DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... Why aren’t we calling the Oregon occupiers ‘terrorists?’

Well said Comrade!

DADGUM REVINOORS!!!!

While I agree with the premise, I find the use of the term "redneck" in a demeaning manner to be quite interesting.

As do I.
It is ok, because they are white and standing up for their Constitutional Rights.

MAH RIGHTS!!! They took our jobs!!!

I am hoping this is the south park reference. If you never seen the clip go to youtube and search southpark took our jobs

Glad somebody got it

Really, how so?

Let me add to my rhetoric.....Rednecks that turned out to be a bunch of wussies and turned tail.

Well, you used it in a derogatory manner. Why is it you can do that?

But, as to the rest of your post, would you feel better if they had a shoot out?

Equating "rednecks" to any other deragatory racial term, especially those which have been used to murder and violently opress others, is a bit of a reach Mr. Awesome.

I get your concern, truly. Just don't try and equate the term redneck to something much more serious, Arch.

Got it.

But it's okay for others to use the word I can't type? See, I don't understand that line of thinking. If the term we can't use is so serious, why is it used by blacks?

Enlighten me.

(appreciate the dig on me, also)

Come on Spiral...using your own words...armed to the teeth...if they was wanting to truly pick a gun fight..they had what they needed to do it.

They saw no one else in America was behind their cause and they folded and went out without as much as a wimper.

It was all for show..if it wasnt..there would be a bunch of dead people by now.

You already know the answer to that Arch.

Since when did tednecks become anything remotely similar to the n word?

You guys must be really bored.

Why can't you type it? Every letter in the word showed up in your post, so we know your keyboard isn't broken

I didnt equate no such thing...just said Arch already knows the answer..was I wrong about that?

I will say this now that you got me thinking about it...Ive been called a redneck more then once in a disagreement with some black folks in Virginia...followed up with saltine and peckerwood...so I dont think the redneck thing was said to me in terms of endearment.

But I absolutely at the moment wasnt equating the 2 Swish.

Here's how I see it after years of experience of being called a Racist on these Boards...

It is no different if on my way to see hockey in DC I found the roads blocked and traffic tied up for miles because BLM was blocking those streets, protesting for their Constitutional Rights and I posted...
No one cares about of bunch of.....(use any word you want)

And Arch follows up with a picture of the maid from the Tom and Jerry cartoon shouting "Thomas, is you is or is you ain't gonna catch that mouse?"

Arch and I would be crucified on here.

All I ask is you think about it.

Yup, keyboard isn't broke.

I think my point stands. The N word is derogatory. If used by whites. When black people say it, it's just fine.

Redneck (dang, I can type that one) is derogatory as well, but, apparently not as derogatory as the n word. Of course, the n word spoken by blacks isn't derogatory if it ends with "a", and not "r".

What I don't get is, if it's such an offensive word, why do blacks use it, regardless of what letter it ends in? And, why do they feel it's all ok to call others rednecks? Or crackers?

I don't get it. It's like "you can't say this word at all, cause it's offensive, repressive, derogatory........only WE can say it" But "we can say redneck all we want, in a demeaning manner, and it's ok."

It's not about slavery. Sorry. Slavery still exists today, especially in Africa. There are other types of slavery here, and every where - namely: sexual slavery.

Regardless, I'm perplexed that this super offensive word is still used in the black community, and it's just fine.

It's a double standard of free speech. We all live under the same right to free speech. So many say they fight for equality all the while showing they actually wish for special treatment and throwing a double standard in the face of others.

If their actual goal is to gain support for equality, this is quite counter productive to their cause. I know people like Swish do not support blacks using the word either.

The problem is that it's presented to be quite common and appropriate in the music, comedy and culture.

If it's bad to say, it's bad for everyone. If it's not bad to say by some, it's not bad to say by all.

If you think `redneck` is just as offensive as that word, then you also must feel Jeff Foxworthy is profiting off of hate speech. However, if you feel the word redneck is offensive, just not when Jeff Foxworthy says it, then you've explained that word as it pertains to some people being OK to say it and others not.



Broad generalization fallacy. Not all blacks feel the use of the n word is appropriate, and not all blacks feel that use of the words redneck or cracker is appropriate. You are projecting an opinion to an entire race. I wonder what that's called...

I don't think "redneck" is as offensive as the word I can't type.

My question is, if that word is so offensive, why do too many blacks use it?

I don't know.

I doubt the blacks on here use it. Clemmy, swish, ........dang, those are about all that I KNOW are black. Perfectspiral maybe? CHS? Lurker is for sure based on our back and forth today.

But, I'll be told that blacks can use that word, and whites can't, cause if blacks use it, it's fine. If whites use it, it's a terrible word.

But, every race can use "redneck", right?

Hey, I don't get it. I've said that.

Bottom line is, if a word is offensive, it's just that: offensive. So why continue to use it?

Not a single person has been able to explain it to me. All I get is "dude, you don't know".

Just wanted to highlight that part.

Not all whites use the n word. Or the r word. Generalizations..........the world is full of it.

i simply don't see redneck being derogatory. and yes, people in the south say it all the time.

i think the N word is derogatory, even if used with A at the end. I've been making a conscious effort to completely remove it from my speech. but i won't act like an angel and say i never used it, especially when i was teen.

but yea, i don't use it now. that simple thing would completely nullify any post i've made with regards to race.

Some people use it as a term of endearment,
Some people feel if you say it loses power,
Some people will punch in the face for saying it,
Some people will let their non same race friends say it to them like its no big deal,
Some people hate it, won't use it and belittle people who use it.

Everyone is different.

So, it all depends on who says it, and in what company they say it.

So it isn't such a terrible word after all?

I think it's terrible word, I don't say it.

