<p>In a harmless academic setting it just reflects the nature of these make-work social sciences. </p>
<p>When it escapes into the general pubic, this binomial nomenclature of cataloging and weighing offense and grievance like some sort of butterfly fancier is absolutely poisonous to society. The point of going through your day is not triumphantly claim how many microagressions your have logged in your spotting journal. </p>
<p>We should all be doing a lot more Whitesplain’ rather Offensetakin’. Maybe the person who cut you off is late for an appointment. Maybe the surly cashier had just been chewed out by the shift manager and their attitude has nothing to do with race.</p>
<p>So the cashier who made some nutso remark based on one’s race is excused? She makes some generalization about the groceries and that, oh, say, that Asian looking person is buying rice, haha hoho-? Blame social science? Blame people who are plain tired of it? Call them paranoid? What?</p>
<p>The one thing I do get from cobrat’s words is how tired people are of others’ expectations that they put up with whatever we want to dish out. That it is always their responsibility to see it from the other guy’s perspective, cut some slack, get on with it. Never ours to think.</p>
<p>What I find “poisonous” is the notion “I don’t see it, so it doesn’t exist.” followed by, “I didn’t mean it that way, what’s wrong with him?” That’s self-serving, self centered. There is a better way. But it requires some thought and examination- and wherever we need to be, we are far from it, as a society.</p>
<p>I find the notion that all one has do is claim racism based on speech alone and people have to bend over backwards to accommodate a whole bunch of people who claim to be offended by whatever someone uttered and have to issue apologies appalling.</p>
<p>I just did that to keepittoyourself on this thread. I really did not care that he/she said it because it is not that important to me but I am sure some bloviating soul out there would have found it racist on some Hindus’ behalf…</p>
As I posted before, the Chinese waiter who made a stupid remark about my children didn’t get any tip that night. But would I start “educating” a stupid cashier or waiter in public? No, why should I waste my time?</p>
<p>Don’t disagree, Tpg. But it doesn’t excuse the other extreme. Which might be: assuming whatever is uttered is just fine. In the middle, we develop sensitivities to others and try to reason into some fairer spot.</p>
<p>Exactly case in point: You have invented this double blind experiment out of whole cloth so you can indulge in outrage. </p>
<p>There is no point in going through life assuming the worst about peoples’ motivations and it is poisonous to society to do so. </p>
<p>You deal with a surly cashier. Big deal- that could just be her having a bad day- it doesnt prove anything about what all of her race think about all of your race. Oh wait she smiled at the person in line in front of you and they are of the same race! Case closed! You still dont know anything- maybe they are former coworkers or she knows the woman because they used to live across the street. You really know next to nothing about the situation and yet are ready to extrapolate it out to Proving a Great Deal about A Lot of People. </p>
<p>You are on a trip somewhere in another city and cars are cutting you off and glaring at you. Everyone in Boston is a terrible driver! And they are hateful! Or maybe you are on edge because you are in an unfamiliar setting with traffic patterns you arent used to. In your city you can drive on auto pilot and wouldnt have imputed any negative motive to other drivers- here they are acts of aggression because they know where you are from. </p>
<p>People are generally poor eyewitness even when dispassionately viewing events they arent involved in. When it comes to interpretations of things that effect them, objectivity goes out the window. </p>
<p>Knowing that we should take a charitable view of other people’s actions and not being looking to take offense at every possible provocation</p>
<p>You start out saying something ridiculous, and you end up misquoting me.</p>
<p>First, yes of course there are different levels of offensiveness. Take two races in North Carolina. The two words ‘n*gger’ and ‘cracker’ differ hugely in how offensive they are here. One is used by a group that enslaved and whipped the other for centuries, until very recently. The other isn’t. That makes a difference.</p>
<p>As for the misquote… no I don’t think that means anyone is entitled to call anyone a slur. That’s why I apologised for the word ‘Hindusplaining’ But I don’t think all offensiveness is on the same level, either.</p>
