Sparked from hearing in passing on the SC chat that ChoadWarrior doesn't like the work FAGGOT. Now I'm not one to ridicule someone because of their beliefs, but the word faggot has come to be like the word nigger. It's not used with contempt much of the time anymore. If I actually called a black guy nigger out of hate, I'd just sound like a stupid asshole. Society is constantly evolving to make way for all sorts of changes in mentality that the majority goes through. Unfortunately, it seems like western society likes to stop the process of social evolution in its tracks. They insist that nigger is a horrible word (http://www.banthenword.org/directory/). But is it? If niggers are saying nigger, and faggot has just become to mean a general asshole, is it such a bad thing? Granted, using faggot to describe an asshole regardless of sexuality may seem like a homophobic thing to do, but it's slowly ceasing to mean gay at all. So many words we use now had very different meanings years ago.

Posted in fites go here because I expect someone will FITE me over this.

i don't care about what people call each other.

i cared just enough to post that i don't care

Dude... what?

My rebuttal to your intelligent postulation:

The supposition you make is, in my opinion, a selfish one. It assumes that, because YOU don't have a problem with the use of the word, and you can justify this non-problem by citing other people who don't have a problem with it, while simultaneously down-playing the opinions of people who DO have a problem with it, that everything is hunky-dory.

Fact is, and we all know this, that there are still enough people in the world right now who are old enough to know what the word really means, how it was used, and who are stricken enough by its use to be offended by it. You KNOW this. You ALSO know that words like "jerk" and "asshole" and "ignorant shithead" also exist, but you CHOOSE to use those other words instead. Justify it all you want, but seriously, the only reason to use those words, is to get an extra little rise out of people. It's the empty calories of the English language - in lieu of making an innovative provocative point, you simply up the ante on your word selection, re-assign some definitions, and imply that anyone who doesn't feel like playing along is simply "not evolved".

I also don't consider finding new ways to swear to be a sign of "social evolution", and I fail to understand how it could ever be perceived as such. It's quite easy to say that "only narrow minded idiots use the n-word with its original context", but then again, I doubt very much that you personally have ever been denied a job, or prevented from voting, or ran out of a neighborhood, by one of those "narrow-minded idiots". And as for the black people that use it, I was not aware that the true sign of an educated, "socially evolved" black person, is to self-identify with a racial slur and use it an average of 3.7 times per sentence. Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey must not be socially evolved yet.

I'm not, by any means, saying you should stop. In fact, don't let anyone censor you. Just be aware, that our language has a synonym for dang near everything, and so any self-serving bullshit excuse you can come up with to use those words is only helping you sleep better at night.  If these words were as tame as you claim they are, I'm willing to bet you wouldn't even bother using them.

As an elderly gay black man, I find this whole thread offensive

I never knew your name was meant to be ironic.

i think getting to a place where "nigger" holds as much oomph as "butthead" will help race relations. so everyone should use it. and don't just aim it at negroes. use it as a verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, whatever.

some examples:

"hey! that guy just niggered off with my tv!"

"Joe fucked her niggerly and she couldn't walk for a week."

"i love new moons. it's such a nigger night out."

this also works with faggot:

"there was only a little peanut butter left way at the bottom of the jar, but i used my finger and faggotted it out good"

or a combination:

"supercalifaggotnigger expialijailrape"

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mandingo wrote:

i think getting to a place where "nigger" holds as much oomph as "butthead" will help race relations. so everyone should use it.

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Hey, Mandingo, what if "butthead" meant "kite"?

Anyways, I reject this, on the grounds that this assumes the problem is the word itself, and not the ideology behind it. To assume that depowering this word would somehow make racists stop hating black people is kind of a stretch, in my opinion - the hatred of a people based on skin color and/or genetic history is far, far deeper than that. And when a true racist starts using the word, if we were all desensitized to it, we'd be less likely to recognize authentic hate speech.

And let me be clear on something here: I SUPPORT HATE SPEECH. I want every bona fide racist, sexist, and elitist to be able to pronounce, in a clearly identifiable voice, that they are hatemongers. This makes it easier for me to avoid them. People who would bitch up a storm about being placed under surveillance, will have no trouble whatsoever identifying themselves as ugly, narrow-minded baboons if they are given the chance to speak their minds, using the words they choose for themselves. Behold... The true power of free speech.

