DebateGate
General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: domer on November 22, 2006, 09:39:40 PM
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Believing in redemption, I hope that Michael Richards and Mel Gibson, through the requisite amount of hard work and genuine emotion, can atone for their bigoted outbursts, perhaps drawing others with them in a crowning epiphany. Yet as to the "n-word" itself, I have mixed emotions. The first reservation is the integrity of discourse, its freedom, which a blanket ban on this type of expression would signal. Now, we have to distinguish between raw insult, especially raw, gratuitous insult, and constructive dialogue. I could see the "n-word" used not as a slur but as a "diagnosis," summarizing a type of behavior, still extant, which draws on the roots of oppression and the mangled psyches that resulted to come to a modern-day attitude of intransigent defiance married to a hostile aggressiveness. It would be like calling Tony Soprano a "guinea."
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I feel bad for the guy. He's got a lot inside. I hope he gets better.
I wonder if it's like feeling bad for a bonsai tree....it got stunted and twisted and grew that way.
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I think Michael will be just fine.
Comics often skewer sacred cows.
And perhaps with all the attendant talk of redemption and re-education and diagnosis of twisted roots based on what- who knows, perhaps he was doing just that.
He went off on a group of hecklers and in the heat of the moment used words he shouldn't have. To put him in the same league as a klanner is rediculous.
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<<Believing in redemption, I hope that Michael Richards and Mel Gibson, through the requisite amount of hard work and genuine emotion, can atone for their bigoted outbursts, perhaps drawing others with them in a crowning epiphany.>>
It's a nice thing to hope for. I hope Hitler in his last moments, crunching down on that cyanide tablet and pulling the trigger on his handgun, had some kind thoughts and bitter self-reproach for all the Jews and other "untermenschen" that he had dispatched to the next world. But how realistic is either one of our hopes? These are, after all, mature individuals, who have lived fairly full lives and know pretty much how they feel about most issues in life. They are what they are. Why would they change now?
<<Yet as to the "n-word" itself, I have mixed emotions. The first reservation is the integrity of discourse, its freedom, which a blanket ban on this type of expression would signal. >>
But there IS no "blanket ban" on the word. People are free to use it as much as they like. Just like they can say "ain't" and "youse guys." If they want to brand themselves as ignorant low-lifes, they are free to do so. And the rest of us are free to form our own opinons of them, based on what they say. This is NOT a freedom of speech issue.
<<Now, we have to distinguish between raw insult, especially raw, gratuitous insult, and constructive dialogue. I could see the "n-word" used not as a slur but as a "diagnosis," summarizing a type of behavior, still extant, which draws on the roots of oppression and the mangled psyches that resulted to come to a modern-day attitude of intransigent defiance married to a hostile aggressiveness. It would be like calling Tony Soprano a "guinea.">>
The problem with that theory is that the offensive word applies across the board to every member of the impugned group. If Tony Soprano is a "guinea," then so are Louis Prima and Leo Buscaglia. It's not a type of behaviour that's being targeted by the word, it's a whole race or nation of people. These kind of insults hurt a lot of people and make them feel looked down on, looked down on for something they can't help being, looked down on for being what they are. There's just no excuse for using them. If Richards wanted to discuss their conduct, I'm sure he's articulate enought to describe what it was about their particular conduct that pissed him off, even the racial aspects of it (maybe it was generated by resentment of past racial insults) without using a word that insults them and every other member of their race regardless of their individual conduct.
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But there IS no "blanket ban" on the word. People are free to use it as much as they like. Just like they can say "ain't" and "youse guys." If they want to brand themselves as ignorant low-lifes, they are free to do so. And the rest of us are free to form our own opinons of them, based on what they say. This is NOT a freedom of speech issue.
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Does it become a freedom of speach issue if he looses the lawsuit?
I mostly agree with you , having the freedom to say something really stupid is a precious American right , do we really want the stupid to be hidden from observation because their thoughts are censored?
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<<Does it become a freedom of speach issue if he looses the lawsuit?>>
The last I saw was afternoon TV when the guys' lawyer, Gloria Allred, was offering some kind of meeting with Richards, her clients, her and a retired judge. She said she wanted to avoid a lawsuit. She also said a lawsuit would be based on intimidation and incitement to attack.
So if there IS a lawsuit and they win on intimidation and/or incitement, there would have to be something more than the N-word involved. If he lost a lawsuit based purely on the use of the N-word without proof of intimidation or incitement (and from what I've seen of the original insult, it's hard to connect any of it to either intimidation or incitement) then, yeah, it WOULD be a freedom of speech issue.
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"then, yeah, it WOULD be a freedom of speech issue."
I agree, in the meantime it is an issue of socal acceptability , enforced by criticism .
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My take on Richards was that he took on the heckler.
When hecklers and their heckled engage, the tone is one of escalation. At the point of heckling, the heckler is in charge because he has stolen the show from the hecklee. He then has no choice but to take it back.
The heckle game is one of ping pong poison, and exaggeration is a huge component of humor.
He was to this point, as far as I can tell, doing his job with direction and deliberateness.
To tell a comedian, though, that he is flatly unfunny, is devastational to his core, a refutation of his very being. It is a grief made more grievous by the fact that comedians wear doubt like skin.