<p>Put it this way. Throwing the first punch is nearly always wrong. But there’s a difference between punching someone who has bullied you for years, and punching someone you used to bully.</p>
<p>Oh my goodness, emberjed, where did I ever say that? I am aware that discrimination against blacks in the US has been more severe than discrimination against Jews. Both, however, are examples of groups who have been discriminated against relative to a more powerful majority, so both were relevant for my purposes.</p>
<p>I don’t think you have to be a sociology professor - for the record, I’ve never even taken a sociology course - to understand that context should and does matter in these cases. In theory, there shouldn’t really be anything wrong with wearing blackface in a Halloween costume; if you can dress up to resemble another person, why shouldn’t you darken your skin as well? But blackface has particular and disturbing connotations in America that make it problematic even if it otherwise wouldn’t be. And while people also make blonde jokes and sometimes stereotype attractive blonde women as less attractive, I really, really don’t see wearing a blonde wig, for instance, as rising to that level. </p>
<p>I’m not talking about sociology right now. I’m talking about history. And if history doesn’t matter outside of the classroom, than maybe the humanities ARE dead.</p>
<p>Of course history matters, but what some people of one race did to your ancestors of another race, is completely irrelevant to how you should treat people today.</p>
<p>I agree and apologized for my insensitive remark. My apology was deleted. I seriously didn’t know that there really is still a group from a certain location referred to as rednecks. I thought it was a term for a white racist, not a description of a particular culture. This shows how what we say can be very hurtful to others, no matter what our “intention.”</p>
<p>I didnt quote you, keepiitto,so i couldn’t have misquoted you. But I still feel that trying to quantify “degrees” of offensiveness is ridiculous.</p>
<p>I don’t believe rednecks were considered to include racists until recently. It referred to poor uneducated whites at one time but people just decided to expand the definition.</p>
<p>Living in a college town as an International student 25 years ago, I preferred dealing with rednecks than the frat house boys near our apartment. The rednecks were well meaning ignorant people who asked innocent questions like whether our country was on the other side of Atlanta when we bumped into them at a bar while the frat boys threw foot balls at us with intent to hurt while we were walking by.</p>
<p>However, one’s understanding of it does change depending on which individuals/group originated the urban legend. </p>
<p>If it originated as a creation by a tiny minority of disgruntled* White Hawaiians to justify the coup of 1893 and continuing racism against native Hawaiians and other minorities according to every Hawaiian resident, including several White Hawaiians I’ve met IRL, then the contextual understanding would be very different than if it actually originated with the native-Hawaiians. </p>
<ul>
<li>Disgruntled at increasing minority/native representation in political, economic, and other areas of public life in Hawaii and increasing frequency of some native-Hawaiians protesting for Hawaiian independence from the US.</li>
</ul>
<p>“I don’t believe rednecks were considered to include racists until recently.”</p>
<p>They arent except by bigots. Jeff Foxworthy had a You Might be Redneck tour and it was based around be doing things shortsighted or substandard way. Nothing in the definition implies racism.</p>
<p>Did any of you see the movie “Beast of the Southern Wild?” To me, the white people depicted in that movie were rednecks, but they definitely weren’t racist.</p>
<p>Nope. Got that from everyone I knew who was born and who attended K-12 in Hawaii. Consequently, I defer to their authority on this matter. </p>
<p>It isn’t a statewide phenomenon/tradition in anything except the perpetuation of that urban myth itself according to their accounts…which is underscored by the local news report link in one of my previous posts. That is…unless you argue that native-Hawaiians control local newsmedia. A notion which’ll cause every Hawaiian resident I know to spit their drinks at the screen and ROTFLOL.</p>
<p>Comedy seems to get a “bye” when using parody. While there is often a fine line, the stuff that the creators of South Park, Mel Brooks, etc get away with would be considered “offensive” in any other venue. And the Jeff Foxworthy “redneck” stuff is very bland. His comedy is pretty much “G” rated. He has come a long way form being an IBM engineer with a degree from Ga Tech.</p>