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Racist terminology that is not (or is it really?) racist

Char Aina

02:39 / 09.05.03

test pattern said this:

I'm sorry, but that's exactly same same logic used by some people when it comes to the word "nigger." "There's black people, and then there's niggers" is an argument that I have heard I don't know how many times.

and he made me think of the planet-shaking arrival of chris rock on the world stage.

you may be familiar with the show i am referring to.

the joke that got him most noticed, and which i was reminded of, is his attack on those members of the black community whom he watches for when alone at night in public.

is chris 'allowed' to use the word nigger to describe the black people he fears?
if so, why?
if not, why not?

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

03:23 / 09.05.03

I think Chris Rock gets a pass for his use of that bit because (and this is how I decide) it was funny. Humor allows a LOT of taboo things to be said.

Too bad about that bit becoming the favorite of rqacist scumbags who feel the need to quote it constantly without understanding the subtext of Rock's use of the word to get at the use of language like George Carlin did with his "7 words you can't say on TV" bit.

Char Aina

03:44 / 09.05.03

and perhaps i should have added, if he can say nigger, can i say white trash?

(yes, thats right, i'm white.)

Saint Keggers

04:19 / 09.05.03

If a black person lives in a trailer is he black trash? One term (nigger)when used by white people is automatically associated with the way it was used for centuries but when its used by black people (more specificly Chris Rock) its used as derogatory term not of the race in general but of the person in specific. A caucasian wouldn't use the term white trash to mean the whole causcasian race but rather would use it the same way C.R. uses nigger in a more social/economic determinate.

ONLY NICE THINGS

09:47 / 09.05.03

Quoting myself, elsewhere,

Also interesting is the term "white trash". If I recall correctly, it was first applied to white agricultural labourers, the point being that they were trash because they were, although white, doing the work generally handled by slaves. As such, the term is a bit more complex in terms of racial and historical dialogues than the assumption of its acceptability above suggests. "White trash" has at its root the idea of somebody behaving like a "lesser" race, just as "pikey" does.

Jack Fear

15:05 / 09.05.03

"Nigger," in Chris Rock's mouth, is not a racist epithet.

It is, however, a classist epithet.

Next time you listen to the "blacks vs. niggers" routine, try mentally substituting "poor people" for "niggers." Then tell if you still think it's so funny.

Char Aina

15:26 / 09.05.03

now thats a good point.

i have often heard argumants against 'white trash' et al on the grounds that ANY racial slurs are wrong, no matter who is saying them.
i have also heard it said that 'white trash' specifically is a classist word, but i hadnt carried the thinking across.

usually when defending such words, folks reach for the Redifinition Tool, and explain how the group they are describing is not a social group, but those members of that group who act in a reprehensible maner.

Char Aina

15:29 / 09.05.03

jack;
i would say that chris rock would be funny saying almosty anything, as his skill lies like most comics in the delivery.
i take your point though.

w1rebaby

16:18 / 09.05.03

"White trash" always struck me as being like "white slavery" - imagine! White people, slaves! That's barbaric and against nature.

ONLY NICE THINGS

16:28 / 09.05.03

More that they were doing the work of slaves, despite being white...

w1rebaby

16:32 / 09.05.03

That's what I mean, "despite" as opposed to just "and".

Linus Dunce

18:23 / 09.05.03

Of course, they weren't manhandled from Europe and forced to work, but there were many indentured servants. And a poor farmer up to his/her eyes in debt and paid only in truck was effectively mastered by another.

Regrettable Juvenilia

10:43 / 12.05.03

I've no evidence for this, but I always took the Chris Rock "black folk/niggers" routine to be a piss-take of the way in which people *do* justify racism (or any other kind of bigotry) by dividing the focus of their prejudice into two groups - the ones who are "okay", and the ones for whom all stereotypes and the usual denigrating epithets hold true. I find it hard to believe that Rock is dumb enough to buy into that mentality himself, although I could be giving him too much credit - it seems to have been widely interpreted as the thing itself rather than a satire of the same...

Leap

11:14 / 12.05.03

Ignatius –

Of course, they weren't manhandled from Europe and forced to work, but there were many indentured servants. And a poor farmer up to his/her eyes in debt and paid only in truck was effectively mastered by another.

Most folks know that at the bottom of the Statue of Liberty is:

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me

Most people forget the smallprint:

Because they alone will be desperate enough to not only pay their own passage, but to work for next to nothing in our mills and factories (often processing the raw materials that come from the slave supported south that we hold to be immoral whilst we rest our fortunes upon those slave owners and their chattel), whilst living in disease ridden slums