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Wed 2 Apr, 2008 01:58 pm
I wrote this piece many years ago and posted it on A2K without editing some of the more inflamitive words. It got me banned from A2K for a while. This time, I hope I've edited it enough that I won't get banned. ---BBB
THE FUSTALUGE
(* Archaic term for a grossly obese person)
By BumbleBeeBoggie - May 6, 1991
Hey, ni*ger! Yo, honky!
(Sticks and stones)
Lazy dagos! or greasy spic wetbacks!
(May break my bones)
What about krauts, chinks or gooks?
Or, even more timely, rag heads and camel drivers!
(But names will never hurt me.)
Even liberals, the hated liberals.
And queers, don't forget the queers!
What is a fustaluge? The person it's still socially acceptable to malign. Even the most thoughtful, otherwise sensitive people call fat persons Fatso or blimp. Even a comic strip with a fat broad.
A Fat Broad! Have you ever said that? Thought that?
Hey, jumbo, if it's jelly it must shake like that! Move over, tubby, get your fat ass out of my way.
Literature demeans someone as evil or grotesque, not by describing them as thin, but nearly always an evil fat slob with fat lips, fat fingers, greasy fat oozing evil and degradation.
Don't you know any neat, nice loveable fat people in this world? Have you ignored their humanity, shut them out of your scope of interest and brushed them aside?
Names hurt. All names hurt!
Sticks and stones.
Speaking of names...
why is it ok to write "honky", "spic", "krauts", "chinks" or "gooks" out but not "nigger"?
Just curious.
Bella Dea
Bella Dea wrote:Speaking of names...
why is it ok to write "honky", "spic", "krauts", "chinks" or "gooks" out but not "nigger"?
Just curious.
To avoid getting banned, as I was originally informed.
BBB
Bella Dea wrote:Speaking of names...
why is it ok to write "honky", "spic", "krauts", "chinks" or "gooks" out but not "nigger"?
Just curious.
Blacks can say the word but non-blacks can not, which does not make a lick of sense to me.
Re: Bella Dea
BumbleBeeBoogie wrote:Bella Dea wrote:Speaking of names...
why is it ok to write "honky", "spic", "krauts", "chinks" or "gooks" out but not "nigger"?
Just curious.
To avoid getting banned, as I was originally informed.
BBB
Which still doesn't answer the question....why were you banned for "nigger" and not any of the others?
I think they are all equally offensive.
hawkeye10 wrote:Bella Dea wrote:Speaking of names...
why is it ok to write "honky", "spic", "krauts", "chinks" or "gooks" out but not "nigger"?
Just curious.
Blacks can say the word but non-blacks can not, which does not make a lick of sense to me.
It didn't make any sense to me but I still was banned.
BBB
Re: Bella Dea
Bella Dea wrote:BumbleBeeBoogie wrote:Bella Dea wrote:Speaking of names...
why is it ok to write "honky", "spic", "krauts", "chinks" or "gooks" out but not "nigger"?
Just curious.
To avoid getting banned, as I was originally informed.
BBB
Which still doesn't answer the question....why were you banned for "nigger" and not any of the others?
I think they are all equally offensive.
Bella, all of the words are offensive, which was my point in writing the piece, but I still was banned. If my memory is correct, it was because A2K had to protect their site from random word searching by those who feel the necessity to protect people from nasty words.
At this point, I'm more interested in why people think they can call fat people names and discriminate againhst them. The one major discrimination that is still acceptable and no one notices and objects.
BBB
Re: Bella Dea
BumbleBeeBoogie wrote:Bella Dea wrote:BumbleBeeBoogie wrote:Bella Dea wrote:Speaking of names...
why is it ok to write "honky", "spic", "krauts", "chinks" or "gooks" out but not "nigger"?
Just curious.
To avoid getting banned, as I was originally informed.
BBB
Which still doesn't answer the question....why were you banned for "nigger" and not any of the others?
I think they are all equally offensive.