My point is, there's already a plethora of perfectly usable words for every idea under the sun. To purposely use the ones that we know for a fact conjure hurtful images in people, and then claim that those people who get offended are somehow less intelligent, less evolved, or otherwise below you, is a self-serving behavior. I never said "don't use the words", and I never will. I just won't play along with this idea that there's a noble purpose behind it either.

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ZMannZilla wrote:

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mandingo wrote:

i think getting to a place where "nigger" holds as much oomph as "butthead" will help race relations. so everyone should use it.

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Anyways, I reject this, on the grounds that this assumes the problem is the word itself, and not the ideology behind it.

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I know this thread is supposed to be controversial and everything, but I laughed delightedly at the word "niggot."

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mandingo wrote:
i was saying if an emotionally charged word loses its free electrons, it doesn't do as much damage or produce as much violent backlash when wielded

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And what I am saying, is that "the problem with race relations" isn't the "oomph" of the word. Black people aren't scared of racists because they use harmful language - that's like saying the most dangerous part of a gun is "the bang sound." They're scared of racists because they have this tendency to lynch them, socially ostracize them, disenfranchise them, not hire them because their names sound too ethnic, and so on. Common use of that word would simply reduce the amount of bitching white people would have to hear. It would solve nothing for black people.

Wow.

i had this big long thing typed about the origin of the word 'nigger' and its associated connotations as opposed to denotations and whatnot.

then i decided to give up, say i dont care, give up recognizing a difference between blacks and niggers.

then i realized i could give a shit less. that stating opinions based on people instead of race get you no where with some people and is the equivalent of a forum flame war with a retarded, lonely person.

then i kept drinking, and cursed all Ulstermen for slackards.

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Posted in fites go here because I expect someone will FITE me over this.

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Semi-off-topic, I just wanted to point out that, divorced from its meaning, "jigaboo" is a REALLY funny word.

As is nignog.

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ZMannZilla wrote:

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mandingo wrote:
i was saying if an emotionally charged word loses its free electrons, it doesn't do as much damage or produce as much violent backlash when wielded

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And what I am saying, is that "the problem with race relations" isn't the "oomph" of the word.

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That cum dumpster can go to hell.

 What are we talking about? Is someone black?

I feel that this whole thing of "I can say this word, but you can't" is part of racism and every other -ism. The more we define ourselves as "black", "white", "gay", "straight", "hemohipliac Portuguese leper", and suchlike, the more we separate ourselves. We should be striving to identify ourselves and all others as "human" and nothing more. We should only see differences between personalities, not between skin color, sexual orientation, or what have you.

I don't know if this really fits into this post, but I was trying to come up with a relevant response for like fifteen minutes, and this is what I finally came up with. So there it is.

Also, niggerfaggotspicchinkcocks.

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mandingo wrote:

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ZMannZilla wrote:
How exactly was I NOT suppose to make the "leap" that you were discussing the problems of race relations?

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context? common sense? wisdom that comes with age? the fact that i used "supercalifaggotnigger expialijailrape"? take your pick.

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OK, clearly we have some sort of a "you got your chocolate in my peanut butter/you got your serious rebuttal in my whimsical musings" thing going here. What I was trying to do, was contribute my actual opinion to what I assumed was an actual discussion - those DO happen from time to time on the internet, maybe not here as often, but hey, I'm an optimist by nature. The words "Fights go here", "Important thread", "social evolution" and "discussion forum" lulled me into a false sense of security on that one. And yes, there were all those little clues that you yourself weren't intending to be taken seriously. Then again, I think I dropped enough hints that I WAS. So you're just as black as me on that one, Mr. Kettle.

(For the viewers at home: I'm Mr. Pot.)

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mandingo wrote:
easy, tiger. you ascribed a position to me that i didn't hold, continue to do so because it's an easy one to debate against, then make it personal when i call you on it. grow up a little and learn to avoid making the same mistake in the future

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Note the bold, Mr. Kettle...

You're assuming that, because I'm verbose and over-wordy, that I'm somehow taking all this personally. Let's clear that up too, because apparently you're getting a little butthurt yourself over all this:

1) Your trademark internet medium seems to be recreational use of racial slurs. Mine is recreational overuse of words in general. It takes me three paragraphs just to explain that I don't care about shit. My whole point in all of that was, to put it as simply as I know how, DON'T BULLSHIT A BULLSHITTER. That's it. That was the sum of it. Call off the dogs already.

2) I was trying to have a debate, you were trying to have a laugh. Mistakes happen, wires get crossed. Oopsie.

