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[fqllve]

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.

It's true that attacking a minority based on race is generally worse in intent that attacking the majority, but really the point is that his race has absolutely no bearing on the validity of his opinion and to mention any correlation is to skirt personal attack.

[kaijyuu]

I could go on a very long tangent about speaker intent, but I've done so like 4 times in the progressive rage thread already. I'd just be repeating myself (willing to put on a show if people ask for it, though).


Suffice to say that I'm very much sympathetic to speaker intent, but there's no way that statement could mean anything but prejudice with a lovely side of double standard.

[penguinofhonor]

It's true that attacking a minority based on race is generally worse in intent that attacking the majority, but really the point is that his race has absolutely no bearing on the validity of his opinion and to mention any correlation is to skirt personal attack.

Suffice to say that I'm very much sympathetic to speaker intent, but there's no way that statement could mean anything but prejudice with a lovely side of double standard.

Yeah, I've got a double standard. A white person dismissing racial slurs has a lot less authority than a person of color doing the same thing. This is because the white person can easily dismiss racial slurs they haven't experienced.

Were you two upset by the all-male women's health panel congress held a while back? Or were you like "The fact that everyone debating women's rights is a dude has no bearing on the validity of their opinions" and declared it a double standard to think women have more knowledge/experience/authority with reference to women's issues?

[Loud Whispers]

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

1. That same argument goes both ways :/
2. It was not the same as the pre-edit post.
3.

...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.

My argument is applicable to any word.
You're saying how no one wants to make it illegal, and because of that, my argument = worthless.
Unless you're actually going to address any issues with any real points or something...
4.

Can you explain how?

When you start questioning answers to questions, you end up with confusions like this.

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

Then at least have the courtesy to point out why it's invalid or irrelevant. And you seem to have thought I was talking about you in the last two points. I was talking about the whole "whiteness : almost definitely thing". Confusions, confusions everywhere.

We have the same thing going on in the Netherlands. We made up this neat little word allochtoon which even has an English Wikipedia page and some people want it to be no longer used.

Oh look, Dutchling wasn't talking about the use of Illegals, therefore it is irrelevant by your logic.

-_-

Get one person to say illegals, in a neutrally ambiguous way. One word, by itself.
Get another person, who says something degrading or discriminating towards Latin @, expressing the intent to cause emotional distress to Latin @. Wording? Unimportant. Intent? The clear issue. Sidestepping it by just going on and saying "well, it's used commonly by generic racist group people to attack demographic minorities , therefore, illegals is the problem," isn't going to change the fact that the word has nothing to do with it. It's a word. The illegals isn't hurting anyone, it's the generic racist group.
That's where the line is - when people start hurting each other.

And now it's on topic. That was unnecessary really :|

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.

Ah, I didn't take offense at all, so don't worry. Although "white people most likely to dismiss racial slurs?" - That bemuses me. You just explained it in a ninja post.

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.

I agree completely. There's two countries I've known well, one's had the entire media and country be pretty much homophobic for the most part, and no one gay care about the word "Faggot" because they have bigger problems. Getting rid of "faggot" instead of promoting acceptance, wouldn't achieve much. And the other end of the spectrum, where no one cares what your sexual orientation is, no one gets offended by "Faggot" because everyone is called one. It loses all offensive meaning-it isn't discriminatory. It's as frowned on as much as swearing, but no one would get emotionally distraught over it or feel singled out.
Again, is that gay kid distraught because he's just heard someone say "faggot", or is it that his or her's peer are bullying 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.

There's large amounts of trauma attached to it then. Saying "faggot" wouldn't induce this, it's a consequence of the people acting this way. They're causing the harm, they're isolating them and deliberately trying to cause them emotional harm.

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

I honestly still wouldn't care if everyone started walking around calling each other illegals. In fact, there's already an example in the UK. Kids calling each other FOB - Fresh of boat. Which literally means immigrant.
That's caused no harm to anyone - again, it's said to everyone. Literally everyone, even if it's highly distasteful.
Now if those same people started "jumping on people", shouting FOB and beating them up, there would be your problem again. The people, not the word.

[fqllve]

Were you two upset by the all-male women's health panel congress held a while back? Or were you like "The fact that everyone debating women's rights is a dude has no bearing on the validity of their opinions" and declared it a double standard to think women have more knowledge/experience/authority with reference to women's issues?

An all-male women's health panel is a different beast. That's a group and it's a homogeneous group discussing a topic with which they have no firsthand experience. That's a sample problem, selection bias. It in no way invalidates the opinions of any single member of that panel, rather it invalidates the panel as a representative body.

[Mr. Palau]

Were you two upset by the all-male women's health panel congress held a while back? Or were you like "The fact that everyone debating women's rights is a dude has no bearing on the validity of their opinions" and declared it a double standard to think women have more knowledge/experience/authority with reference to women's issues?

