Is the N-word necessarily racist?

[Santerme]

Y'man Wrote:

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> Looks like Santerme and Daize are the only two

> with their heads screwed on. Thanks all.

Ok, you cannot use my position in that way during a debate.

My approach to racists and racism is one of zero tolerance.

However, I also decry the stupidity of the PC crowd, who have reduced the argument to the absurd in many respects.

This debate should take place.

We risk much by disallowing viewpoints that do not conform to the expected norm.

I have carried with me from my days in Sandhurst a quote one of the lecturers gave out just before graduation.

"Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without fearing to understand things that clash with their own customs, privileges, or beliefs. This state of mind is not common, but it is essential for right thinking; where it is absent, discussion is apt to become worse than useless."

It is from Leo Tolstoy.

Over the years, I have deconflicted situations more often than I have been in combat, strangely enough, it is something the British Army is particularly good at.

To do it well you have to be able to debate dispassionately, take on board varying points of view whilst maintaining your core beliefs and principles.

I have no problem with my moral compass on this issue whatsoever.

[????]

Santerne - I respect your views and in no way think they are racist. I also think, I suspect like you, that one of the reasons for the rise of the BNP is a lack of willingness to engage in honest discussion about issues such as immigration, positive discrimination etc. I have on several occasions, including recently and fairly vocally defended posters against accusations of racism for having 'non-pc' views on this issue and as you eloquently posted recently Pc-ness has emasculated debate on these issues in the US for instance. However. Away from the issues of race/immigration/difference/racial politics etc which should all be able to be discussed in a grown up democracy, but on a terminology/semantic level, whatever you want to call it, I don't think I as a white person have much right to decide what phrases and terminology are and aren?t racist against black people. And, thankfully what was once seen a s perfectly acceptable is now largely rejected by decent thinking people, and to a degree that has been because of some the efforts of the 'PC lobby'

..although Y-Man sees it differently

[quote name=That was the first time I came up against this ridiculous, politically retarded mindset. It has only got worse since then.]

Personally I'm glad people don't black up for TV, the term wogs isn't seen as a perfectly acceptable and white people don't bandy around the word nigger without a care like they did in the 70s.

[????]

I'm not ashamed of my colour or being English Y-Man. Wipe that foamy spittle of your jacket and calm down.

[silverfox]

STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP

If objective non-EDF forum readers were to look in on posts like this they would rightly, I suspect, think what a load of parochical small-minded nonsense. This is all getting a bit ridiculous.

Y'man said he came back from Thailand in 1980 with, among other things, a tube of toothpaste named 'Darkie Boy', it's logo was a picture of a negro wearing a top hat.

Fact: this happened 29 years ago.

Response 2009? Shock, horror, disgust etc etc.

Basically people who were in nappies when the alleged crime was committed now have the audacity to rule whether what happened was okay or not, with a multitude of braying idiots agreeing. Given the puerile nature of the objectors such concepts of cultural relativism are beyond their wit.

To sum up, we now have a PC culture of 'it's wrong innit?'

If we're not careful such sloppy thought from the PC brigade will tell us there was no flowering of intellectual thought in Greece because its idea of democracy was based on slavery etc.

Get a grip people or don't bother posting. Are Daizie and Santerme the only rational people prepared to stand up and be counted against such ill-thought out objections?

[SeanMacGabhann]

You have managed to misrepresent every single point silverfox

Well done

[????]

It's nothing to do with what happened 29 years ago as anyone actually reading posts rather than pontificating would see

[silverfox]

SeanMacGabhann Wrote:

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> You have managed to misrepresent every single

> point silverfox

>

> Well done

No problem. Give me a shout if you get stuck on any other threads

[stereforth]

About five years ago I was having a quiet drink a local pub in Nunhead. A customer at the bar was leading off about people being able to come to this country and get housed by the local council etc. His main objection was that he, a single man, was living with his parents and not in his own home. He went on about "If I was a different colour" when the assistant manager (a woman half his size) stood up from a nearby table and asked him to drink up and leave. He asked if she was a "nigger lover". She then walked up to him, took the glass out of his hand and told him to get out. He complained about losing a pound's worth of beer. She took 10p from her pocket and threw it on the floor, saying "That's all you're worth for using that language in my pub".

I was, to say the least, impressed, and gave her a job when I had the chance.

[Milo]

Slightly off topic, but maybe not. I work in an office over by Liverpool st from time-to-time, it's a cool media company and the generally young workforce have an intercom system which plays music in every room from a mac with iTunes. Various people have playlists and a couple of the guys like hardcore hip-hop. So, these guys, who are white, are playing tunes with American rappers singing N-word this and N-word that and I'm gonna shoot you in the face N-word, etc etc. I was thinking the other day, is this racist? I wonder how the British black people who work there feel about it? It's a complex issue, and I disagree with the point made earlier that it's okay to use the word as long as you're black - our friend Chris Rock making a point about its complexity with his 'N-word versus Black folk' routine.

[silverfox]

Interesting point Milo.

Why don't you ask your black colleagues what they think about it and give us an accurate report back? Tell them there's a debate going on and we'd like their opinion. You might need to actually pronounce the word rather than speak to them in PC N-word code otherwise they mightn't have a clue what you're talking about. You mention your colleagues are 'British Black'. I wonder if you would get a different response from an America black person? I ask this not only because of cultural differences but also hip-hop has sub-cultural overtones. You might get a variety of responses.

I would be generally interested in an accurate report back. It could substantiate many of the views expressed here or it could expose many of the views here as knee-jerk white liberal reactions.

[Brendan]

Why do you care silverfox? Do you want leave to be able to use it? Well it?s not illegal so go ahead if you want but don?t be surprised if people take offence much in the same way as they would if you started shouting cunt at the top of your voice every five minutes.

Otherwise just recognise that it is a word with many racist connotations which offends many people and it is therefore just good manners to avoid using it.

[silverfox]

Perhaps that's why rappers use the word - to challenge prevailing norms as an act of rebellion

[Brendan]

Perhaps. Rappers have been using it now as a matter of course for over 20 years. For many reasons, to point a finger at other peoples? racism, to make a statement about their own marginalising, as a shock tactic, as a joke, to show a fraternity with other rappers, because it has become the norm, as an ironic term of endearment, because it offends, because it is controversial and sells records? and I?m sure for many other reasons. I think the reasons depend on the artist and are as diverse as hip-hop itself.

[SeanMacGabhann]

But are undoubtedly similar to the gay community reclaiming the word "queer" from the queer-bashers

[Keef]

Santerme & Quids, good stuff, I'm with you.

Y'Man = Troll

Silverfox = Worrying.