What is missing (to me, at least) was his performance up til the heckling started. If his delivery was sloppy and he was noninvested in his performance, and acted like he could care less, then the bro's have a point. This is what thrown tomatoes and heckling are for--giving a spirited response re the feeling one has when one spends big bucks and sees no return.
He used the word in a mocking way (though the initial utterance was key) trying, I think, to engage the audience to his side in besting the hecklers, offering in tone like a professor a-pacing, trying to turn on some heads in his class with stabbing stimulation, but this, his audience, already nervous that the brothers were acting out, and loudly, were quick to their absolute silence, spotted by a couple of gasps.
To be fair, white audiences have little choice in response to the use of the word nigger but with exaggerated gasps, especially when uttered by one of their own.
Tough for Richards on that point (racism is full of ricochets) as often happens when Whitey sidesteps from Whitey sidesteps from Whitey when THE word is raging in the air. It is always an 'you're-on-your-own' moment, when the chips are down, and the tone of the word itself now rings with a new timbre, rather than that heard amongst sniggling, giggling Whiteys, comfortably clatched in their common nonpigmentation.
The word nigger is an insult from white lips--white men are never addressed. This is why Blacks own the word.
And, just like when they invented vaudeville by aping spoiled belles after work, they choose to use the insult with complete straightface mockery--by using it with utmost affection to each other. This inside joke usually escapes Whitey, who plays it--playing it safe--innocently perplexed.
You either believe that he used the word because it slipped past his lips in a collapse of Sirs-like self betrayal, or he used it deliberately, repeating it often and loudly, to make a refuting point (strangely, for example, he punctuated the repeated nigger with "huh? huh?" as one does when is one if nudgingly demanding--"huh? how does that feel? huh? how does that feel?"
Could this be the truth of it? That he, brutalized to the marrow, was displaying the measure of his hurt by offering them same measure--the worst possible?
Everybody knows that when you really want to hurt a nigger, you call him a nigger.
Comedians often have a capacity for sudden degenerate exposures, and are prime movers in the world of self-destruction. For this alone I give him a pass. One remembers the recorded self-maulings, the piercing wailings by Shelley Berman. (Red Skelton? Red Skelton? I knew Red Skelton. And Shelley, you're no Red Skelton.)
And, to address all sides, the brothers were heckling and then, soon as the word came out, they changed tact, they seized and tolled the victim bell.
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Wow. Very insightful post, crane. Kinda changed MY perspective. Now I see it like Richards was just way in over his head, badly misjudged his actual environment and (if he even thought of it at the time) the wider environment as well. It makes more sense of a comment I saw elsewhere in this group or maybe on the web, that he was just an actor trynig to do stand-up. It was all just schtick to Richards, but it wasn't the right schtick.
This is reinforced by something I read in this morning's Toronto Star, that Richards said pretty much the same thing about the Jews in a previous club gig. This is something I've done myself and it IS funny. It's a bit like sitting in the principal's chair when the principal leaves the office - - a kind of liberating feeling that you've switched identities with the enemy and are now looking down on the miserable and powerless people that YOU used to be - - the exhilirating fantasy that you've traded UP, from the minority victim of the racial slur to the white-Christian-majority user of the slur. The humour is a little different for the minority recipient of the slur - - here it's the presumption of the guy who appropriates the WASP voice: who the f**k does this Jew think he is? Listen to him trying to act like he belongs at the TOP of the hierarchy. It's what makes a movie like "Trading Places" - - or any reversal-of-fortunes comedy - - funny.
But it's only funny when the person who delivers the insult and the person who receives it are members of the same minority group. I think maybe where Richards went wrong was that he misjudged where he fit into the perceptions of the blacks in his audience. He may have felt more kinship with them - - presumably as minorities, hipsters, non-racists, liberals, semi-Bohemians, non-conformists, etc. - - than they felt with him. To Richards, perhaps, both he and the black members of his audience were in the same "minority" boat and they could all laugh together at "Whitey's" bigotry. To the black members of his audience, Richards was still "Whitey."
So it's quite possible Richards is not a bigot at all, just a very, very inept stand-up comedian, who has an awful lot to learn about dealing with hecklers.
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Now this is what I like about haveing Yellow Crane and MT around , a really diffrent take on a thought provokeing subject.
Do Ya'll see any hope for Mike Richards to reattan what he has lost in this?
Does he have to understand the dynamic in order to be forgiven?
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The matter has complicated. Richards's apologies (on Letterman, to Sharpton) have been criticized, variously, as insincere and misdirected. He should have apologized to the actual targets of his venom, the wisdom goes. Yet, how do you track audience members, and how could you do it so soon with so much new "stuff" on your plate, like contemplating the end of your career. But, alas, the audience members, via appearances on TV, have found Richards. According to Gloria Allred, their lawyer who appeared with them, they have arranged (get this) for all concerned parties (and Allred) to assemble with a retired (California?) judge to discuss the incident and decide if and what a punishment should be. Allred bellows about "intentional infliction of emotional distress" (in a comedy club, one of life's rawer venues?!) and insults the rest of the audience by maintaining that Richards's remarks could have incited violence, with the hecklers and their group as the target.
