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The inevitability of idiocy...
Not Sarastro
__BANNED USERS regular
__BANNED USERS regular
So, this is a nice racism discussion. Or really, a language discussion. Read the following transcript of three girls hanging out:
It's not going to take long for most people to work out the back story here, but if you already know it, don't spoil eh!
QUESTIONS
The group has both white and black girls. Who is who?
Do you divine any racist intent here?
Do you divine any racism here?
Would you object to the use of the word 'n****r' if you were party to this conversation?
If not - what circumstances or setting might make the word objectionable?
Should any of the girls use the word 'n****r'?
Who - if anyone - would you censure or punish from hearing this conversation?
Jackie: (referring to Jill dancing/pushing her hips forward) You pushing it out you n****r.
Jean: (shocked laughter) Jacks, I can't believe you said that.
Jill: You are in trouble.
Jackie: Don't make a big thing out of it then. I was joking.
Jill: I know you were... but that's some serious shit, sorry.
Jackie: Why?
Jill: Oh my god. I'm not even saying it.
Jean: Just don't talk about it anymore.
Jackie: I was joking
Jill: Do you know how many people would watch that?
Jackie: Okay, don't make a big deal out of it.
Jill: Fancy you saying that. I can't believe you said that.
Jackie: Somebody has already used that word in this house.
Jill: No way. (Pause) Yeah, me. I'm a n****r.
Jean laughs.
Jill: I am one. Fancy you saying it. I know maybe you see it in a rap song. Maybe you and your friends sit there saying it.
Jackie: I'm friendly with plenty of black people.
Jean: And you call them n****rs?
Jackie: Yeah and they call me n****rs. They call me wiggers as well.
Jean: I'm quite shocked.
Jill: I'm fucking in shock.
Jackie: It's not a big deal though is it?
Jill: Not for us it ain't. Fuck me.
It's not going to take long for most people to work out the back story here, but if you already know it, don't spoil eh!
QUESTIONS
The group has both white and black girls. Who is who?
Do you divine any racist intent here?
Do you divine any racism here?
Would you object to the use of the word 'n****r' if you were party to this conversation?
If not - what circumstances or setting might make the word objectionable?
Should any of the girls use the word 'n****r'?
Who - if anyone - would you censure or punish from hearing this conversation?
Not Sarastro on
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Posts
What sort of judgement do expect to be able to make with every single aspect of context removed?
No, because the black girl would be named shirley and the white girl Tanikya BECAUSE YOU CAN'T SEE YOU'RE A RACIST
Er, questions? Thanks for playing though.
AL-wat, will edit fake names in.
MrMister, the context is half the point, which is why I asked about context and how it might change things.
Celery, the title could go either way, actually.
Seriously, if this is so leading: what point am I trying to make? So far various people seem to think completely different things.
Is that offensive? Well maybe it would help if we knew if they were talking about a cat or girls.
That was an easy case.
Oh, I'm sorry. And here I thought the rules said you had to contribute to the discussion as well. Silly me.
Totally disingenuous.
You can't discern any context from the reactions in the conversation? Are you wearing your mindglasses?
Sorry, I didn't see the MOD sign under your name.
By the way, I'll tell you all the context later. The interest is in the difference between initial reactions and those with context, and how you get there. If you don't want to play, you can just piss off to be honest, just don't derail the thread, ok?
Since starring it out totally influences how people read and react to the conversation, it makes the whole debate fucking useless if you do so.
My initial reaction is that I don't know enough to judge.
I'll leave you be to your grand point now.
Edit: that's not an optional rule, either, Sarcastro.
Fair enough. That's why I wrote specific questions, surely you must be able to answer some of them? (ie try numbers 1, 4 and 5)
Also the "n" word rule has been repeatedly stated by the mod and admin staff as non-negotiable, and if you want to follow the rules of this community you have to edit it out.
Sorry your thread is not going exactly as you planned.
Can I answer? 'Cause it's pretty obvious what he meant.
Here-
The group has both white and black girls. Who is who?
Don't know, not enough information is given.
Do you divine any racist intent here?
Don't know, not enough information is given.
Do you divine any racism here?
Don't know, not enough information is given.
Would you object to the use of the word 'n****' if you were party to this conversation?
Don't know, not enough information is given.
If not - what circumstances or setting might make the word objectionable?
A whole fuckload. This could be one of them. But I don't know if it is though because, again, not enough information is given.
Should any of the girls use the word '*****'?
Don't know, not enough information is given.
Edit: beat'd
I'm really astonished that nobody is willing to take a shot. Intellectual curiosity anyone? It's not a test, you won't get marked down for it. It's a (fairly obvious) exercise in how context and so on affects meaning. By the way, it's a real-life topical conversation, not some made-up academic exercise, if it makes any difference. There is a background and such to it which you'll hear about soon enough.
Knock yourselves out. Or don't. I'm off to make food.
PS I can't resist this:
Like, say, censoring words?
Hey wait, maybe people are smart enough to realize that making assumptions on who is black or white, without enough information, would make the assumer racist.
Alternately, stupid.
Stupidity is a precursor to racism, yeah. WTG.
...which is exactly why I phrased it this way, since the rest of the world are going to be unaware, and this would simply rehash the Imus debate.
All the budding social scientists & philosophers here who are shitting on the thread for lack of context are being extraordinarily unimaginative. Rare chance to study how opinion forms on a topical event before being influenced by the coverage in media / society? Mock if you like, /shrug.
There was no way for us to tell who was black, who was white, or anything else without any form of context. Even a simple explanation of the situation would have been nice.
Sweet, thinking!
So from what you can tell, do you think it is a factor in the conversation? IE, in the grand sense, race shouldn't ever be a factor in any conversation, but...
That's the point mate. People try and work out what is going on and what they think about it, and see how that changes given incremental pieces of evidence.
No, I don't think race is a factor in any way in this conversation. Except for a person saying something like "I am white" or "I am black" or any sentence that explicitely lets you know his/her race, assigning a race to dialogue is dumb at best, and racist at worst.
Thank you, but you aren't. Like I said, several people have already said I seem to have a clear agenda, but they disagreed on what that agenda was. Perhaps they aren't as smart as they thought.
Dismount the high horse. I simply meant that race is a factor, remove the 'but...' if you like, it was a lazy ending, not leading.