posted
I was walking down the street with a mixed (white/black) friend of mine the other day, a girl, and this group of redneck sons-of-bitches drove by (in a confederate flag-laden tuck) and yelled "F*cking nigger!" at her. Needless to say, they got the finger and a few words from myself, but that's not the issue. What disturbs me is the fact that in 19 years I have never seen anyone actually call anyone else a nigger in a derogatory way, at least never in real life. I'm not so naieve as to think it doesn't happen, but I didn't realize it could happen on a populated street in the middle of the day in a large, consmopolitan suburb of the fourth largest city in America, in the year 1999. If that truck would have spontaneously swerved into oncoming traffic, then after being pummelled by several fuel trucks and doused in gasoline spun into the side of a building and exploded in a forty foot column of flame, I would not have minded one bit.
posted
It makes me sad that such a thing still goes on nowadays. Living in a small city in New York State, we didn't have much of that because of a small population.
But now, at the University, you wouldn't hear it either, because of the diversity here. If a person perchance does say that, he'd be promptly corrected by the many others blacks listening and watching.
------------------ "Bickering is pointless." - Spock, Miri "I'm real easy to get along with most of the time, but I don't like bullies, and I don't like threats." - Janeway, State of Flux
posted
Fourth largest city in America? If you mean Houston, then boy do I have some stories for you Ryan.
------------------ "Some people call me the Space Cowboy. Yeah! Some call me the Gangster of Love. Some people call me Maurice. Whoo hoo! 'Cause I speak of the Pompatus of Love!" - Steve Miller Band's The Joker
posted
Indeed. Here at UT, we have tremendous diversity (one of the reasons I came here), and that sort of thing doesn't happen, at least not on campus or in public. The event in question occurred in Houston, where I was born and raised... and I'd say it's unheard of there if I didn't witness it myself. Didn't we wipe that stuff out in the '60s? Martin Luther King and so on? The only people I truly, truly hate are people who hate other people.
posted
What's up with Houston, Siegfried? Maybe I just come from the "tolerant, openminded" part, but with this exception I have never seen any sort of overt, blatant hate in my entire life there. I mean, there's always racist jokes, or locker room brawls, and so on, but never anything like this...
posted
Wow. I'm pleased to meet you, Ryan. I attend the main campus of the UH, and I've lived most my life in Cypress. And I'd like to think we wiped out racism in the 1960s and all, but the sad truth is that we didn't. And on top that, we live with the threat that the south will rise again. ::sigh::
And, honestly, I don't need to go to the streets of Houston to hear it. In fact, I've never heard racial slurs made in public (although there is the matter of graffiti). But my grandmother, and two uncles still buy into that white supremacy stuff and keeping the races separate. Now they aren't extremely racist, but they do have enough of it to be a problem. Imagine their reactions when they found out my sister's prom date is black. ::sigh again::
------------------ "Some people call me the Space Cowboy. Yeah! Some call me the Gangster of Love. Some people call me Maurice. Whoo hoo! 'Cause I speak of the Pompatus of Love!" - Steve Miller Band's The Joker
posted
One of my grandfathers is from Louisiana. He's a crawfish farmer (and if anyone here pronounces it "cray-fish," I'll scream... come down to Louisiana and they'll straighten you out!). Anyway, he has farm hands, some of which are black. He is practically living in the plantation days... he always refers to them as "colored," and says that "they nice enough folk, but i sho wouldn eat suppa wit dem." Keep in mind the guy is a leather-skinned 80 year old Cajun. I don't even bother trying to correct him in the matter; he'll be dead soon anyway so I may as well keep up friendly relations.
Sol System: in fact, I think that for the vast, vast majority of the current <30 generation, racism has been eliminated... but those who really hold onto it pass it on, and there will always be a few holdouts.
posted
"The battle is not over even when it's won"
Racism lives on, not just in America. The most recent example in the UK is the case of Stephen Lawrence, the black teenager stabbed to death on the street by a gang of white thugs, who because of a combnination of police incompetance and institutional racism, got off scot-free.
Even so, there is hope. As long as each new generation is prepared to confront it wherever it is found. (How often have you caught your parents or grandparents use language you would never use?)
------------------ "I'm sorry I'm late.... I've been irrigating the desert... Which isn't easy on your own." - M&W
posted
My parents often use the word 'coloured' which I don't like. ON the other hand, some people get offended by different things. At university, most people don't mind, mainly because it just never comes up as an issue, when everything is so diverse (it IS in London). On the other hand, I've known people to get offended at 'black', 'brown', 'half-cast' and so I generally try and steer clear. On the other hand, I don't really like over the top political corectness, like Afro-Caribean, but if someone wants to refer to themselves that way, that is their right. Still, in Romford I do hear some appaling racisim. Usually said in quiet tones between whites though, rather than shouted out loud. Romford is close enough to Londond that its hard to be openly racist without a major fight.
The thing is, often people who don't consider themselves racist will still have subconscius thoughts along those lines. Walking back to the station from my uni late at night, I saw a large group of black youths walking down the street ahead of me. I was worried, probably more so than if they were white.
Racism exists on both sides. You'll know when its conquered when people don't even consider it. When people treat skin colour in the same way as eye colour. A difference, but nothing to talk about.
Apologies for sounding like that well known parish mag, the Daily Mail too.
------------------ 'Saying it in a stacato voice doesn't make it any more true' -Stewart Lee
posted
My father's use of a certain term disturbs and confuses me sometimes. Here's a guy, college and post-grad educated, and fairly intelligent, comapred to average. But he uses the n-word. But he doesn't use it quite the way it's normally used. He applies it to both white and black people, in the context of deriding someone who's got a long rap sheet, is on perpetual assistance, uses food stamps to buy luxury items, who has children but is not a parent to them, etc. (you know, a drain on society), but REGARDLESS of race.
I know the man knows and respects a number of black people, and would never use such words to describe them... but it's disheartening nonetheless. And I often catch myself wondering if I'm affected by that use. Or has he appropriated a racist term, and changed his personal definition of it? And is that a bad thing? *sigh*
posted
The original meaning of the n-word was to describe someone who was lazy and a trouble-maker, First of Two. And race didn't matter with the original meaning, either.
------------------ "Some people call me the Space Cowboy. Yeah! Some call me the Gangster of Love. Some people call me Maurice. Whoo hoo! 'Cause I speak of the Pompatus of Love!" - Steve Miller Band's The Joker
[This message was edited by Siegfried on April 06, 1999.]
posted
Really? Hmm. And here I am, with a B.A. in English, and I didn't know that. So.. since I know he's using it in the old, "correct" usage, I can be less upset?
I still won't use it. I prefer the more "politically correct" term... "scum."
posted
Uh, correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the term 'n****r' a corruption of negro, which is spanish for 'black'? I would assume that would be the case, since it was the Spanish conquistadores who did most of the black slave trading in the Americas.
*edits message, just in case* ------------------ "Bickering is pointless." - Spock, Miri "I'm real easy to get along with most of the time, but I don't like bullies, and I don't like threats." - Janeway, State of Flux
[This message was edited by Jeff Raven on April 07, 1999.]
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