I have a lot of time for your opinions here Scoll but this time I'll disagree with you.

No one here is arguing for the right to call black people "niggers". At least I'm not. All I'm saying is if it's so offensive then stop using it.

I get that it's taking ownership, I get it's camaraderie, I get the arguments you are making but I think those arguments are wrong.

Surely the term would be better to fall out of use than be kept alive even if it's by the very people it was aimed at in the first place.

Take the slur "coon" for a moment. Imagine if Aboriginal people used that amongst themselves? Its a fair bet if they did then the term would still be in common usage around the place.

Luckily they don't and it's almost completely dead and buried. And rightly so.



Edited by munrubenmuz: 27/10/2015 04:50:39 PM

Ah I forget i'm meant to feel guilty about being white.

Because of power established by our ancestors, we are essentially the devil.

Language is complex and evolving, and empowering a dis-empowering word is a good thing in my books. Even if that means my people can't use it. The point is it isn't offensive for POC to use "nigger" amongst themselves; within their circles the meaning is different to what it is outside. It's strength, empowerment and autonomy vs. weakness, control and persecution.

I feel the "don't use it at all" argument only seems valid in the context of our society in our time and skirts close to victim blaming. Yes you can say that the young POC who use the term today weren't alive when it was perfectly fine for white people to call them that, and the subsequent taking back of the word by their people, but it isn't helpful. Putting the onus on the victim to change rather than the offender empowers the position of the offender. It's akin to chastising a sexual assault victim for dressing provocatively. Sure we may have less sexual assaults if everyone wore a burqa, but it wouldn't eradicate the problem and comes at an unfair cost to the freedom of the affected party.

The problem with using us as an example is that our racial epithets are almost exclusively borrowed from American English. They weren't developed by us, merely adopted, and that makes them a lot easier to shake. On top of that, we were transplanted into Aboriginal lands, rather than bringing them to our (well, the native Americans would have something to say about that) lands as property. Plus our population is far smaller and less concentrated. African Americans couldn't separate themselves from white society as easily as Aboriginal Australians (and Indigenous Americans) could (and yet they still face extreme racial prejudice.) There was nowhere for them to go that offered sanctuary. So they were a displaced people treated as an underclass and constantly surrounded by this language of ownership and belittlement leaving little choice but to co-opt it for their own use to fight back.

You consistently fail to see past your own fragile ego.

"Oh, my grandparents did this bad thing and I'm being forced to feel bad about it, but that's so unfair what about meeeee?"

Should have put the text in blue, it was sarcasm. Nice personal attack though.

Your argument does read that we are responsible for the establishment we did not create and are thus held to a different standard which will essentially perpetuate racism.

An example is Tottenham Hotspur adopting the nickname Yids to essentially middle finger the scum from Chelsea, West Ham and Arsenal who used to make light of a large Jewish following.

However, it a victory for the PC nazis, the Yid Army chant is now banned and it still hasn't stopped anti-Semitic chanting from the rivals.

Go figure I guess.

Edited by bethfc: 27/10/2015 06:29:54 PM

You're waaaaaay overcomplicating this.

No one is victim blaming. (I have no idea how you even made that leap.)

It's simply a case of do as I say not as I do.

Interesting that Asians don't call themselves "gooks", "chinks" and "slopes".

Gay folk don't call themselves "homos", "faggots" and "arse bandits".

"Wogs" might call themselves "wogs" but they steer away from "eye-tie", "wop", "dago" and "greasy wog".

I've googled around a bit and there's definitely more people taking your side then mine and making pretty much the same arguments as you are making. I will take issue however where they constantly refer to white people whinging about a "double standard" and "if black people can use it why can't white people" etc etc.

I am not, repeat, I am not looking to use the slur against black person or in the company of white people at any time or place.

My argument has been, from start to finish, if you don't like it then don't bloody use it. It will fall out of common usage, wither and die and become an interesting historical footnote in the years to come.

I realise I'm of the minority opinion here.

