militant gigolo primitive questions modern use of old word

[franksolich]

http://demopedia.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6190926

Oh my.

The gigolo-in-training primitive, again.

armyowalgreens  (1000+ posts)      Fri Jul-31-09 06:34 AM
Original message
 
Poll question: Poll Question: How do you feel about the modern day usage of the n-word?

This can apply to all variations of the word.

I personally think it is all about context. I know people who use it and people who don't. But I am perfectly open to explanations why it should not be used under any circumstance.

Obviously, I am not talking about it being used as a slur to invoke harm. I'm talking about the more "socially accepted" forms and uses.

Edited: Sorry, my poll is evolving.

Also, anyone is allowed to explain there positions. But I specifically would like explanations if it states so.

Poll result (41 votes) 

I feel that it is okay for it to be used as long as it is not malicious.  (1 votes, 2%)
I do not feel that anyone should ever use the n-word or it's variants.  (22 votes, 54%)
It all depends on the context (please explain)  (9 votes, 22%)
It depends on the race of the person. (please explain)  (5 votes, 12%) 
Other (please explain)  (4 votes, 10%)

RC  (1000+ posts)      Fri Jul-31-09 06:38 AM
Response to Original message
 
1. Negotiable: Doing things my way?

It's a Republican term.

annabanana  (1000+ posts)        Fri Jul-31-09 06:39 AM
Response to Original message
 
2. The ONLY time a white person can use it without exposing racism in their own mindsets is when they're quoting someone else as a negative example, or in a discussion of the word itself.

The word is ugly and charged. Still.

I dunno.  franksolich has never uttered or spelled that word in his life.

The anal primitive, on the other hand, is known to have used derogatory racial and ethnic slurs.

The Straight Story  (1000+ posts)        Fri Jul-31-09 06:44 AM
Response to Reply #2
 
4. How you can tell online though a person's race?

Or on the radio (ala certain songs which use it)?

annabanana  (1000+ posts)        Fri Jul-31-09 09:37 AM
Response to Reply #4
 
20. hmm I guess online you'd have to PRETEND to be a black person to use it. Am I a white boomer long island housewife or not? hmmm

armyowalgreens  (1000+ posts)      Fri Jul-31-09 06:41 AM
Response to Original message
 
3. Shit. Sorry guys. I totally screwed up the first two votes. I'll counter that with my one vote.

armyowalgreens  (1000+ posts)      Fri Jul-31-09 06:44 AM
Response to Reply #3
 
5. Okay, nevermind. I fixed it.

prostomulgus (58 posts)      Fri Jul-31-09 06:47 AM
Response to Original message
 
6. ONLY Blacks can use this term

It is part of the black culture.

A member of any other race CANNOT use it in any context without being racist. 

armyowalgreens  (1000+ posts)      Fri Jul-31-09 06:48 AM
Response to Reply #6
 
7. Are black people allowed to call people of other races the n-word or it's variants?

Because I'm white, and I have been called a nigga before.

The Straight Story  (1000+ posts)        Fri Jul-31-09 06:51 AM
Response to Reply #6
 
8. as I asked above: How you can you tell the race on the net

So if I see someone using the word and don't know their race, how would I know if it was ok for them to use it?

elocs  (1000+ posts)        Fri Jul-31-09 06:57 AM
Response to Original message
 
9. To tell the truth, I have not actually heard the word used in years other than in rap songs.

Or occasionally read it online, and references to it here at DU.

Not merely "references" to it; primitives have used it, and much, to be derogatory.

Ask, uh, any black Republican or conservative.

Tim01 (1000+ posts)      Fri Jul-31-09 10:47 AM
Response to Reply #9
 
26. I heard it recently, made me nervous.

I was in a big city(unusual for me), and I was in a burger king just before they closed on a saturday night. The thug looking youngster with his friends with their matching bandanas came in the door, and he saw another person sitting alone on the other side of the dining area. He made a big show of saying the word loudly when addressing the other guy. I would give a quote but somebody here would surely say I was a racist making it all up.

I think the big show was mostly for my benefit and that of his friends. The guy he was addressing didn't seem terrible comfortable with the whole thing, but they did seem to know each other.

texasleo (1000+ posts)        Fri Jul-31-09 06:59 AM
Response to Original message
 
10. Black people have done a marvelous job of keeping the word alive.

And so have white primitives, too.

liberal N proud  (1000+ posts)        Fri Jul-31-09 07:05 AM
Response to Original message
 
11. The word is an actual color name (not associated with race)

I see the word describing a specific color in paints and other media where color must be described.

