Ethical Question

[Darog]

...see, this is why if and when I take over this site I'm banning every single one of you cunts.

Hey Grumpy? Want a bag of nigers?

 

[Hecatoncheires]

NO, BUT I WILL PUT YOU IN A BAG AND BURY YOU WITH THEM. >;[

 

[K3l]

Grumpy, just chill out and put some nigers inside you.

 

[Dervish]

I look at this thread and the only thing I can think about is the nurse who was looking after me last night was a super friendly black guy with a faint African accent, not sure where. Makes it interesting when I read some of you guys have never really, if at all, met a black person. Not your faults if you only have the media to go by, but always keep in mind there's black people in all sorts of countries that talk and act like the locals and they're by far the norm. One of my best friends growing up was half black, only way you'd really notice race being different between how we talked or behaved was when we were intentionally being playful shitheads and throwing stereotyping jokes at each other, and his mom was the best woman ever. It says something when the first time I got home in 3 years I made a special point to go visit her when I was stopping in my hometown (parents moved up North, so they weren't there anymore).

Anyways, sorry about the attangent. I just wanted to demonstrate that usually in most places, the black population was born and raised there and are pretty much indistinguishable from anyone else because that tends to be what happens when you grow up, to to school, and socialize with the local culture. I won't touch on the gangsta stereotypes that are popular in the media, but at least in Canada that's so far from the norm you'd think anyone acting that way was copying TV on purpose. I've seen way more white guys act like that.

As for our friend the n-bomb, at least in my eyes, spelling it with a 'gga' or 'gger' doesn't magically make it a different word. I'd never personally use it because I think it's pretty rude and disrespectful, but a lot of people do and that's fine. I just think a spade is a spade even if you call it a trowel.

 

[Gwazi Magnum]

Makes it interesting when I read some of you guys have never really, if at all, met a black person.

Being Canadian you're so used to being in a multi-racial nation.
Then you get people that say "I've never seen a black man" and my first reaction is "Have you been living under a rock?".

Like I get it, Canada's outside the norm in it's amount of diversity.
But holy shit, it's weird seeing adults who have never met _____ race before.

Should also be stated when I went through Autism Therapy as a kid, the two therapists with the biggest and longest involvement were both brown.
Saw them for long enough of my childhood they effectively played a rather big chunk in raising me, so the behaviour above strikes me as particularly odd.

I've seen way more white guys act like that.

[2]
It's a very bizarre phenomenon when you compare it to media.

 

[Dervish]

Being Canadian you're so used to being in a multi-racial nation.
Then you get people that say "I've never seen a black man" and my first reaction is "Have you been living under a rock?".

Like I get it, Canada's outside the norm in it's amount of diversity.
But holy shit, it's weird seeing adults who have never met _____ race before.

Should also be stated when I went through Autism Therapy as a kid, the two therapists with the biggest and longest involvement were both brown.
Saw them for long enough of my childhood they effectively played a rather big chunk in raising me, so the behaviour above strikes me as particularly odd.

[2]
It's a very bizarre phenomenon when you compare it to media.

Yeah, makes me glad I live in a country where seeing people from all over the world is a normal thing. I like meeting new people from different places, makes me wonder what their story is. I think I'd actually feel kind of weird visiting a country where virtually everyone is white.

But yeah, I never lived in a big city where I would be more likely to see a black guy dressed up like our hip hop gangsta subculture friends that seem to largely inspire this thread, so my exposure to that is the most painfully white guys in my school suddenly grow an adversion to belts, a love for oversized pants, and flat rimmed baseball hats with the sticker still on it.

 

[Brovo]

Words only have as much power as you give them. If you ban certain groups of people from using certain words, you only create disenfranchised classes, and prevent wounds from healing. Besides that, it's rather stupefying to me to propose that an entire race of people are so incredibly weak that they cannot handle the usage of a word. Should we really damage the entirety of a democracy so we can hold a word so thoroughly sacrosanct in the department of offensive terms, that it will never change as a result?

I mean, think about it. The more you hold something up as an example of damages to a group of people, and push it in everyone's faces as such, the slower and slower you're going to make real progressive change to happen. Besides that, you can make nigger out to be the "worst word ever made" as much as you like, some people who don't care will keep using it anyway. Therefore, the more logical course of action is to teach people not to care. The less people care about that word, the less power it has, the sooner we can move on past it.