An all-male women's health panel is a different beast. That's a group and it's a homogeneous group discussing a topic with which they have no firsthand experience. That's a sample problem, selection bias. It in no way invalidates the opinions of any single member of that panel, rather it invalidates the panel as a representative body.

QFT

Also when using words intonation, intention, context, implication, and body language is important. A word its self is not evil, you can use hatefull words in non-hateful ways. There's a diffrence between two balck people walking up to each other, or even a white guy in a mostly black neighborhood, and saying "Hey what's up why Nigga" and yelling "Get out of my sight Nigger".

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Wait, back up a moment.

If there are actually people somewhere using this in a derogatory/hateful manner,... Well, you can't fix stupid, I guess that's why there are laws.

But as for the illegal immigrants themselves... I'm sorry, but as non-citizen criminals with no legal rights (other than the normal, basic human rights, of course), we've been extremely generous not to round em up and ship em back every chance we get. If they want to be here, apply for citizenship. Don't break in. If you break the law to get here, how can we trust you to adhere to any of our other laws?

I'm sorry if they've given themselves a stigma, and racial slurs are never justified, but seriously... They're criminals roaming our streets freely...

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. And my other point was, they aren't the only illegal immigrants, we hate em all equally

Edit: ya, that last statement is gunna hurt me, lol. I didn't mean hate as in hate them, I meant hate as in how they break the law to get in here. I like people, I just don't like criminals :p

What I object to is in bold.

First of all, you are somewhat demonstrating why an idea like opposing the use of the term "illegal immigrant" has arisen in the first place. You clearly have a stigma against them.

Calling illegal immigrants criminals is telling, for one. While they have indeed broken the law, calling someone a criminal has connotations beyond breaking the law. You make it sound like they're an armed gang, but the actual armed gangs are quite content to stay in Mexico and make money off of US drug laws. Breaking an immigration law is not paramount to doing something like violent crime, and given the general behavior of immigrants to the United States I would say that we mostly can trust them to follow our laws. The United States is a great place, and the vast majority of people in this country are happy to be here at all.

It is very difficult to immigrate to the US legally, and I don't think you understand that. The problem has only spiraled out of control since immigration was put under the jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security, who seem adamantly committed to not being able to do anything right or without paranoia. A lot of Americans wouldn't be able to immigrate to the United States under our current vetting process. It can literally take years if there's a setback, and there are setbacks all the time.

As for "shipping them all back", that is impractical, immoral, and ultimately impossible to do. It's impractical because of the sheer number of illegal immigrants in the United States. There is no way to effectively move millions of people like that, especially when they are going to be very resistant to being moved. It's immoral because if someone comes here and establishes an honest life for themselves, no matter if they adhered to the immigration code, no one has a right to tear them from their roots and deport them to a place and a life they've left behind. That's not even getting into illegal immigrants with citizen children.

Finally, illegal immigrants do in fact have legal rights. The Constitution and all which it implies applies to everyone who stands upon the soil of the United States. Some things in the Constitution, such as holding public office and voting, are explicitly set apart as citizen-only privileges.
The other legal and social rights granted thereof are not restricted to citizens, and have been legally interpreted as applying to everyone. Illegal immigrants have the same First Amendment rights as anyone else, for example. Or if an illegal immigrant gets arrested for a crime, they still have their Miranda rights read to them if interrogated and in court still have a right to a publicly appointed attorney. They may well end up deported, but that doesn't mean they don't have rights.

[darkrider2]

I have not read most of the thread as a lot of it seems to have fallen into that area where we argue the other persons argument methods which is a bit cyclical.

But yeah, there are hundreds of bigoted words out there and placing a legal label on em ain't going to help anything.

Laws like this are like drugs that combat symptoms and not causes. Yeah you don't have to hear it, but there will still be the haters out there.

[penguinofhonor]

There's two countries I've known well, one's had the entire media and country be pretty much homophobic for the most part, and no one gay care about the word "Faggot" because they have bigger problems. Getting rid of "faggot" instead of promoting acceptance, wouldn't achieve much.

In this situation, it would be a problem if people had to make a choice between getting rid of a word and doing other things to end an oppression, but that's rarely the case. This campaign isn't trying to get rid of the word at the expense of other pro-Latin@ causes. It's supposed to be complimentary to the other causes, and although it might be the smallest issue, it shouldn't be dismissed as long as the other issues are also receiving attention.

And the other end of the spectrum, where no one cares what your sexual orientation is, no one gets offended by "Faggot" because everyone is called one. It loses all offensive meaning-it isn't discriminatory. It's as frowned on as much as swearing, but no one would get emotionally distraught over it or feel singled out.
Again, is that gay kid distraught because he's just heard someone say "faggot", or is it that his or her's peer are bullying them.