If I were advising Richards, I'd say to forego that potential lynching, issue an open, written apology in a suitable newspaper to the folks he actually flailed at, and then get busy turning this piece of shit into a work of art. Among the themes he should strike, the ground he should cover, is not an Al Sharpton-style re-education camp, but rather a serious discussion of his personal dynamics and the issue of race, shining a light on human complexity (I, for one, think he's a good guy, but with obvious problems). He should also develop ideas about "evil" cohabitating with good in the same human being. Ideally, the examination would also branch out into a frank analysis of the heavy psychological burden (which, for normal folks, is just that: a burden, but not a sickness) blacks carry in this society. It is significant. Yet, attention would also have to be paid to how much, even to "sensitive folks like Richards was not, accommodation should be made for historical pain while we at the same time run a functioning society of discrete individuals, who, in the end analysis, must be treated as such (while, of course, respecting their affiliations).
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Oh please, spare me Gloria Allred.
I think you've mapped out a good road for him to take. I too think he's a good guy, full of some poisonous s**t and in need of healing. But he has to apologize to the people he hurt, because when he spewed, it burned those people. Like lava. A written apology is a good idea.
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If I were Michael Richards right now, I'd take three weeks off, hire the best PR firm I could find (get Jerry Seinfeld and anyone else who's got a stake in the ongoing Seinfeld residuals to pick up a fair share of the PR guy's ticket) and figure out what he wants to be doing for the next five, 6, 7 or 8 years. Plan A and Plan B. The PR guy can hold the fort while Kramer figures out his short-term future.
The Gloria Allred thing would be like volunteering to take a year-long vacation in hell. A circus and incidentally a HUGE gratuitous bonanza for Gloria Allred. Why?????
I don't know whether the apology should be bare-bones minimal necessary or whther some explanation needs to accompany it, but I'd let the PR guru figure that one out, maybe with focus groups. At this point, I'm leaning towards leaving out the explanation.
Richards' approach should be based on a deal-direct basis - - primarily from him to the guys he insulted, no middlemen involved - - no matter howthe message is delivered, large print media ads and/or talk shows or whatever Mr. PR figures is the best media delivery combo.
The apology should be public, to the guys directly insulted, to the audience at the club that night, to the club owners and management and "to anyone else who blah blah blah . . . " The emphasis should be primarily on the actual victims, the black guys in particular, that night's audience in general, and the owners, management and staff of the club. The subliminal message should be that it's NOT to Gloria Allred, Sharpton or anyone else, so that if a lawsuit DOES develop later, it looks like Richards apologized veryu decently and forthrightly at the very outset to the guys directly involved, but then they developed an entourage of hangers-on who just hope to get rich off it.
To some extent, Richards' "five-year plan" will dictate the form of the apology, but the PR guy's work starts on Day One when the client holes up. At that point, the message is that Richards is "just sick about it" and is taking some time off to . . . [the PR genius can figure out to what.] That Richards is not a racist should be an integral part of any message from the beginning.
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That Richards is not a racist should be an integral part of any message from the beginning.
Which, of course, means that he is a racist. Isn't that the way it works? If you deny that you're a racist, that is a sure sign that are one?
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<<Which, [denying that he's a racist] of course, means that he is a racist. Isn't that the way it works? If you deny that you're a racist, that is a sure sign that are one?>>
That denial = admission? That's how it could work with certain audiences. Part of the PR guy's function would be:
1. Analyze Richards' 5 to 8 year plan;
2. Figure out what audiences are important to the plan and in what order;
3. Check out for each audience whether denial = admission or not;
4. Strategize the media approach best suited to get each audience on board.
Of course the first job the PR guy would have to be is define the dimensions of the problem - - how big a problem does Richards have anyway? (Notice how we all assume this IS a problem for Richards - - do we know for a fact that none of this negative buzz actually could make his act a bigger draw than it was before? Maybe THAT'S where the focus groups oughtta start - - with club owners and talent booking agencies!)
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That denial = admission? That's how it could work with certain audiences.
Pretty sure you've used that logic before. Went something like "Austrians denying that they were Nazi sympathizers are sure to have been sympathizers, just because they denied it."
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http://www.cnn.com/video/partners/clickability/index.html?url=/video/showbiz/2006/11/21/anderson.intv.sinbad.richards.cnn
Sinbad, the comedian, was backstage at the time and he talks in an interview. Interesting.
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Thanks, Lanya. You're right, this was very interesting. Sinbad hit the nail on the head on every point.
The only problem was that the link informed me that I needed to download Windows media 11, which I did, and after I did, it did the same damned thing, but CNN poppud up beneath the message, but I could not access Sinbad's interview there.
So I googled Sinbad Michael Richards and it popped up on YouTube.
On the original Richards excerpt, there doesn't seem to be any heckling at all. Certainly nothing even remotely sufficient to bring out Richard's outburst. I still don't understand the "Upside down with a fork up your ass" bit. Although ,any unpleasant punishments have been inflicted on Black people in the US, inversion them and buggerment them with forks has never been a common practice.
All I can say about Richards is "WTF?"
He is a great comic, but this just doesn't fit in to the impression that he has projected, at least so far as I am concerned.
It seems that he is not so much a great original comic, but simply very good at getting the most out of some rather wacky material, such as the drugged out pharmacist on Fridays, Kramer and perhaps the hum men who hum hum between hum words, also on Fridays. Or was that him?
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I find Michael's "PR prescription" to embody a phoniness, a manipulativeness, a tawdriness and the moral bankruptcy that is antithetical to what this situation actually needs.
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I think he should just get on with it.... one for sure is that 'whitey' will not be happy until he throws himself on that proverbial fork.