Granted, is it polite to use slurs in every day conversation? No. There's a list of words that are considered impolite to use in modern conversation. "Fuck", "shit", "cracker", "paki", "nigger", so on. Social skills help. If someone is running around screaming "LOL CUCKHOLDING SHIT FUCKER NIGGER PAKI CRACKER POP SKULL NUGGERS~" You should probably just ignore them. They're probably a thirteen year old on XBox Live who just discovered the magical world of horrendous language. Let them get it out of their system, it's a phase, lots of people go through it. If they're an adult doing the same, they never learned, and if you choose to associate with them, that's your problem. If someone harasses you on the street screaming "fuck you nigger" or similar, ignore them. They're only going to hurt themselves in the end when their everlasting negativity comes to make them lonely.

Words only have as much power as you give them. People only have as much power over you with language as you give them. Just let it go... And you can, let it go. The only people who can't are so beyond damaged in the head that they need to see a psychiatrist.

 

[Gwazi Magnum]

The only version you can't use is the "double G with an E" version.

Admittedly, my own lisp would probably keep having me say the one I don't intend to be saying. XD

Yeah, makes me glad I live in a country where seeing people from all over the world is a normal thing. I like meeting new people from different places, makes me wonder what their story is.

I personally don't get that level of curiosity. I just kind of grew up to see them all as Canadian, so that's basically the amount of effort I usually give to thinking about it. We're all here, we're all Canadian, cool.
Not trying to suggest curiosity is well though, I'm just saying I personally don't tend to feel it.

I think I'd actually feel kind of weird visiting a country where virtually everyone is white.

*Visualizes it*
*Automatically goes to a bunch of pale bald men in suits... and wearing blue gloves*

I worry for my brain sometimes...

But yeah, I never lived in a big city where I would be more likely to see a black guy dressed up like our hip hop gangsta subculture friends that seem to largely inspire this thread, so my exposure to that is the most painfully white guys in my school suddenly grow an adversion to belts, a love for oversized pants, and flat rimmed baseball hats with the sticker still on it.

Same, I get occasional peeks at Toronto. But all you tend to notice while there is the high amount of homeless people they have... and the horrible traffic.

While Oakville (especially the malls) seem to have a thing for the no-belt, big pants fellows.

 

[Hellis]

I personally don't get that level of curiosity. I just kind of grew up to see them all as Canadian, so that's basically the amount of effort I usually give to thinking about it. We're all here, we're all Canadian, cool.
Not trying to suggest curiosity is well though, I'm just saying I personally don't tend to feel it.

Every so often I say to myself: "I Should move to canada"


Be happy you don't have to deal with the european Far Right Wing. It tends to get ugly, real fast.

 

[Gwazi Magnum]

Be happy you don't have to deal with the european Far Right Wing. It tends to get ugly, real fast.

True, but we also have to deal with our neighbours blind following of Donald Trump.

 

[ElBell]

I too am in the boat that it's only a word, and how much that carries for you is on you for the most part. If I wanna say words like the n-word, or swear, or anything along those lines, I am going to. Besides, everything you say could honestly offend someone, so to me walking on eggshells like that is absurd. I mean seriously, you can't even say 'Merry Christmas' without risking someone shitting on your holiday spirit =.=

While that doesn't give you the ability to walk into a black neighborhood and start yelling nigger, it does to me mean that if you wanna call your black friend that term, go for it. If he says he doesn't like it, that's okay. Respect that. But don't be so scared of a damn word that you won't even utter it. C'mon now, if you can say fuck and shit, you can take a shot and say nigger.

Bottom line: cultural sensitivity is fine and we should be mindful, but everyone can control how offended they let themselves get.

 

[Darog]

Words only have as much power as you give them. If you ban certain groups of people from using certain words, you only create disenfranchised classes, and prevent wounds from healing. Besides that, it's rather stupefying to me to propose that an entire race of people are so incredibly weak that they cannot handle the usage of a word. Should we really damage the entirety of a democracy so we can hold a word so thoroughly sacrosanct in the department of offensive terms, that it will never change as a result?

I mean, think about it. The more you hold something up as an example of damages to a group of people, and push it in everyone's faces as such, the slower and slower you're going to make real progressive change to happen. Besides that, you can make nigger out to be the "worst word ever made" as much as you like, some people who don't care will keep using it anyway. Therefore, the more logical course of action is to teach people not to care. The less people care about that word, the less power it has, the sooner we can move on past it.