People like to talk about places where a slur isn't insulting because it's said so much, but pretty much every time it's actually used so often because it's insulting. In America, people try to say this all the time about various slurs. But why are you using sexuality as a degrading insult if that sexuality isn't degrading?

As evidence of this, I'd like to point out that the privileged insult is never used commonly. There aren't places where everyone calls each other "breeder" all the time because being straight isn't viewed as insulting (outside of LGBT communities, of course).

There's large amounts of trauma attached to it then. Saying "faggot" wouldn't induce this, it's a consequence of the people acting this way. They're causing the harm, they're isolating them and deliberately trying to cause them emotional harm.

But... saying "faggot" causes harm because it brings up the trauma. If the underlying oppression didn't exist then yeah, it would just be a word. But as long as a word has a very good chance at invoking trauma like this, it's a good idea to be mindful of how you use it.

You might not be intentionally causing people harm, but you're doing something that can very easily hurt people around you unintentionally. To me, that's something people should be cautious about.

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

I honestly still wouldn't care if everyone started walking around calling each other illegals. In fact, there's already an example in the UK. Kids calling each other FOB - Fresh of boat. Which literally means immigrant.
That's caused no harm to anyone - again, it's said to everyone. Literally everyone, even if it's highly distasteful.
Now if those same people started "jumping on people", shouting FOB and beating them up, there would be your problem again. The people, not the word.

That's in a different context, though. In America, the illegal immigration issue is used as reasoning for a lot of anti-Latin@ racism. Everyone who looks Mexican is suspected of being an illegal immigrant and is treated worse because of it.

At the crux of this is the attitude that illegal immigrants shouldn't be treated like full people, and a facet of that is calling them things like "illegals" to dehumanize and villainize them.

Laws like this are like drugs that combat symptoms and not causes. Yeah you don't have to hear it, but there will still be the haters out there.

But a lot of people's lives could be made better by not having to hear it, by not having to worry about having words used in their oppression dragged into potentially any conversation. Not everyone wants to have to confront their oppression every day because that will wear on a person until they break.

An all-male women's health panel is a different beast. That's a group and it's a homogeneous group discussing a topic with which they have no firsthand experience. That's a sample problem, selection bias. It in no way invalidates the opinions of any single member of that panel, rather it invalidates the panel as a representative body.

I don't see why it's a different beast. It's just a different scale.

Five guys' opinions about women's health are just as uninformed as one guy's opinion, so why is calling the one guy out on his lack of perspective so much worse?

[Flying Dice]

An all-male women's health panel is a different beast. That's a group and it's a homogeneous group discussing a topic with which they have no firsthand experience. That's a sample problem, selection bias. It in no way invalidates the opinions of any single member of that panel, rather it invalidates the panel as a representative body.

I don't see why it's a different beast. It's just a different scale.

Five guys' opinions about women's health are just as uninformed as one guy's opinion, so why is calling the one guy out on his lack of perspective so much worse?

Likely because a panel of biological men offering opinions on womens' health can not possibly have personal experience with the issues, regardless of their personal views. A panel of, for example, whites offering opinions on racial discrimination might have personal experience with it. In the first, it is impossible for the group or any of the members to have personal experience; in the second, they might. Dismissing the opinions of the first is valid because there is no way for them to have personal experience; dismissing the opinions of the second is not valid because one or more of them might have had some sort of personal experience with the issue.

What would make the second panel's opinions invalid would be them offering opinions on discrimination against blacks specifically, because they do not have personal experience with the issue.

At least, that's the way I'm reading it.

[mcclay]

I have to agree with LW. Don't blame the fucking word, blame the assholes who were using it as a dehumanzing insult. They are the ones causing the entire fucking problem. Also another thing that is pssing me off is the idea that apperanetly white people are racists monsters who are jerks to anyone not white and lose all creditablility when in oppestion to a so called "politcally correct" law thing, no matter how stupid and situntional it may be. The age of slavery and the Civil rights incidents are thing far in the past, thing my generation never experinced. Why should my self and my peers be punished for things previous generations did I am proud to be white, just as all people of other ethincities should be proud of their race. I have a strong germanic, scottish and itilian background, and in some cases apperanetly I am a goddamn Nazi like all other Germans ans people of German descent. I refuse to be punished for who my ancestors were and the social class and ethincity I was born into. Don't think for an instant I'm not called sexual and mental slurs on the playground. I cannot go a day without someone calling me a  "faggot" or "retard" even though I am none of thise things. So get the fuck down off your postions of supposed morak supiroity and face middle ground of all mankind that you claim to love so much. Besides, ancestors are probably no less or more gilty of racsim and slavery than mine. That is all I have to say on this matter so good night and good goddamn luck.

