One word, by itself.
Get another person, who says something, anything, expressing the intent to cause emotional distress to another. Wording? Unimportant. Intent? The clear issue. Sidestepping it by just going on and saying "well, it's used commonly by y people to attack x people, therefore, that word is the problem," isn't going to change the fact that the word has nothing to do with it. It's a word. The words aren't hurting anyone, it's the people.
That's where the line is - when people start hurting each other.

Making a word used for oppression taboo makes that oppression more taboo. Words do, in fact, have a decent amount of power to hurt. Ask any gay kid that's had "faggot" shouted at them.

From what I've been told, yes, it's a terrible experience even if they don't get physically hurt. Because it's the same word that gets shouted at them as they get jumped after school and get the shit beaten out of them, and the same word shouted at them by people who take away their rights, and the same word their parents called them before they stopped speaking to them, and a lot more.

Now imagine if that word was used in common parlance like "illegals" is.

"Don't say illegals" is just a slogan. Of course they don't want to ban every single use of the word ever. They just want people to remove it from their everyday vocabulary because everyday vocabularies shouldn't make latin@s feel like crap.

I'd like you to take a moment and think about what you said here. Replace "whiteness" with any other race and consider how offensive it would be.

I'd like you to take a moment and think about what I said there. Replace "whiteness" with any other race and consider how drastically different the intent of the statement would be.

[Frumple]

So it's okay to make prejudiced accusations and assumptions about groups of people provided they're in the majority?

"You're ignorant about x subject? Oh, you must be in y group" is a ridiculously prejudiced statement, no matter what you replace x and y with. Depending on context, it could be a faulty assumption about the person, the group, or (as in this case) both. (Don't take it too personally though Penguin. You're still cool to me )

Did I say majority? In this case it's a fairly accurate and repeatedly observed phenomena -- the dominate social group in an area often downplays or surpresses knowledge of the problems of non-dominate groups. It's a fair jab to make the conjecture that there's a increased likelihood that a person downplaying the problems of a non-dominate social group belongs to a dominate social group. It's still a jab and only a conjectural/probabilistic thing, but it's not quite as baseless as what you're talking about. Though it looks like I was giving peng more slack than his intentions were

Most cases you're right, though. It's definitely wrong to make prejudiced accusations and assumptions about a group. It's not quite so much of a folly to note statistically backed trends (provided they're the good statistics, though!), heh.