He made a mistake and has apologized.
And for the record if a black person refers to themself or any other black person as a niger then all bets are off. It is a passive aggressive ploy to make whites uncomfortable period.
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And for the record if a black person refers to themself or any other black person as a niger then all bets are off. It is a passive aggressive ploy to make whites uncomfortable period.
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The use of the N word by Blacks is a pretty complicated thing.
I think you are right, that SOMETIMES if Black people refer to another Black person as a ni883r, the goal is to make said Whitey uncomfortable.
This is not always the case. An old girlfriend of mine, who is black, and who I chat with at least one per month on the phone, often says things like "the ni883r" just can't get it right" when talking about some less than brilliant brother who screwed up yet again.
Once I stayed in a faculty meeting after a it was over, grading papers. A couple of my Black colleagues, a coach and a sociology teacher were discussing the bb team and the coach said. after referring to the loss of the team due to a lack of a couple of players having missed practice, "you know how them lazy ni883ers are". Then he realized I was in the room and apologized to me: 'Sorry Dr. Onassis" he said.
"No problem", I said, not knowing how to respond to something that was in no way insulting to me.
The thing is that "ni883er" is what is called a taboo word. The rules for using it are unclear to pretty much everyone, ecxcept for one certain rule: White folks are NEVER to be permitted to use it in anger.
Black folks can use it in situations they feel comfortable with. The more "country" they are, the less a taboo word it is.
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The rules for using it are unclear to pretty much everyone, ecxcept for one certain rule: White folks are NEVER to be permitted to use it in anger.
Does that mean white folks can use it in casual converstion?
For example would the sentence " niggers don't like wetbacks, because wetbacks work" be appropriate?
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I don't see a problem with black people referring to themselves by the n word. That way, they own that word. They can use it any way they want--as an expression of fondness, or anything else. Other people called them that as an insult. They can use it however they want: They EARNED that right.
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They EARNED that right.
How so?
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while I appreciate that the word nigger is a complicated word (note that I am not afraid to spell it). I cannot fathom how anyone using the word has license. Just because I am white doesn't give me permission to speak disparagingly of another white person. There are so many wonderful and colorful ways of insulting, downgrading, and disrespecting a person that one has to wonder about the need to bring in ethnicity.
Lanya -
I think you are being very naive about 'the word.' We don't "own" words nor do they give us a pass so that someone else might not use that word on us. In fact, I will reiterate my original post and that is it is used to make whites feel uncomfortable and furthermore, even when being used among blacks, it is equivalent to slashing a razor across our thighs and saying it doesn't hurt. To wit, this very action will keep racial disparity alive and well in America.
Diane
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<<Pretty sure you've used that logic before. Went something like "Austrians denying that they were Nazi sympathizers are sure to have been sympathizers, just because they denied it.">>
Nope. Not me. You're probably thinking of something more along the lines of "Austrians denying that they were Nazi sympathizers are probably full of shit because the most of them were Nazi sympathizers and lots of them were even Nazi war criminals." Not my exact words, but much more in keeping with my exact thoughts than the bullshit you tried to put in my mouth. Nice try. Not.
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I think you are being very naive about 'the word.' We don't "own" words nor do they give us a pass so that someone else might not use that word on us. In fact, I will reiterate my original post and that is it is used to make whites feel uncomfortable and furthermore, even when being used among blacks, it is equivalent to slashing a razor across our thighs and saying it doesn't hurt. To wit, this very action will keep racial disparity alive and well in America.
Diane
I disagree. I contend that we do in fact own the words that others have used against us, and when we re-take those words and use them to each other, we rob the former "owners" of the power they had over us to hurt us with a word.
I am not sure whether its use among blacks has the effect you describe. From what I've heard from black people, it does not.
I have heard black people say it is used as a form of endearment, from one black person to another. So it does not make me uncomfortable.
I may very well be naive. Ah well.
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I contend that we do in fact own the words that others have used against us, and when we re-take those words and use them to each other, we rob the former "owners" of the power they had over us to hurt us with a word.
If the power to hurt has been negated by the retaking of the word, what is all the fuss about?
Why the demands for apologies and redress against the unbearable hurt caused by the word?
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<<If the power to hurt has been negated by the retaking of the word, what is all the fuss about?
<<Why the demands for apologies and redress against the unbearable hurt caused by the word?>>
I am shocked - - SHOCKED, I tell you - - to find traces of cynicism in BT's post. It's almost as if he were accusing someone of posturing.
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Not my exact words, but much more in keeping with my exact thoughts than the bullshit you tried to put in my mouth. Nice try. Not.
I don't have to put any bullshit in your mouth. There is plenty there already.
For instance, your assumption about Austrians.
Totally ignoring evidence to the contrary, such as the voting patterns for Anschluss in areas where German troops were stationed in comparison to areas where there were no German troops.
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<<Totally ignoring evidence to the contrary, such as the voting patterns for Anschluss in areas where German troops were stationed in comparison to areas where there were no German troops.>>
Proving what? That they were 90% pro-Hitler where no Nazi troops were stationed and 99% pro where there were Nazi troops?
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I think you are being very naive about 'the word.' We don't "own" words nor do they give us a pass so that someone else might not use that word on us. In fact, I will reiterate my original post and that is it is used to make whites feel uncomfortable and furthermore, even when being used among blacks, it is equivalent to slashing a razor across our thighs and saying it doesn't hurt. To wit, this very action will keep racial disparity alive and well in America.
