The fact that an epithet is used by the military as shorthand doesn't make it OK, IMHO. I've never served, but I can well imagine some of the terms that have been used to describe the other side. How about "gook"? Is that one OK, too?
There are those who love to trash any talk of sensitivity toward other groups as being "politically correct." And, because being PC does sometimes lead people to absurd extremes, it's easy to make fun of.
But those who do make fun often really just want to return to the days when no one seemed to worry at all how they referred to other groups.
gosh cjhsa nigger is just another term for negro used as shorthand by slave owners and certain of today's senators, so what's the big deal?
I have an idea, when you go out tomorrow address every Japanese person you see as a Jap and every black person you see as a nigger.
Just PLEASE!!!!!! For the rest of us, get it on videotape.
Yes, BIPOLARBEAR I understood that you meant to malign Fox News by asserting a non-existing linkage to acts they neither took nor condoned, but thanks for stating it straight out.
Well scrat, I feel better now, but Bi-Polar is hyphenated.
There was never any doubt in my mind that you were sharp enough to get what I was doing, you old smoothie you. :wink:
No worries.
FWIW, I'm sure that with a little effort you could find some actual dirt to hold against Fox News, rather than just trying to tie them to other people's dirt. I can't speak for others, but I'd rather not have to wade through discussion topics with titles like these:
Fox News' SARS Epidemic Spreading in China
President Kennedy of Fox News Had Sex with Intern
Report Indicates Fox News Overfishing Seas
Fox News Causing Climate Change
Michael "Fox News" Peterson arraigned for Wife's Murder... :wink:
Dys, please explain how my reasoning is "bizarre". Besides, I just asked a question, and you all freaked out.
Let me ask another. Ever watch a John Wayne WWII film where they fought the Japs? Have they gone back and made the dialogue politically correct? I doubt it. "Hey cappin', who the heck are we fighting today anyway? What do they like to be called?"
cjhsa,
Despite your personal feelings about the weight of that word it is widely accepted as a racial epithet. It's not about "political correctness".
Craven and all,
I am not one to go around and sling racial insults at people. I was just trying to get a feel for what people thought of the term "Jap" as compared to some of the nasties that were subsequently mentioned. I personally wouldn't put them in the same category, but that is MO. Everyone is entitled to their own. As far as Ted Nugent calling himself a nigger, that's his O and I don't care to hear it.
My stance is the same no matter which side of the political spectrum you reside, as an entertainer, shut up and play.
Scrat don't you find it interesting though that for so many Fox News has become an icon for this ringwingnut kind of thinking and behavior?
Who do you think Fox News would more likely hire as the band for their Holiday party, Terrible Ted or the Dixie Chicks?
I used to find Ted's politics kind of entertaining when he seemed like the only entertainer in a sea of political dissent (or complete apathy). Now that the conservative tide seems to have swept through the gov't, I don't find him quite so amusing. But that's just me--I was never that great a fan of his music, anyow.
As for his playing at Fox News parties, I understand Britt Hume really likes to get down to Ted's music...
On the entire subject of epithets, although i understand what Snood has said, intent means a great deal as well. "Jap" was intended to be a pejorative by members of the World War II generation. While waiting in a doctor's office in 1968, i picked up a paperback entitled Tomorrow Has Been Cancelled Due to Lack of Interest, something which i would ordinarily have ignored, but there was nothing much else on offer. It was a book written by a middle-aged, middle class woman who had gone back to school. At the very beginning of the book, she spoke of going into the office of her English advisor, and seeing a Jap ! (The exclamation point was hers, as was considerable indignation.) I read on a few lines, largely from a suspension of disbelief. She went on to comment that she could not believe that a foreigner (to her, it was obvious that all "Japs" are foreigners) was an English advisor, and weren't these people our enemies in the last war? (No, lady, that was the North Koreans and the Chinese, you're thinking of the war before last.) I tossed the book aside, simply amazed that she had been amazed. As well, negligence matters, when a term has been established as a pejorative, but one uses it thoughtlessly. "Gook" comes from a GI corruption of Korean, and means simply the denizen of a certain region (Megook=American, Hangook=Korean . . . with the caveat that my Korean is very rusty). However, it was used as a pejorative by GI's in Korea, and to an even greater extent by GI's in Vietnam. If someone casually used it, without thinking, in the presence of someone of Vietnamese descent, it would wound them, regardless of the intent of the speaker.
Finally, these things can come up from the most unexpected sources. I was raised in a home in which racist language was never used, and it's use by children living there was quickly and surely punished. We didn't just grow up in an evironment in which racism was not aired, but one in which it was not tolerated. These were my grandparents, and as you might well imagine, i assumed that these values had been passed to their children. When i had orders to go overseas, I had a great deal on my mind, (such as getting home with my ass intact), so i was taken completely by surprise when my mother said to me, in a nervous, simpering manner: "Now don't come home with any little slant-eyed bride." I was only mildly offended, more than that, i was appalled and saddened.
Finally, i'd like to note that becuase of the history of a word or term, and it's common intent, it is simple courtesy and consideration to be careful. I'd call any Irish or Irish-American friend of mine Paddy, and it would mean nothing. Call me that, or one of said friends, and you'd be asking for trouble--the more so if you were English, since it would not be an unreasonable assumption that there was an intent to give great offense.
Ted Nugent is an idiot, and his music never did much for me in the first place (give me MC5). Whereas i understand Scrat's point about Fox News, Fox News bears the same relationship to journalism as Christian Science does to impirical research.
Ok, that should be enoug fodder for someone to flame me.
Bi-Polar Bear wrote:Who do you think Fox News would more likely hire as the band for their Holiday party, Terrible Ted or the Dixie Chicks?
Neither. They would hire the
Rock Bottom Remainders.
BTW, as far as I can tell from the news reports I've found, Ted used the "n" word in the context of stating that a black musician with whom he used to play told him that he played like a "n". If this is the case, isn't it a very different thing than Ted calling someone a "n" or using the "n" word to refer to a black person or black people?
It may have been ill-advised, but--if my understanding is correct--it does not sound to me like the ranting of a racist, but rather the poorly considered blathering of someone who likes to be outrageous.
Good turn of phrase, Boss, and very appropriate to a description of ol' Ted . . .
BP - did you know Fox news has a company store? As a loyal fan of the Murdoch empire. you can also make purchases from them. Now this is a real classy act.
http://shop.ecompanystore.com/foxnews/FOX_shop.asp
Wow, cool! I just ordered my Bill O'Reilly t-shirt. It's so stylish.
Let's see... Here's
CNN's "The Turner Store".
Then there's
Shop@MSNBC.
Oh, and the
New York Times' Company Store.
Need I continue, or can we all agree that most, if not all, major media outlets have merchandising departments, and that fact means nothing to anyone (unless you want something they sell).