3) I didn't make a single personal attack towards you. Not one. I never once tried to "make it personal". I also didn't take anything personally that wasn't leveled directly at my own head. It was my special version of shits and giggles, and I don't blame you for not understanding, but at the same time, I really have to wonder where all the hostility is coming from.

4) In my own defense, the term "race relations" shares a level of vagueness with the word "ice cream" - yes, but what FLAVOR? Again, we seemed to have crossed some streams on this one. You were discussing one facet, I was discussion the whole gem. Not only are we not on the same page, I'm not entirely sure we were reading from the same book. To quote Item 2, "Oopsie."

4) With all due respect, stuff the "grow up a little" comment right up your ass. Last time I checked, mature grown-ups don't devolve into name-calling and implications of Orwellian censorship* every time someone has the audacity to disagree with them.

(*This refers to your "people telling me what's appropriate makes me nervous" comment, which completely gleans over the fact that I never actually told anyone "what was appropriate", and in fact, was using the word "appropriate" in the context of "befitting the situation", and not "what society approves of". Just so we're clear.)

Stop feeding the troll.

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Rabid_Weasle wrote:
Stop feeding the troll.

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OM NOM NOM NOM

My faggottree wasn't doing very well where it was, so I niggered it up and wopped it into a new spick and now it's doing great. See?

 This is me as a faggot I guess. It didn't take much.

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HCRoyall wrote:

My faggottree wasn't doing very well where it was, so I niggered it up and wopped it into a new spick and now it's doing great.

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This leads me to something I was thinking about as I was driving home from work and the radio stopped working, I was going to bring it up anyways but Royall's post kind of leads right into it...

What's the obsession with the n-bomb?

1) There's something to the tune of 200+ other durogatory words for black people, that never get used. Now, I'm personally not the kind of person who tosses around racial slurs for a laugh, but if I was, I'd bone up on some of them, just to add some variety to my speech.

2) There's also a metric shitload of other races, each with their own special slur-speech. What did they do to deserve a free ride?

I also re-read Mandingo's list of new uses for old slur words, this time using the "he's not trying to be taken seriously whatsoever" filter, and, lo and behold... Meh, it's worth a chuckle, his comics are funnier though. But one thing stuck out for me - "Faggoting out the last of the peanut butter". This one actually makes sense, moreso if you use the word's pre-slur origin - "a bundle of sticks". So now, I have it in my head that "faggoting" is when you use 3 or more fingers to extract the last of something from a jar. And, given that I have eating habits gleaned from the pages of Garfield and Winnie The Pooh, this is a term I'd actually be likely to use.

Well, not out loud, of course.

I'm glad there's a word for it now, because I used to ask people, "Hey, you know that last bit of peanut butter in the jar?" and they'd say "Yeah", and I'd say "You know what I just did?" and they'd say "What?", and I'd just point to the empty jar and say "Aaah...aaah" like Tor Johnson or Oddjob, and then I'd drop my pants and a duck would fly out.

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...and I'd just point to the empty jar and say "Aaah...aaah" like Tor Johnson or Oddjob, and then I'd drop my pants and a duck would fly out.

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If this were Beat The Picture I would totally make the page look thusly:

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ZMannZilla wrote:
There's something to the tune of 200+ other durogatory words for black people, that never get used.

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Ah, you clearly didn't grow up in South Buffalo...

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UnknownEric wrote:

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ZMannZilla wrote:
There's something to the tune of 200+ other durogatory words for black people, that never get used.

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Ah, you clearly didn't grow up in South Buffalo...

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Bix nood, anyone?

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HCRoyall wrote:
I really have better things to do than wrack my brain trying to remember all the racial slurs I've heard.

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What are these things?  I would like to try some of them.

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biped wrote:

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HCRoyall wrote:
I really have better things to do than wrack my brain trying to remember all the racial slurs I've heard.

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What are these things? I would like to try some of them.

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UnknownEric wrote:

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ZMannZilla wrote:
There's something to the tune of 200+ other durogatory words for black people, that never get used.

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Ah, you clearly didn't grow up in South Buffalo...

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No, actually, I grew up on the West Side of Buffalo, which has done wonders for my knowledge of Hispanic slurs...

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ZMannZilla wrote:
No, actually, I grew up on the West Side of Buffalo, which has done wonders for my knowledge of Hispanic slurs...