Diane
I disagree. I contend that we do in fact own the words that others have used against us, and when we re-take those words and use them to each other, we rob the former "owners" of the power they had over us to hurt us with a word.
I am not sure whether its use among blacks has the effect you describe. From what I've heard from black people, it does not.
I have heard black people say it is used as a form of endearment, from one black person to another. So it does not make me uncomfortable.
I may very well be naive. Ah well.
again, you don't own the word and as much as you may chant that you do, I guarantee that the 'word' can and will be used to 'hurt' you by the very means of the emotional attachment to said 'word.'
and regarding 'form of endearment' (excuse me while I pick myself up from a true belly laugh). So here we go... I like you, Lanya... always have. That said, if I call you a stupid nit witted honky that can't think herself out of a paper bag... would you take it as a 'term of endearment?' I think not.
That said, I do not think you are a stupid nit witted honky.
Diane
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Proving what? That they were 90% pro-Hitler where no Nazi troops were stationed and 99% pro where there were Nazi troops?
Actually, they were >90% against Hitler in areas where there were no troops stationed, and the claimed vote was >80% pro Hitler in areas where troops were stationed. Hitler didn't send in troops until he figured out that Austria was going to vote against him, then he wanted to make sure the vote went his way by using the Wehrmacht.
Of course, now you'll say something like German troops only went where they were welcome, right?
And totally ignore the reports of the Wehrmacht interfereing with the votes in the areas they held. Because, of course, it's obvious the Austrians were all racists. I'm sorry, mostly racists.
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I agree with Lanya. White people don't own the n word, and it is foolish for them to use it in any way. It won't bring a laugh, it won't make them appear to be sophisticated or cool or smaqrt or hip in any way, manner, shape or form.
I don't know whether Black people own the word or not, but I am not going to come down on them for using it in any way. If some Black person dislikes the way another Black person uses the word, let him/her say so and explain why. I will listen and duly note the discussion, but nothing is to be gained by my opinion, so I won't volunteer. There are questions that no one should be obliged to answer. One is when a woman asks "Do these pants make me look fat?" and another would involve the appropriate use of the n word by a Black person. The question of how a White person should use it is beyond simple. Don't use it. No good will come of using it, ever.
I am not offended by anyone using the n word. I am not offended by the words honky, cracker, or whitey.
About insults I only say the following:
I be rubber, you be glue: bounce off me, stick to you.
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<<I find Michael's "PR prescription" to embody a phoniness, a manipulativeness, a tawdriness and the moral bankruptcy that is antithetical to what this situation actually needs.>>
Sorry, domer, but in this case the stakes happen to be a lot more closely related to the sales of boxed DVD sets than they are to healing the racial divide. After all, really, who is Michael Richards? What we are really talking about is Cosmo Kramer. Most people instinctively understand that.
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I agree with Lanya. White people don't own the n word, and it is foolish for them to use it in any way. It won't bring a laugh, it won't make them appear to be sophisticated or cool or smaqrt or hip in any way, manner, shape or form.
I don't know whether Black people own the word or not, but I am not going to come down on them for using it in any way. If some Black person dislikes the way another Black person uses the word, let him/her say so and explain why. I will listen and duly note the discussion, but nothing is to be gained by my opinion, so I won't volunteer. There are questions that no one should be obliged to answer. One is when a woman asks "Do these pants make me look fat?" and another would involve the appropriate use of the n word by a Black person. The question of how a White person should use it is beyond simple. Don't use it. No good will come of using it, ever.
I am not offended by anyone using the n word. I am not offended by the words honky, cracker, or whitey.
About insults I only say the following:
I be rubber, you be glue: bounce off me, stick to you.
I am confused.... I didn't say white people owned the word, 'nigger.' I said it was ridiculous that anyone thinks they 'own' words.
And clearly I am not offended by 'words' just stupidity. One thing I have noticed with humankind... they are oft too quick to just go along. The same folk that are now morally offended would probably sit still like meek little lambs should they be in the presence of someone using those powerful ugly words.
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Diane,
I am repeating what I've heard from black people, what I've seen written by black people. I don't think it's a good idea myself, and I won't use the word.
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an interesting aside (in my opinion). I am an avid 'Survivor' fan and this years premise was based on 4 groups of 5 divided by ethnicity. All but one white remain... two whites mutinied ( one of which verbalized about getting to the other team and forming an alliance with the other two remaining whites). The only white voted off was a ditz with a strange hair-do consisting of dread locks and rubber bands.
Last episode the 4 none-white people that were abandoned by the two whites in the mutiny chose to garner the support of the white male mutineer (clearly someone that is not trustworthy and has done little to win team challenges) rather than a healthy young black man.
So is it the mindset of none whites to garner the acceptance of whites by making decisions that show support of the whites no matter their behavior... or was it a move that said 'we can use this man now and know that he will not be a challenge later?' As it stands we now have four Caucasian, one Afro-American, and two Asians and a Latino. My guess is that if one of the none whites win the next immunity challenge that they will absolutely stick together and vote off a white. I am hoping that it is Candace the female mutineer (because she is clearly the strongest).
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. . . it is used to make whites feel uncomfortable and furthermore, even when being used among blacks, it is equivalent to slashing a razor across our thighs and saying it doesn't hurt.