Bella, all of the words are offensive, which was my point in writing the piece, but I still was banned. If my memory is correct, it was because A2K had to protect their site from random word searching by those who feel the necessity to protect people from nasty words.
At this point, I'm more interested in why people think they can call fat people names and discriminate them. The one major discrimination that is still acceptable and no one notices and objects.
BBB
I know, I wasn't getting on you about it. I just think that it is odd that not only can people be called fat and it's ok but apparently people can be called honky and it's ok. At least on A2K.
I think that this further drives your point home that not all labels are created equal, even though they should be and all names should be equally offensive because they can all be equally hurtful.
Bella
I now also recall that I was banned because I reposted the piece after it was deleted from A2K and I didn't know what the problem was until Craven sent me a PM explaining the legal protection reason and why I was banned. It cause quite an uproar at the time, but we resolved it.
BBB
Then you get ads like this. OMG, this chick is so fat. She needs to lose at
least 20oz.
Fat Ass
Biases fill a need in so many people who need to feel superior. They need to feel superior because they aren't superior.
I do think that we all have biases, but we have enough sensibility to others' feelings that we don't express them. The outward expression to me represents a meaness of spirit and a lack of a sensitivity that helps keep our society's civility badly damaged, but we still have an understanding (most of us) that to express an opinion at someone else's expense is demeaning to the speaker far more than to the person being insulted.
Racism is still out there. Black people are rarely lynched for being black, but it wasn't that long ago that they were. Religious bigotry can be and is deadly. I've never known of anyone who has been killed by another just because they are fat. Yet the emotional damage is very real and extremely damaging in the same way that depression can be a terminal illness if it becomes too severe.
I wouldn't ask for a law to prevent calling people fat, but if simple civility could be taught at home and in the schools, it would go a long way to help heal a mean spirited, even reprehensible element of our society.
Thanks, JPB. My weight has been all over the scale, so I've been through that feeling of worthlessness and real ugliness being overweight can produce.
I haven't seen too much discrimination about large people, generally speaking (however, I believe it exists), but I do recall one employer who wouldn't let me hire a large woman for the reception desk. Granted, she was in need of a few grooming tips and maybe a wardrobe update, but I really liked her and figured she'd do all that once she make some coin. She was trying to re-enter the workforce and this was not a terribly difficult job - I figured she could do the work and could use a leg up. However, no go was the answer. That was a shame. I often wondered what happened to her.
I did hire a largish woman for their Calgary office and I believe she's still there (9 years later). Nobody seemed to have a problem with her - she knew her stuff. Maybe because she was in the satellite office and the higher ups never went there?
In Vancouver everybody seems to be a health nut - jogging, rollerblading, cycling, rowing, swimming, etc., that you don't really see too many large people. When I was just in Manitoba, however, that was a different story. Hard to get out and walk when winter is 8 months a year.
What's the inference? Must we sit next to someone obese on a public conveyance to show we show no bias?
I think it might be an unconscious, hard-wired reaction, since a muscled person is not annoying to me, yet may take up more room than a regular sized person?
Must we, no. Should we act like an ass, should it happen, again no.
I kinda dint understand your question, I think, Foof...
Could you clarify?
RH
Ironically, to the peasants of Europe in the middle ages, and long after, having a fat wife was outward, visible evidence of prosperity. They gloried in having fat wives, and being fat themselves. Things change . . . no surprises.
Setanta wrote:Ironically, to the peasants of Europe in the middle ages, and long after, having a fat wife was outward, visible evidence of prosperity. They gloried in having fat wives, and being fat themselves. Things change . . . no surprises.
Yes, fat once meant prosperity. But, I don't believe we are hard-wired to like thinness either. That comes from the fashion/model industry, I believe. But, an image of strength is likely a hard-wired preference, since it will likely result in the healthiest babies in reproducing.
Foofie wrote:But, an image of strength is likely a hard-wired preference, since it will likely result in the healthiest babies in reproducing.
Absolute bosh. Just like saying good-looking people likely have good-looking babies. That's not necessarily true.
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