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Originally Posted by RichardCoulter
My cognitive impairment causes me many problems, including thinking skills, so when you said i'd missed the point of what you were trying to say, I took another look at what you'd said in order to try and understand what you meant.
I honestly wasn't trying to put words in your mouth, I was just trying to understand what you actually wanted to convey to me.
I am against all types of discrimination, but don't think that glossing over certain words is always productive. You yourself were happy to use such terminology in another thread for various groups (apart from when using the N word phrase because you didn't think it appropriate) and I think I remember saying how curious this was at the time.
I think it really depends on the context; for someone to walk up to a black man and call him the aforementioned word would certainly be discriminatory, but in a discussion about historical events it serves no purpose to try and pretend otherwise (and for reasons I said earlier, I think it's counter productive).
If these unpleasant terms are glossed over (and not only the words associated with rsce or colour), people will forget about them over time and that's not good.
The new series of 'Roots' used the term, I presume to accurately explain how black people were spoken to. To not do so would be as bad as glossing over how Kunta Kinte was whipped for refusing to answer to the name Toby!
In the report by Ofcom about the complaint of a word said to be an acrynoym of the term 'Western Oriental Gentleman' in an old film, the word was cited- it had to be so that people knew what the complaint was about, even if seeing it in written form caused offence to some readers.
IMO it doesn't help when black people call each other by this term (I was in a bar some time ago and was taken aback when a group of young black men were calling each other the term). I was told by the landlord that it's fairly common for the young generation to refer to each other using this terminology and that they weren't actually saying the word I thought, but 'Nigga', though I don't know what the difference is supposed to be! I was told that it wouldn't be appropriate for someone outside their community to address them like this though.
It's the same with young gay people now who use the term 'queer'; they say that it gives them a sense of empowerment by reclaiming the word used to insult gay people in the past. This is why the acronyms LGBTQ+ is now used (the + being there to represent intersex, non binary, pansexual etc.) I'm not so sure that older gay men who were persecuted and routinely called this would agree though!
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As has been said above, context is all.
Here is something I posted before in another thread about two months ago, replying to you on the same subject, by a writer/columnist called Charles L. Blow, about how using words in context matter.
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MY father’s name is William Paul Coates. I, like my six brothers and sisters, have always addressed him as Dad. Strangers often call him Mr. Coates. His friends call him Paul. If a stranger or one of my father’s friends called him Dad, my father might have a conversation. When I was a child, relatives of my paternal grandmother would call my father Billy. Were I to ever call my father Billy, we would probably have a different conversation.
I have never called my father Billy. I understand, like most people, that words take on meaning within a context. It might be true that you refer to your spouse as Baby. But were I to take this as license to do the same, you would most likely protest. Right names depend on right relationships, a fact so basic to human speech that without it, human language might well collapse...
...A few summers ago one of my best friends invited me up to what he affectionately called his “white-trash cabin” in the Adirondacks. This was not how I described the outing to my family. Two of my Jewish acquaintances once joked that I’d “make a good Jew.” My retort was not, “Yeah, I certainly am good with money.” Gay men sometimes laughingly refer to one another as “******s.” My wife and her friends sometimes, when having a good time, will refer to one another with the word “bitch.” I am certain that should I decide to join in, I would invite the same hard conversation that would greet me, should I ever call my father Billy.
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As I also said, Regarding the N word and the usage of the word Queer, have you ever considered that it may be the people who were denigrated by the usage of the term(s) taking back the word, and empowering themselves by using it within their groups.
You said either a word is acceptable or it isn't, but that's a very simplistic view - you would never have been called the N word or Queer as an insult (or probably in any way) as you are neither, so who are you to tell someone who has had it used against them how they should use it - I know lots of Yorkshiremen who call each their Yorkshire friends "you tight barsteward", but if someone who they didn't know from London said it, they might take offence.
As I said, context is all, and like life, not black and white - ymmv.