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The 21st Century Salonnière's avatar

Paranoid, fake and mean. Exactly.

And your point is an important one: Why would this small subset of very noisy and yet exquisitely emotionally frail folks _want_ all the racists in the world to know how weak they are? Who would want to lead racists to believe that black people stop functioning and call a therapist when they see an n with 5 asterisks next to it, in a context that requires reference to it because they’re studying it in school?

No one with any sense.

We’re not even talking about it being used as a slur anymore. We’ve officially arrived in Nonsenseville.

What self-respecting person wants other rational people to know or believe that even the old word “Negro” can send them into a tizzy of pain and suffering?

Really? Is this real for anyone? It doesn’t ring true to me. It doesn’t feel sincere. The anger and the drive to punish people for perceived wrongs both seem real, but the supposed pain and hurt and harm of these non-events, not so much.

But let’s suppose it’s completely real: What kind of self-respecting person _reveals_ that they’re so weak that they’re immeasurably hurt because they heard a word? There are words that have been used to hurt me in the past, and I completely understand how a word can be hurtful if used as a slur, but I wouldn’t want to give anyone the satisfaction of a response.

Also, seriously: With age and maturity even bad words lose their power. When I was young and less sure of myself, an angry man calling me a “c***” would have really stung. Now I fully believe, I feel it deep down, that anyone who would call me a “c***” is a person with a problem and that has nothing to do with me or whether I’m a “c***” (whatever that would even mean). It does not hurt. Truly.

So there’s something that rings very false here. Even if it’s sincere among the very young (because of their immaturity, although ironically they probably have experienced the least racism of all?) if I were part of an older generation guiding the young people putting on these shows of hurt and harm, I’d want to teach them that the problem lies in the person who hurls the slur, and that the best thing to do is to cultivate a dignified non-response until, with age and practice, the dignified non-response is genuine.

And when it comes to reacting to things that aren’t slurs at all — an n with asterisks, or hearing “Negro” read, or the utterances of elderly Chinese women — with all the benefit of my age and experience, I’d gently suggest to the young that they stop being pussies about it.

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arrow63's avatar

We had an N word incident a few months ago. A high school class with only one Black student was happening via zoom when it was interrupted by a "zoombomber" playing a rap song with the N word in it. The town council, police, superintendent and district attorney all mobilized to catch this monster and bring them to justice. Then it turned out it was another Black kid from another town who did it, and everyone lost interest. Instead, all thoughts needed to turn to helping "the survivor" heal from the attack. Yes, the boy who heard the N word in a rap song is now referred to as a survivor.

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