Diane
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So, actually, when Blacks use the word 'nigger' amoung themselves, it is us, the Whites, who are the real victims?
Guess the Blacks are too dumb to pick up on that.
Boy, are the niggers stupid, not to consider "our" feelings.
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actually, I don't judge people on their color. It is more a one on one.
I still disagree that using a negative word on a friend is NOT a positive thing.... but then many think I am a stupid evil cunt.
but then who really gives a shit in the grand scheme of things
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I am confused.... I didn't say white people owned the word, 'nigger.' I said it was ridiculous that anyone thinks they 'own' words.
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If you feel that Blacks do not own the word, go out amoungst them and use it freely.
If you want to start an auntomatic collective response, a riot, or whatever reference you may want to employ, in any of the larger cities in the nation, conscript several volunteers to use it in a collective campaign, freely, directly, and often, and see the consequences. Its very utterance will stop the room, whatever the room.
First, the White man coined it and used it, and since it was always directed at Blacks from White lips and not reciprocally from Blacks about Whites, it means that the White man owned it. In a total market control, the word can be construed as being 'owned,' or having''ownership.'
Blacks own the word now because they confiscated it, and employ it now in ironic reversal, and are universally trigger-quick to enforce penalties against any Whites who use it.
It has become, to the Blacks, a mutually if tacitly agreed upon toe in the sand against racism. Itr is the very demarkation of the boundaries that they have set up and cannot be crossed (without penalty.) In the miasmic muddle of American racism, it is a clear and precise entity.
Its use is carefully monitored, and most Whites use it--outside of the pure hate aspect of trash Whites, its place of origin--with trepidation and wise consideration, and at risk of retalitory peril to themselves.
This 'ownership' is understood mutually and commonly amoung Blacks, and in large measure, they have successfully enlightened Whites as to its permissability of use and its consequences, should it be used in the same condescending text in which it was created.
We have been inculcated in this nation to accept the word to signify the worst of what the Blacks represent; it has become standard metaphor in our minds to use the word when denigrating them. If a nigger is lynched, it is the last word from the Whites that he hears.
In Richards' case, he chose the one word he knew would hurt the most.
He did so at his own risk.
And, as you can see, he is paying for it.
Mere utterance of the word, by a White, can be a career-ender, but Blacks, up and down the line, may utter it freely, without consequence, from Blacks or Whites.
Its power is almost without equal in terms of sheer power potential, and that power in the hands of the Blacks, not the Whites.
And, again, I love the irony of its origin and its final, to date, evolution.
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First, the White man coined it and used it, and since it was always directed at Blacks from White lips and not reciprocally from Blacks about Whites, it means that the White man owned it. In a total market control, the word can be construed as being 'owned,' or having''ownership.'
Blacks own the word now because they confiscated it, and employ it now in ironic reversal, and are universally trigger-quick to enforce penalties against any Whites who use it.
So do we have a copyright infringement case or what?
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If you think it--the word's use--should be legislated, as you suggest, how would you calculate the fall out?
Legislation usually starts at a collective troublesomeness, so who would be protected by such legislation?
Make the Whites happy over night, not that they have lost the right to use it with impunity, but because any repercussions will be elimanted because only the deputy could enforce the consequences of its use. And we all know about niggers, deputies, and enforcement.
But the Blacks might experience that same helpless feeling that they have often felt when the White man steps forward in patron manner and announces another "I am the (final) deceider!"
BTW, I am not surprised at this; it follows that those who think racism can be "handled" in the think tank genre consequencially think that, by eliminating the word in legal terms, they have eliminated racism along with it. This is, I believe, the salient principle presumed by those who work feverously, if unsuccessfully, to have it 'eliminated' or, and has been demonstrated in many denial-based opinions here, at least 'neutralized.'
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but then who really gives a shit in the grand scheme of things
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Well, the energy and volume of your posts on this issue seems to suggest otherwise, but hey, who am I am argue.
I don't think I have gotten personal, newbie, so don't take it personally.
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But the Blacks might experience that same helpless feeling that they have often felt when the White man steps forward in patron manner and announces another "I am the (final) deceider!"
Is Affirmative Action the white man patronizing and announcing they are the final decider?
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Regardless of who owns what words under what circumstances, racism remains a twin-headed monster in American society. From the standpoint of blacks, the problem is both internal and external. It is internal roughly in the sense brought to the fore by Bill Cosby's highlighting and condemning black maladaptations to life in America, sometimes stark and gross and almost always self-defeating. There is every reason for blacks, as a group, to be psychologically mangled by the horrid gauntlet they've had to endure in their forced home. That is not the surprise. The remarkable element is the ability of "so many" (the "talented tenth" and beyond) to make a positive way in America despite what are truly handicapping conditions. In the end result, irreducibly, there is no substitute for the hard work and the salutary life life that many blacks, through dint of will and grace of God, have been able to embrace. In other words, it takes effort and devotion to the right principles, as Cosby inveighs, for blacks to make it in America.