But in any other sense, the word is derogatory when used by someone other than a black person to describe a person or people.

armyowalgreens  (1000+ posts)      Fri Jul-31-09 07:07 AM
Response to Reply #11
 
12. What about a black person using it when talking to a white person?

I have been called a nigga before and I'm white.

Hmmm.  A picture's emerging, of what happened there.

The gigolo-in-training primitive should stick with safer neighborhoods.

liberal N proud  (1000+ posts)        Fri Jul-31-09 07:08 AM
Response to Reply #12
 
13. That would probably be an insult

armyowalgreens  (1000+ posts)      Fri Jul-31-09 07:09 AM
Response to Reply #13
 
14. It was an insult one time. One other time it was actually used as a term of endearment

I know that's unusual, but it happens.

Oh oh     oh my.

One gets a picture of that event, too, and it ain't pretty.

annabanana  (1000+ posts)        Fri Jul-31-09 09:38 AM
Response to Reply #13
 
21. (or a mark of easy familiarity in a close friendship) . . .

I dunno.  franksolich being called a "deafie" by another deaf person is NO mark of easy familiarity or close friendship.  It's an insult by an utterly rude person.

aikoaiko  (1000+ posts)      Fri Jul-31-09 07:27 AM
Response to Original message
 
15. Fo shizzle, my nizzle.

Vinca  (1000+ posts)      Fri Jul-31-09 07:34 AM
Response to Original message

16. The whole thing totally puzzles me.

It's probably the last word on the planet I'd ever use, then I turn on HBO and there it is coming out of Chris Rock's mouth. I might be a fat person, but I would never go up to another fat person and say, "Yo, fattie."

MADem  (1000+ posts)      Fri Jul-31-09 07:43 AM
Response to Reply #16

17. OK, now THAT was funny. That has potential as a comedy sketch. 

And not just "Fattie," either....you could have an old guy go up to another old guy and say "Howzit hanging, my geezer?" or somebody with a prominent overbite greeting another with "Whassup, bucky?"

The possibilities are endless....and illustrative of a paradox!

pipi_k  (1000+ posts)      Fri Jul-31-09 10:37 AM
Response to Reply #17
 
25. Howzit hangin my geezer!!! bwahahahaha

Mr Pip and his older brother refer to each other as "Geezers" all the time...

daedalus_dude (12 posts)      Fri Jul-31-09 07:43 AM
Response to Original message
 
18. I don't think its right.

Neither does franksolich, and he wishes the primitives would stop using it.

polmaven  (1000+ posts)        Fri Jul-31-09 07:55 AM
Response to Original message
 
19. I find that to be one of the two most offensive words in the English language, the other being a 4 letter word beginning with c and ending in t.

Yeah, that's another word franksolich has never spoken or written in his life, but then and again, franksolich has more class than the primitives.

madmom  (1000+ posts)        Fri Jul-31-09 10:32 AM
Response to Original message

22. I had a friend in high school who was mixed race, I am Italian. His pet name for me was wop(an ethnic slur also) mine for him was ******. We both used them affectionately and NO BODY else used them toward us in the same manner.We both knew they were used with affection and were ok with it. But this was way back in the 70's,

pipi_k  (1000+ posts)      Fri Jul-31-09 10:34 AM
Response to Original message
 
23. I don't like the word, but voted that it depends on the race of the person.

Like if two or more black persons are talking and they want to use that term to each other, what the hell. I don't think they're doing themselves a big favor, but who the hell am I to tell them to stop doing it?

Being of a certain ancestry myself, if I were talking with a relative and we referred to ourselves or each other with some uncomplimentary epithet and someone of a different ancestry gave us hell for doing it, I personally would tell that person to **** off and mind his/her own *******ed business.

If black people aren't hurt by using the "N" word, and they're adults, then I don't think it's anyone else's business when or how they use the word.

slackmaster  (1000+ posts)      Fri Jul-31-09 10:36 AM
Response to Original message
 
24. Depends on context - Bleeping it out of the movie Blazing Saddles is just plain wrong

About 1/4 of the jokes involve the N word, and make no sense when it is blanked out.

Iggo  (1000+ posts)      Fri Jul-31-09 11:12 AM
Response to Original message
 
28. Context is everything.

I don't use it ever.

But I hear it used often, and there's a difference between its being used as a negative racial epithet or as a...I hesitate to say "term of endearment" so let's call it a "salutation" instead.

I hear it both ways and I can tell the difference. And so sometimes it bothers me and sometimes it doesn't.

datasuspect  (1000+ posts)      Fri Jul-31-09 11:16 AM
Response to Original message
 
29. go to 660 W. Division in Chicago climb up the stairs (the elevators are broken) and ask some of the residents about your poll.