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Ah, my wife's a West Sider.

bunch of faggots itt

I'm not entirely sure what's going on here because the replies are very long. I certainly have the time to read it now, just not the willpower. Here's my initial assessment:

ZMannZilla (I hope I spelled your name right from memory) seems to be making an issue out of the use of the words "faggot" and "nigger" and their use in society. So, the problem, if I am understanding it correctly, is that he wants everyone in the world (or at least everyone who can read this thread) to stop using the words "faggot" and "nigger" because they are offensive, correct?

Unfortunately, you can't change everyone. There have been many before you, Z, and there will be many after you. You can argue with the individuals who offend you, but it's not likely going to do you much good. My preferred route is simply to ignore those people who offend me. If it is like a friend or someone who genuinely cares for me in some way (truthfully or imagined in my own head), I won't hesitate to at least ask them to not do those things in front of me, and, out of respect for me, they generally choose not to say/do the things that offend me when I am around.

I believe you called someone selfish because those words didn't offend them, so they saw no real point. But aren't you being selfish yourself by requesting that everyone else conform to what you believe is right?

I respect the wishes of those around me. If someone tells me that they really hate it when people drink coffee, I will not drink coffee around them. But when they are not present, there is nothing wrong with me drinking coffee, is there? I no longer have to respect them when I am in my own home and not attempting to be social with them. The same with the words people choose to use. If you ask them to be respectful of you and not use them to or around you, that's one thing. But to request that they never do again is another thing. Furthermore, to request that the entire website conform to your standards is unacceptable, at least the way I see it. Here is a website that allows people to express themselves (through the forum of comics). And you're telling people to restrict themselves in their expressions. I bet Piccaso's art would have been REALLY great if someone were looking over his shoulder telling him the right and wrong ways to put paint to canvas.

On this website, it's pretty generally accepted that the users have freedom of speech. Being that you did not make this website, nor do you own it, you do not have the right to take anyone's freedom of speech away. If I have all my facts straight, this is how I feel and I don't think you have the right at all to censor anyone here. If someone says something directly to you that offends you, go ahead and hunt them down, but if they're not directly involving you, please ignore them or expect the same demands of censorship from them.

I'm very sorry, let me make a correction. ZMannZilla did not begin this thread, faggot did. Change all references to ZMannZilla to references to faggot.

Except where I mentioned the part about "selfishness", please change that to tentative agreement with Z.

And pretend that I was logged in under my normal username also.

I used to smoke around 30 fags a day.

this thread is niggeriffic!

and chock full of faggoty goodness!

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attitudechicka wrote:
And pretend that I was logged in under my normal username also.

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to throw my 2c into this overtly semantic argument, you can't use a word in a disparaging manner without it offending someone.

to wit, if i were to call myself a Mick or a cracker, there are those who would take offense. (I would be one of them, but i digress).

it is NOT the intention of the word but the word itself that is in question here.

there's an old phrase, "you can't shake the devil's hand and say you're only kidding"

in this case, what it means is this :

use of the words nigger, kike, dyke, fag, faggot, dicksniffer, et al, constitutes a direct desire to surprise or offend. YOU KNOW THIS, hence your username.

don't shit in my mouth and call it a sundae.

you use these words BECAUSE they offend and they get your little ass some Interweb attention. you're not enlightened, you're just a troll. "OH LOOK AT ME, I AM SOOOOO COUNTER-CULTURE!!1"

cursing is fun, cursing is part of the joy of language, but deliberate use of offensive words to shock people is just plain stupid.

Twat-Waffle!

BirthdayChika: 

I realize you retroactively steered your comments away from me, however most of them were directed at things that I said, not faggot, and so I feel a certain obligation to address them.

Finn34 summed up my actual point quite well: "don't shit in my mouth and call it a sundae". I've never told people what they could and couldn't say. And they can't tell me what I should be thinking when they say it.

I also never told anyone "stop saying those words", and had you read my posts, I actually said quite the opposite, namely, "I'm not saying you should stop saying those words."

My reference to faggot's "selfishness" was in his stated philosophy, that he should be allowed to use standard-issue hate speech in a casual way without offending anyone, because "he didn't mean it that way".  The philosophy itself relies far too heavily on other people conforming to his own interpretations, hence, "selfish".

And +3 Kudos for spelling my name right from memory - you have NO idea how often people don't, usually when I need them to the most. 

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finn34 wrote:

there's an old phrase, "you can't shake the devil's hand and say you're only kidding"

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Is that an old phrase?  Because I thought it was a They Might Be Giants lyric.