Then there is the external consideration: the relative hostility or supportiveness of the general and specific milieus in which a given black may live. In realistic terms (which I won't now develop), the external situation for blacks, while marginally improving, are not robustly conducive to black advancement. Remember, we havee to talk about the whole problem, not just the strides the black achievers have made. My personal thesis is that blacks have a terrible burden in America, both internally generated (see the first paragraph) and externally generated (read American history) such that, unlike all other groups, blacks are "psychologically burdened" in a unique, debilitating way by the very history they have lived and the very environment that surrounds them. These injuries, under ideal circumstances (as in a church community or other supportive circumstances), would require "tending" in very caring, very human ways: taking the time, the effort, and the moral and emotional tones that allow life to thrive in our families, for example. The trouble is, for the bulk of our social life together, society is not arranged for this. (Whether it could be and still get the "job of a society" done is another issue.)
Thus, we return to the "Cosby theme" struck in the first paragraph: the emphasis on self-reliance. As we all know, a successful life is a salutary blend of both aspects: self-reliance and nurturance.
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What is the point, if such point is a line in the proverbial sand, to use the word 'nigger' in a closed forum, IE all black? They would not need to mark this point among themselves.
Crane, in one post you pose that the word is/has been hurtful and in another that it is a power tool
"Mere utterance of the word, by a White, can be a career-ender, but Blacks, up and down the line, may utter it freely, without consequence, from Blacks or Whites. "
"So, actually, when Blacks use the word 'nigger' among themselves, it is us, the Whites, who are the real victims?
Guess the Blacks are too dumb to pick up on that.
Boy, are the niggers stupid, not to consider "our" feelings."
It is my feeling that no matter what the abuse a person might suffer and even though they may go on and replicate that abuse... they will not emote a healthy mental state from it. Hence I will stick with the fact that it is not a term of endearment.
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http://www.cnn.com/video/partners/clickability/index.html?url=/video/showbiz/2006/11/21/anderson.intv.sinbad.richards.cnn
Sinbad, the comedian, was backstage at the time and he talks in an interview. Interesting.
Sinbad souds perceptive and intellegent here, I don't really know the comedy game but I can twig the explanation given here.
I really would like to see Don Rickles take on the issue , Don Rickles somehow makes real insults into unreal and funny insults , and I perceve it without understanding it.
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I really would like to see Don Rickles take on the issue , Don Rickles somehow makes real insults into unreal and funny insults , and I perceve it without understanding it.
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Good point, Plane.
Do you think Don Rickles ever used insults on stage and have them fall flat, instead of being found funny?
Do you think he should have stopped and never tried again, at that point, if he did?
Do you think he paved good roads in addressing difficult things in our society with humor, exaggerating the negative in order to expose them to a freshness, provided through the audience's laughter, which provided a new, fresh perspective, in spite of their old baggage?
Do you think that Michael Richards, in using the word nigger on stage, has different parameters in its use that, say, when on the street?
Do you think that his previous use of inflammatory invective regarding Jews on stage furthur indicts him now, or helps to explain his daring?
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I have been sitting here thinking about a challenge presented to me...
That I walk into a room full of blacks and start calling them 'niggers'...of course in an endearing way. That the result of such would be my demise... a race riot and so on.
Now I do have friends in all walks of life and while I think that I could jokingly call them names, I just could not bring myself to remind them of all the hurt that the word carries.
That said... I wonder why it is perfectly 'ok' for black comedians to call whites honkys...
of course, I would not recommend a single black to stand in the middle of a room full of whites and call them honkys even endearlingly.
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"...those who think racism can be "handled" in the think tank genre ..."
I like this point .
The evolution of language happens a lot faster on the street than in academe.
Can we infer that the changes that this word has gone through are still ongoing?
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Inept is inartful is offensive in this context. I don't know the "brand" of Richards's humor, but his outburst was not a contemplated part of a schtick. It was a desperate flailing to maintain (self-) respect, issued in crass, offensive terms to an opponent he needed very much to belittle. And he tried to do that in a socially, historically and morally degenerate way. His comments were outrageous. He fucked up, big time. It's best to admit that fact and go on from there, rather than trying to tweak his performance for a nobility it just doesn't have, and starkly not.
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I really would like to see Don Rickles take on the issue , Don Rickles somehow makes real insults into unreal and funny insults , and I perceve it without understanding it.
Good point, Plane.
Do you think Don Rickles ever used insults on stage and have them fall flat, instead of being found funny?
>>Don Rickles is pretty old and very experienced , he also strikes me as intelligent , I can imagine that in his early carreer he had such a learning experience but I have seen his act on film several times and he succeeded every time I saw , even when he was feigning fear of an ethnic steriotype.<<
Do you think he should have stopped and never tried again, at that point, if he did?
>> I might , if it were me , but I am in a milleu that didn't exist when Don Rickles started doing comedy.<<
Do you think he paved good roads in addressing difficult things in our society with humor, exaggerating the negative in order to expose them to a freshness, provided through the audience's laughter, which provided a new, fresh perspective, in spite of their old baggage?
>> No ,I thought he was a good example of some older tradition of humor which has lots of less tolerable examples. Vaudaville included some humor too rough for a modern pallete and some of the Jokes told by Abraham Lincon seem insensitive to modern ears.<<
Do you think that Michael Richards, in using the word nigger on stage, has different parameters in its use that, say, when on the street?
>> Yes , but I don't feel qualified to expound on the subject deeply because I have so little experience as a performer. As a consumor of entertainment product I feel prepared to allow a performer some lattitude to explore that I do not allow for myself in day to day courtesy<<
Do you think that his previous use of inflammatory invective regarding Jews on stage furthur indicts him now, or helps to explain his daring?
