blatham wrote:deb
I don't see something stronger in snood's posts, other than perhaps a more viserceral distaste for that word when spoken by us paleskins and I know that would be as understandable to you as to me.
When I went back to university the feminist project was concentrating acutely on the sexist components of language. I was entirely sympathetic with the endeavor, if not all of the conclusions and assumptions, and joined in a lot of conversations quite like this one.
I argued then, as I did here earlier, that terms like nigger or fag or girl have to be hijacked by the very people to whom they refer in order for those people to disarm the terms within their own communities - to invert them into signifiers of uniqueness and community bond and pride.
But I went a bit further too, and argued that this inversion/disarming would be assisted if folks like me (white, straight, male) who shared the loathing for the earlier uses of the terms, began to use them (sparingly, pointedly) in the same ways as the minority communities were coming to use them. Tricky stuff. And like always, the 'appropriateness' of what comes out of my mouth is dependent upon who is standing in front of me at that moment.
Huh? Sure...nobody has to tell me about the power of words.
And I get the joke.
My cavil was about all paleskins having angst about "not being able to" use the word.
Who exactly has angst?
I am aware the the nouveau politically correct crowd do.....and I imagine the people I referred to earlier in a post I don't have time to look up..the pus crowd, for want of a better word, do.....but I do not imagine that a huge number of people do.....people who are aware (even from this distance) of the history of the word, and would no more want to use it than we would any other deeply offensive word.
Just like you stopped using sexist words when you became aware of their offensiveness.
Sure, there are a whole lot of words around the fringes of great political movements that seem to shift around, and can easily irritate people because they seem nitpicky....but the big ones, like nigger, slut, kike etc...well, who the hell but an idiot wants to all people that? Where's the angst, except amongst people who bathe and delight in their prejudices and ignorance?
As for people who call women "ho's".....
. Anyhow, I have even heard my husband (who is white) say that to his black friends and I suppose in that aspect it would be a term of endearment. Under those circumstances I am proud that 2 people of a different race can get together and laugh and throw out any preconceived notions they may have.