Probably have to agree to disagree.

If the word is never used it will die. End of.

Article regards the above here. http://africanamericanenglish.com/2010/10/22/why-black-people-can-use-the-n-word-a-perspective/

Literally 100's of interesting comments after the article with a wide divergence of thought but tending to agree with Scoll's position.

I feel like you are forgetting the fact that white people still use this word as a term of abuse against black people.

If everyone stopped using it, and the massive inequalities black people face thru institutional racism was fixed, then black people would probably stop using it.

Damn crackers

Thanks for sharing this link - very interesting (both the article and the comments!)

Very, very rarely these days compared to how often you hear it from black people. Almost unheard of nowadays.

Nigga> nigger.

Not at all - maybe on TV and in polite society. But it is still used a lot in the real world.

Great speech by Katter =d>

-PB

Cloud Passports in a move for the future

Meanwhile Tony Abbott boasted about turning back illegal refugees

No correlation at all

Goes to show he wasn't just talking shit for politics, he literally is a backwards arsed conservative from the middle ages.

-PB

Just chip me already and be done with it.

Happy for it to be opt in rather than compulsory to shut the hippies up.

Embed the chip with your passport details, your drivers' license, your medicare details, your next of kin, allergies, fishing license, blood type, favourite footy team for all I care and while they're at it give it the ability that your visa card has with the pay wave.

Sign up as a member to a soccer team, get sent the code and wave your arm at the stadium to get you admitted. And a thousand other things like that. Fly buys for the sheilas if that's their go.

All this bullshit about making your phone your wallet is just taking an extra step when the answer is blindingly obvious..

Lose your phone or wallet and your life is fucked, at least temporarily. At least, by a fair margin, most people take their arms with them when they go out and are unlikely to leave it on the floor at the pub.

Chip me!!

In a 100 years time everyone will have one and I'll be seen as a visionary.

And fuck the gruen transfer for running a pitch about microchipping your kids which I've been saying for years (get it removed at 16 or 18 and make it non-compulsory as well) which now makes me look like I've ripped them off and spruiking it as my own idea.

Bunch of cunce.






Edited by munrubenmuz: 29/10/2015 10:10:56 PM

Erica Betts story continued on The Verdict

Anyway, read The Adventures of Huck Finn before making any judgements :-k

Huckleberry Finn was a product of the times though to be fair.

As for that article you linked I particularly liked this bit from that article.

During Thursday's episode of The Verdict, Latham revealed that he had done some further investigative work and discovered that "at the ABC, you can't use the word 'Aborigine'."

He compared that to Fair Work Commission vice-president Michael Lawler's use of the word "c----struck", which was aired during an episode of Four Corners last week.

"It's now got to the absurdity of policing political correctness in Australia that at the ABC they can broadcast the word 'c----struck' … but they can't use the word 'Aborigine'," he said.

"This is totally out of control."


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/nobody-in-western-sydney-would-find-negro-offensive-mark-latham-20151030-gkmgzo.html

There has to be limits in all of this. Obviously saying things in anger such as "Fuck you you nigger, go back to the cotton fields before i beat yo ass" is not good form. But being afraid to actually say a word and referring to it as the "N word" is ridiculous. We are becoming prisoners in our own minds. The pendulum has swung from blatant racism from 100 years ago, through the brilliant progress we were making in the 90's and 00's and now it is swinging in to territory that is beyond reason

:lol: :cool: :p

EXCLUSIVE

Labor has suspended its internal elections and will launch an investigation into one of the biggest-ever branch-stacking scams to hit the Victorian Labor Party.

The move by Labor's powerful administrative committee on Thursday night comes after Fairfax Media revealed the massive rorting earlier this month.
Labor Right figure Garth Head.

Labor Right figure Garth Head.

On October 11, Fairfax Media reported that anonymous gift cards were used to pay the dues of hundreds of ALP members at the core of Bill Shorten's Labor Right powerbase.
Advertisement

The scam has been run for years and is linked closely to the plumbers' union and suburban factional warlords close to Mr Shorten and federal frontbencher Stephen Conroy.