>>I didn't know about that, was he enraged on that occasion?
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What you call "tweaking" in your locked-cog mentation I would refer to as evaluation of occurance and circumstance, and how politicians would suffer (and reasonably so, given the potential tangentials of the transgression) far stronger consequences than might a comic.
Also, I would suggest that your kneejerk absolutism, your granite demanding is other than just lack of tweak.
No, he fucked up big time. I agree.
He had an Archie Bunker moment. (Do you think Archie Bunken helped or hurt the cause?)
He was on stage, the word was not part of his act, but was a failed attempt to counter heckling.
He would not have responded the same way to the same heckling on the street, however.
Your total, wall-ringing condemnation, though, surprises me, in that that is the usual recourse of those who are insecure enough to feel that, the louder and more absolute you towncry your blanket condemnation, the more you think you you redeem yourself with Blacks. It could be called, all things considered, a cheap trick pony, or at least easy opportunism in a difficult issue.
Had you had been there, I know you would have gasped the loudest.
Do you turn in your coupons with your friends forever, if and when the terrible bi-syllable slips beyond their lips?
And the last time you used the word in anger (please be real here, and spare the denial none would believe, anyhow), did you resign yourself to the terrible truth that, according to your OWN logic, it forever labelled you, stained you irreversibly, a predjudiced, bigotted racist?
While he fucked up, I still grant a pass, since it did happen in his work. On the street, I would not. As you know, you cannot tweat shit like this on the street.
The most dangerous outcome, imho, is that comedians everywhere would suffer via an intangible but nonetheless very real sense of censorship.
We need more risks taken from comedians, not less.
Course, bred-to-the-bone nannies, having far simplertools to work with, would see that otherwise.
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I am an avid 'Survivor' fan and this years premise was based on 4 groups of 5 divided by ethnicity. All but one white remain... two whites mutinied ( one of which verbalized about getting to the other team and forming an alliance with the other two remaining whites). The only white voted off was a ditz with a strange hair-do consisting of dread locks and rubber bands.
You a survivor fiend as well, Diane? 8)
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Crane, more verbal diarrhea, without the nutrients. You're a pathetic excuse for a psychologist, of all things.
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Crane, more verbal diarrhea, without the nutrients. You're a pathetic excuse for a psychologist, of all things.
You may be right.
I know you hope you are.
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What is the point, if such point is a line in the proverbial sand, to use the word 'nigger' in a closed forum, IE all black? They would not need to mark this point among themselves.
Is the implacation of any word demeaning?
Could you precede the word with a modifier like "merely"a?
Is the context and the tone more important than the mere syllabals?
When the intent to to wound , shock , cause fear or anger what sort of words are chosen?
There are a lot of euphmisims that are shorthand for "I despise".
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" It is internal roughly in the sense brought to the fore by Bill Cosby's highlighting and condemning black maladaptations to life in America, sometimes stark and gross and almost always self-defeating."
What is the ideal that Bill Cosby represents or asks for?
Is it adaptation to the circumstances that leads to success with success as a reasonable goal and excellence as a means.
Or is it a surrender to circumstance constructed , connived , to benefit caucasions?
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You a survivor fiend as well, Diane? 8)
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absolutely...
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Is the implication of any word demeaning?
Could you precede the word with a modifier like "merely"a?
Is the context and the tone more important than the mere syllabals?
When the intent to to wound , shock , cause fear or anger what sort of words are chosen?
There are a lot of euphmisims that are shorthand for "I despise".
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in my opinion we have made much ado about words. I would say that for the first question ... yes and no
The second... no ( merely is a chicken shit word)
The third... picture standing behind your children while they are unaware... often we are surprised about how stupid we sound when hearing it out of our children's mouths.
Four... this a a painful one for me because I try not to say things that I cannot unsay when put in a position of pain.
and lastly, this is true and yet they all seem to desensitize how horrible that word is.
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"nigger" is nothing more than a Southern dialectical form of the word "Negro" and in Mark Twain's time was understood as such and was not in any way insulting or demeaning. The character Nigger Jim was the wisest and most logical character in Twain's novel Huckleberry Finn, but now illiterates who have never read the novel would want everyone to believe that Twain was a racist (which, unlike nearly every White man in his era he most certainly was not) and to ban his book.
Huckleberry Finn was the most famous novel of its time that protrayed a Black man as something other than a savage beast or a childlike victim, and did a lot to create better racial understanding in a period when it was largely unknown./
The turning of the word into a taboo is simply an ignorant understanding of American history, but it is nonetheless a fact, and any sane White person would simply refuse to use it in any accusatory way simply to avoid the barrage of nonsense that will invariably be flung in his direction should he use it. You may have a right to rollerskate in the proverbial buffalo herd, and White folks may have the right to use the "n-word", but both actiuvities are both futile and unwise in the extreme.
It cannot be libelous in any legal sense to call anyone by the word or any other unpleasant ethinc slur words, and this is why the supposedly offended members of the audience Richard offended and their opportunistic lawyer (all enjoying their 15 minutes of fame) want to get Richards to agree to be judged out of court by some retired judge, because everyone recognizes that there is no legal case here whatever.
Richards deserves not to get any gigs until he becomes a lot funnier. The "victims" of his tirade deserve a refund of their ticket price and perhaps tickets to a truly funny show at most.
Far too many words have been wasted on this topic already.