[penguinofhonor]

I have to agree with LW. Don't blame the fucking word, blame the assholes who were using it as a dehumanzing insult. They are the ones causing the entire fucking problem.

Even if you're not the root cause of the problem, you can take small steps to alleviate the smaller problems surrounding it instead of pointing at the worst of the worst and going "See? They're worse than me, I don't have to change at all!"

Also another thing that is pssing me off is the idea that apperanetly white people are racists monsters who are jerks to anyone not white and lose all creditablility when in oppestion to a so called "politcally correct" law thing, no matter how stupid and situntional it may be.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

The age of slavery and the Civil rights incidents are thing far in the past, thing my generation never experinced.

The civil rights movement ended less than 50 years ago. I know you're 14, but you're still not as far removed as you think.

Why should my self and my peers be punished for things previous generations did I am proud to be white, just as all people of other ethincities should be proud of their race. I have a strong germanic, scottish and itilian background, and in some cases apperanetly I am a goddamn Nazi like all other Germans ans people of German descent. I refuse to be punished for who my ancestors were and the social class and ethincity I was born into.

Hey, tell that to some minorities! I bet they'll sympathize with you.

(Hint: they're also being punished for who your ancestors were, and they don't even share your ancestors!)

Don't think for an instant I'm not called sexual and mental slurs on the playground. I cannot go a day without someone calling me a  "faggot" or "retard" even though I am none of thise things.

Okay, yeah, I know exactly what you're thinking here. "I'm not privileged because my life is hard too!" That's not how this works. You'd be worse off if you were black or latino. That doesn't mean you're guaranteed to be well-off now. Just better off than you would otherwise be.

[fqllve]

Five guys' opinions about women's health are just as uninformed as one guy's opinion, so why is calling the one guy out on his lack of perspective so much worse?

Likely because a panel of biological men offering opinions on womens' health can not possibly have personal experience with the issues, regardless of their personal views. A panel of, for example, whites offering opinions on racial discrimination might have personal experience with it. In the first, it is impossible for the group or any of the members to have personal experience; in the second, they might. Dismissing the opinions of the first is valid because there is no way for them to have personal experience; dismissing the opinions of the second is not valid because one or more of them might have had some sort of personal experience with the issue.

What would make the second panel's opinions invalid would be them offering opinions on discrimination against blacks specifically, because they do not have personal experience with the issue.

No, I think a man on a women's health panel is just fine. Firsthand experience isn't the only kind of experience and suggesting that men can't serve on a women's health panel is like suggesting doctors who haven't had cancer can't serve on a cancer panel. The point is that a panel is a representative body and therefore has certain standards it has to meet, such as having a heterogeneous opinion, not having women is doing a disservice to the panel.

Furthermore, it's generally not ok to dismiss an opinion based on the source, and frankly, if the source is bad enough that you'd want to, it's a good bet you won't have trouble finding reasons to dismiss the opinions.

[Flying Dice]

Five guys' opinions about women's health are just as uninformed as one guy's opinion, so why is calling the one guy out on his lack of perspective so much worse?

Likely because a panel of biological men offering opinions on womens' health can not possibly have personal experience with the issues, regardless of their personal views. A panel of, for example, whites offering opinions on racial discrimination might have personal experience with it. In the first, it is impossible for the group or any of the members to have personal experience; in the second, they might. Dismissing the opinions of the first is valid because there is no way for them to have personal experience; dismissing the opinions of the second is not valid because one or more of them might have had some sort of personal experience with the issue.

What would make the second panel's opinions invalid would be them offering opinions on discrimination against blacks specifically, because they do not have personal experience with the issue.

No, I think a man on a women's health panel is just fine. Firsthand experience isn't the only kind of experience and suggesting that men can't serve on a women's health panel is like suggesting doctors who haven't had cancer can't serve on a cancer panel. The point is that a panel is a representative body and therefore has certain standards it has to meet, such as having a heterogeneous opinion, not having women is doing a disservice to the panel.

Furthermore, it's generally not ok to dismiss an opinion based on the source, and frankly, if the source is bad enough that you'd want to, it's a good bet you won't have trouble finding reasons to dismiss the opinions.

That's what I was getting at; an individual without a firsthand opinion of an issue can still treat it reasonably, but a having group specifically dedicated to forming opinions on an issue composed entirely of people without firsthand experience isn't the proper way to handle things. Individuals can have worthwhile opinions without a personal connection, but a representative body should include members of the group it is purported to represent.

[Leafsnail]

Actually, you know what?  I don't think there's any point in having a discussion in a thread with an incorrect OP and an incorrect title.  Every time a new person joins they see the title and start making the same old argument about "We shouldn't ban words!" (a repeated straw man) or the weird one about "the word is not to blame" that isn't really relevant to the organization that's being discussed.