Labor's administrative committee suspended elections for Labor state conference, its country executive, women's network and Rainbow Labor until February next year.
Labor Left's Liz Beattie.

Labor Left's Liz Beattie. Photo: Michael Clayton-Jones

The party appointed Labor Right figure Garth Head and the Left's Liz Beattie to investigate the use of the pre-paid gift cards.

But their appointment ran into opposition from some at the meeting amid concern that the two dominant factions would try to sweep the issue of branch stacking under the carpet.

Also making an appearance at the meeting was factional warlord and Turkish numbers man Hakki Suleyman, who was a proxy for his daughter Natalie, a state MP.

The meeting endorsed a motion that noted "potential irregularities" in payments of memberships through the use of pre-paid debit, credit and gift cards and credit cards.

"The ALP must act to ensure that all party members can be confident in the acceptance of members, their renewal and a shared understanding around payments and eligibility," it noted.

The internal investigation has been asked to report back by next month. It is understood as many as 500 memberships involved "irregular" payments.

Branch stacking involves factional players signing up members, or renewing memberships, in bulk. Cash for payment of membership dues often comes from unions or union slush funds.

For factional warlords, the "stacks" represent numbers and power within Labor - numbers to be traded in factional and sub-factional deals and wielded in important policy and preselection battles.

The Visa gift cards used by the branch stackers are, in effect, disposable debit cards that do not show who the cardholder is or who paid for them. Money can be placed on the cards but the cards expire once the money is used.

Each card has an individual number, similar to a debit or credit card, and an expiry date. The lack of ability to trace who paid for them makes them ideal for branch-stacking.

The royal commission into union corruption recently asked Victorian Labor for its membership list, after the Fairfax Media report, but backed down after Labor called the move "McCarthyist".

Documents indicate the gift cards were used to buy hundreds of memberships in the last two weeks of May 2013, the period in which "multiple" party memberships are habitually renewed before the 30 May renewal deadline.

Many of the members involved appear to be of Lebanese background and linked to northern suburbs factional powerbroker David Asmar.

His wife, Diana, is the Victorian secretary of the Health Services Union No.1 branch.

Another group involved appears to centre on the family of former plumbers union official, Tony Murphy, who for many years was a Labor powerbroker in Melbourne's north.

Under Victorian Labor's byzantine factional arrangements the plumbers, and associated party members, make up a right-wing sub-faction loyal to Shorten.

While the HSU is not currently affiliated to the ALP - it disaffiliated in 2011 amid the scandals surrounding former leaders Craig Thomson and Michael Williamson - it is an important factional resource.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/la...#ixzz3q0rkVuVQ

Malcolm wants to send refugees to Kyrgyzstan

Where the fück is Kyrgyzstan? :-k

on the upside, this may alleviate the shortage of women in China's one child policy (Kyrgyzstan is China's neighbour, apparently) *

[size=1]* and so is Afghanistan[/size]

Edited by condemned666: 31/10/2015 01:26:40 PM

Didn't we play them in a WC Qualifier a month ago?

This. Too much of this daily. Fucking PC crew.

Anyway best usage of the n word in recent times in a movie->

So as the Wilfully Ignorant party instigates a leader that slides towards the left wing, the nutty policies are progressively (pun intended) removed

Let's see if you scrap your dud, 2nd rate NBN also, that will ultimately burden Australia with more debt that you self-proclaimed 'better economic managers' claim you try to reduce

George Brandis today has labelled criticism of Abbott's religion (Catholicism) as "bigotry at its most shameless"

This is the same bloke who said we had a "right to be bigots" just last year. I can't even.

In related news, Dyson Heydon last year made the comment that "anti-catholicism is the racism of the intellectuals"

The next person who links criticism of religion to racism is seriously going to be punched in the fucken head.

So everyone is allowed to be a bigot until tony abotts gets upset? Rightio