Change rednecks to something else and you just described the black panther party... and they get celebrated at the super bowl.

It's because you and I have no empathy with the word. We can't let the fact that this word is "THE" most offensive English word shield us from the relatively straightforward explanation behind it's usage.

Re appropriation is incredibly common and has a long history. The gay and lesbian community have re appropriated much of what we'd consider degrading and defaming slurs. Environmentalists jokingly call themselves tree huggers, Southerners lovingly call themselves rednecks. This even goes back centuries when Irishmen took the derogatory term Paddy and made it a sign of endearment to other Irish people.

The best I can explain it is that for many marginalized cultures and peoples they want a sense of belonging and togetherness and reappropriating words that signify that marginalization is a quick path to do it. There is also a contingent within those groups that feels that they are redefining the word thus taking the derogatory meaning "away" from those who would mean harm vocally.

As for why a straight person can't call a gay person a degrading term "in jest" or a white person use a racial epiphet to a non-white person? It's simple. You can't empathize with them because you aren't gay/black/etc.

The best (albeit mild) real example I can use for me, is I've been using computers since I was 3 years old. I was called dweeb, dork, nerd, and all sorts of names in grade school and highschool because of this. Now that I'm a professional software engineer, sometimes my colleagues and I will call each other nerd and dork for fun. Should we not use these words? Would it make sense for one of our grade school bullies, now all grown up, to complain that they can't use the word the way we do?

I've stayed out of this convo for as long as I could.
I really tried. No... I really, REALLY tried.

Here it is in a nutshell.

In the 60's/70's, a percentage of Af/Am citizens purposely co-op'ed the word to diminish its sting. It was (and still is) a word that has historically been used to subjugate and humiliate an entire group of American citizens. It is a word that is so directly tied to the language of slavery and White supremacy that is lands upon the ears of sensible Black Americans like dropping the "F-Bomb" or an "S-Bomb" at a congressional hearing... or an address to the Supreme Court. It's offensive in the extreme, because the word reduces a Human Being with inherent, God-given dignity into a dehumanized thing... and the harder a person worked to elevate himself as a citizen of this country, the more it's designed to devalue him as a person of worth.

W.E.B. Dubois, Matthew Henson, Paul Robeson, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, Leontyne Price, Sidney Poitier, Barack Hussein Obama, Robert Clemens II... ALL of our efforts, both profound and personal, can be reduced and discounted to a 'thing' by the utterance of just one word:

"Ni66er."

Such is the power that The Ruling Class has over its millions of subjects.

Such is the power of a single word in American History.
...and you want to ask why 'Redneck' isn't viewed as equally derogatory? Let's sit down for a couple of hours, and I'll be happy to 'take you to school,' my friend. "Redneck" isn't half as loaded a term as "Ni66er" is. Even though poor rural Whites share more of their familial history with the fates of poor Black folk, they can always fall back on: "Yeah, my life sucks... but at least I'm not a [insert 'N-bomb here]"

So... 60's and 70's Black Americans 'yanked it' from their former Slave Owners,' -and spread it about freely. But they put a 'twist' on it: they tossed in their own pronunciation that doesn't easily fall from the lips of their former (and current) oppressors.

[We have a concurrent thread in EE about Stand-up comics. Richard Pryor has been named in that thread, and he used 'The N-word' freely in his 70's-80's era routines. He STOPPED using it after a visit to Africa in the 90's.)

The word had a resurgence into American vernacular when Urban Artists started dropping it in their albums. (Notorious B.I.G.: the 'N-Bomb' was dropped in the first line of "Things Done Changed.") Even then, the pronunciation was such that listeners understood the context: this is a private club. Whites are about as welcome here as Rodney King would be welcomed into the Augusta Golf Club.

Still, the controversy rages within the Black community. Some embrace it, as a means to neuter its effect. Others reject it totally and completely. I fall more in the second camp... but I'll freely admit that I've dropped it on rare occasions (maybe 3-4 times per year):

...when I'm in 'safe' company (family/close friends/no Whites anywhere nearby. We're talking maybe 6-8 people of ALL the people I know...)

But if I'm at a tailgate, and someone who ISN'T part of that select group decides it's safe to drop an 'N-Bomb' in front of me....

... he'll be seeing his dentist on Monday morning, as soon as the clinic opens. I can promise you that. And I'll use a very hard object to send home my message. (Clemmy ain't tryin' to lose work days over someone who'd be insensitive enough to use an epithet like that at a public gathering...)

It's about personal pride, as an American.
It's about circumstance.
It's about context.


I don't know if I've done this subject justice in one short post, but I wanted to try... because You and I have 10 years of good history together- and your question seemed genuine. A 'reach-out' like that deserves an answer that you might be able to work with.

________

One other thing about this specific subject:

I use the word as sparingly as I do, because of two overriding reasons:

1. The line between White subjugation and Black self-loathing is still too fine in 21st c. America.

2. I was raised by a family of class and quality, for whom such words are an affront to all they believe... and I'd never conceive of behaving in a way that could bring shame upon The Family Name. For more than 200 years, My Forebears have been the kind of American Citizens that ALL people would do well to emulate. They have been thinkers, scientists, educators, artists, philosophers, clergy, Superior Court Justices, mathematicians, and social advocates for change in America... I refuse to let them down.

Heavy is the weight that I carry upon my shoulders, arch...
...and that's why I DON'T use the word "Ni66er" (or even 'Ni66ah') in my everyday speech.

It's a matter of personal pride.
My Family worked too hard from nothing to let me throw it all away on a word that gets tossed about too freely.

In My Family, words still count for something. I hope that my posts here at DT'ers have exemplified this ideal.


I hope this helps your understanding in some small way.


Your Dawg,
Clem.