Lash wrote:Are coon, honkey, spic, camel jockey, penguin, towelhead, redneck, et AL equally insulting?
Because your analogy would seem to require that.
Well, I dont know about "penguin", since I've heard little about the term being used in the course of the oppression or even persecution of nuns or museum wardens lately. And that I think is an important part of the point. Muslims, like pretty much most religious, ethnic or racial groups, have faced collective persecution and systematic discrimination. That makes labelling them with insultive epithets on the basis of race, religion or ethnicity as a par of course a problem.
I disagree. Because who gets to decide who FEELS oppressed by such titles, and who is MORE oppressed by them and whose FEELINGS are more important than others.
This is where you lose.
Moreover, I seem to remember you do resent other people's use of the word "redneck", actually. So why would one not resent your use of the word "towelhead"?
You seem to base MANY contentious arguments with me on what you "seem to remember," and you are increasingly INCORRECT! "Redneck" is a silly slang term. I've tried to draw comparisons to make the point I make now. Redneck is on par with towelhead.
Lash wrote:Point #2-- I think "towelhead" is akin to the insult: Your Arab mother wears army boots.
It's cute. It's almost endearing.
Says you. I think it'd be up to the group insulted like that to decide just how "cute" and "endearing" the insult in question is. Seems as reasonable a criterion as any. If many people tell you that a certain term offends / hurts them, then that's it, in my book.
The polling is a bit daunting.
Ie, *I* can say, "oh but I only mean 'coon' in, you know, an endearing, cute way", but I dont think any black person would buy it. In fact, you wouldnt either, I'm guessing.
I'll be responsible to the person I'm speaking to, and you can be concerned about who you're speaking to. I'm a little miffed that different words have been artifically assigned different values, if you'll refer to Point #2. CoonTowelhead. Why is that? Who decides? Is that OK with you?
So, to just get right down to the point, where do you draw the line between acceptable ("towelhead") and unacceptable ("coon"?). Cause at the moment it just sounds like you're using double standards - when it's about Muslims you can say the kind of things that you wouldnt say about, say, blacks - or that you dont even appreciate people saying about whites ("redneck"?).
You should check your facts again, nimh. Redneck doesn't bother me in the least, except when people pretend to be so sensitive about slang terminology, but use redneck. It is a great example of the point I make.
If you say, well I would never say "nigger", but "towelhead" is OK, then its not the "PC" concept of avoiding words that insult or hurt people itself that you take issue with, but just where I draw the line in this case. Which begs the question where you draw it.
PC = not saying a word for the sole reason others tell you you shouldn't, and blindly buying the values someone else has plaved on words. (My definition--it could be wrong.) I don't say nigger because I have found it offensive since the mid-70's, and no one schooled me in that. It was based on nothing but MY FEELINGS. It is nothing more than an intentional mispronounciation of Negro, intended to demean a race of people. Towelhead rose up for no other reason that people wear large items on their heads, that resemble towels. It is slang. You may consider them equal, or not. I don't care. I consider it in the realm of redneck. They are both based on a silly, physical feature. And if you'll actually look, you'll see redneck doesn't bother me in the least.Lash wrote:Stop running around with a PC handbook in your back pocket.
I refuse to let some cabal in some penthouse misappropriate a perfectly cute insult.
Can anyone just tell you--"Hey, that's on the offensive list" and you just BUY it? Because, I'm going to make a new list, if you're such an easy mark.
Well, if you consider your crusade against PCers a valid excuse for knowingly using words that you already know do actually insult/offend/hurt large groups of people, for no reason other than that you consider it a right, then go right ahead I guess (just dont whine if people complain about it <shrugs>).
Show me whining.
Perhaps the guy posting earlier (forgot who) who said that it says more about the user than about the group described is right.
And your perpetual blind allegience to terms and outward affectations says a great deal about you.
It doesn't matter how you actually view a Muslim, or a black person, or how you treat them obviously---as long as you use the right terminology. <shrugs> Doesn't THAT bother you?