I'll bet there's a story behind that, but the lying data primitive won't tell it.

Anyway, it looks to me as if the primitives are starting to slide down the slippery slope here, to make that word socially acceptable.

[GOBUCKS]

Urban democrats cannot speak without that term to refer to themselves and their fellow ebonics speakers.
In the grammar book of ebonics, it is the masculine form of the feminine noun "bitch".
The masculine term urban democrats use in referring to people of other races is m*****f****r.
None of these terms have synonyms. They are indispensible to urban democrat speech.

[lastparker]

liberal N proud  (1000+ posts)        Fri Jul-31-09 07:05 AM
Response to Original message
 
11. The word is an actual color name (not associated with race)

I see the word describing a specific color in paints and other media where color must be described.

The "n" word is the name of a color?  As in, a box of 64 crayons?  This has escaped my notice.

[Wineslob]

RC  (1000+ posts)      Fri Jul-31-09 06:38 AM
Response to Original message
 
1. Negotiable: Doing things my way?

It's a Republican term.

Damn, teh stoopid burns.

The history of the word ****** is often traced to the Latin word niger, meaning black. This word became the noun negro (black person) in English, and simply the color black in Spanish and Portuguese. In Early Modern French niger became negre and, later, negress (black woman) was unmistakably a part of lexical history.
One can compare to negre the derogatory ****** and earlier English substitutes such as negar, neegar, neger, and niggor that developed into its lexico-semantic true version in English.
It is probable that ****** is a phonetic spelling of the white Southern mispronunciation of Negro.

taken from www.aaregistry.com

Try again, DUmbass.

[franksolich]

Urban democrats cannot speak without that term to refer to themselves and their fellow ebonics speakers.

In the grammar book of ebonics, it is the masculine form of the feminine noun "bitch".
The masculine term urban democrats use in referring to people of other races is m*****f****r.

None of these terms have synonyms. They are indispensible to urban democrat speech.

You know, the Great Black Father in Washington still has seven-eighths of his lease there to run, and so there's plenty of time left, for what must be the inevitable about-face of the primitives.

I fully expect that long before January 2013, when the Great Black Father has to pack his bags and call a taxi to take him away, the primitives, not getting their ponies, will be using this euphemism to describe their failed messiah.

Perhaps not on Skins's island, but in their real lives and on other Hate boards.

I'll be the least surprised person when it happens, or the most surprised person if it doesn't happen.

[JohnnyReb]

For the past 40 years I have been very niggardly about using the "N" word.....but I think I'll bust out and use it more often now.

[franksolich]

For the past 40 years I have been very niggardly about using the "N" word.....but I think I'll bust out and use it more often now.

I wasn't pretending to be virtuous, when I said I've never used the word before, either spoken or written.

I've known a lot of decent and civilized people who've used the word.

On the other hand, I've known a lot of people who never used the world, and smugly wear it as a badge of virtue, as if their non-use of the word atones for all their non-virtues.  I imagine Vast Teddy is a good example of this sort of person.

It's called "cultural sensitivity," on my part.

If a person uses the word, the first thing that comes to mind is that the person grew up in a different time and place than I did, and may, or may not, have very good and practical reasons for using the word.

In my instance, I've only ever had fleeting contact with those sorts of people the word is used.  This is Nebraska; when it comes to minorities, I've dealt with Texans and those of Vietnamese derivation, mostly, and well.

In Lincoln and Omaha, I've worked under, with, and was the supervisor of, various black people--maybe about 40, in three jobs--and never met a bad one.  Earlier, in college, I had a black roommate, from Kansas City, for a little over two years (ours was the "party house" on campus, and there usually were about six of us), what looked to be a good friendship, but then he got addicted to weed, and apathetically threw away a great future in computers and music, and later became one of the Rev. Moon's Moonies.

Playing the role of the "guitarman" primitive on Skins's island, who has that "black" "friend," I suppose I can say I have one at the moment, out here in the unpopulated Sandhills of Nebraska, a 40-year-old guy who drops in here about once a week, and we sit around and talk about women and his business (masonry repair and restoration).  That's been going on for about four years now.

So on the whole, my non-use of the word is simply because of a lack of exposure to the people whom the word describes, not because of any virtue of mine.

When the word comes out of someone who grew up, and lives in, a wholly different culture than mine, it's a cause of no worry or concern for me.

[thundley4]

A co worker married a woman that has 3 mixed raced children, and he uses that word more than anyone else I work with.  It kind of makes me feel bad for his step kids.