Granted, is it polite to use slurs in every day conversation? No. There's a list of words that are considered impolite to use in modern conversation. "Fuck", "shit", "cracker", "paki", "nigger", so on. Social skills help. If someone is running around screaming "LOL CUCKHOLDING SHIT FUCKER NIGGER PAKI CRACKER POP SKULL NUGGERS~" You should probably just ignore them. They're probably a thirteen year old on XBox Live who just discovered the magical world of horrendous language. Let them get it out of their system, it's a phase, lots of people go through it. If they're an adult doing the same, they never learned, and if you choose to associate with them, that's your problem. If someone harasses you on the street screaming "fuck you nigger" or similar, ignore them. They're only going to hurt themselves in the end when their everlasting negativity comes to make them lonely.

Words only have as much power as you give them. People only have as much power over you with language as you give them. Just let it go... And you can, let it go. The only people who can't are so beyond damaged in the head that they need to see a psychiatrist.

 

[K3l]

So to sum it all up: It doesn't matter, we made words up, it's meaningless in the end, we're just a small spec among billions of other smell specs in an ever-growing infinite universe, SMOKE SATAN AND HAIL METH!

 

[Gwazi Magnum]

we're just a small spec among billions of other smell specs in an ever-growing infinite universe

Don't forget the being made of Star Stuff. :3

 

[Brovo]

So to sum it all up: It doesn't matter, we made words up, it's meaningless in the end, we're just a small spec among billions of other smell specs in an ever-growing infinite universe, SMOKE SATAN AND HAIL METH!

Yeah. Pretty much. There is no evidence that life has any greater meaning than that which you apply to it in order to satisfy your inner craving to have a purpose in life. You live one millionth of a second of the universe's lifespan. In the time the universe takes to blink, your entire life has flashed before it eyes.

Yet, in that abysmal view, there is one shining point. We are the universe made manifest, attempting to understand itself, still living upon our frail cradle, drifting helplessly through the night sky. We've not yet figured out what we want to be, but one day, we will. As we do, we'll reach out to the stars, and find new places to call home. New ways to live and be happy. A final frontier that stretches on to an incredible, mind numbing infinity.

And yet, we remain trapped within the idiosyncrasies of tribalism, bound by factors so insignificant as race and gender and sexuality, that we've forgotten just how marvelous our lives truly are, and how utterly insignificant our problems equally are.

It's probably the greatest irony of mankind. We have the capacity to learn in leaps and strides, and often choose not to, in favour of our more primitive and animistic emotions.

 

[Windsong]

As a white guy who grew up in 'the hood' part of town. My black friends think it's hilarious, letting one word have such power. But they're also huge weebs, so they don't fit the mold of most black guys anyway.

Their stance on the word and it's usage is fairly straight forward. When a weekend in Chicago can go by without a shooting. Or some stupid kid doesn't get shot by police for waving around a toy gun to look cool. And maybe, just maybe, when the media covers the execution style murder of some well-to-do white family like they covered Martin and Brown. Maybe then people will take them seriously.

Fucking love my friends. It's where I get most of my anime.

Just don't go outside and use it. Ever. Ever. Especially in my town.

 

[SacredWarrior]

Since I'm probably gonna be the only black person in this thread, I might as well give my two cents. I don't particularly care for the n word or any racial slur. I never use the word (unless I'm joking and even then it's the nigga version). If someone around me who isn't black uses the word, I won't really care unless they say it in an offensive way since I don't tolerate racism from any race and I won't hesitate to kick some ass and take names if I have to. Hell I've had to take a few hits for some of my friends (they were white) because of that shit.

Long story short, racial slurs are stupid and if you use them in a derogatory way, prepare for social consequences and an ass-kicking.

Also to the people here who've never seen a black person in their life and are only going by what the media says, I hope someone says the same thing about your respective race. That probably would suck major ass wouldn't it? Also broaden your fucking horizons please.

 

[Dervish]

Admittedly, my own lisp would probably keep having me say the one I don't intend to be saying. XD

I personally don't get that level of curiosity. I just kind of grew up to see them all as Canadian, so that's basically the amount of effort I usually give to thinking about it. We're all here, we're all Canadian, cool.
Not trying to suggest curiosity is well though, I'm just saying I personally don't tend to feel it.

*Visualizes it*
*Automatically goes to a bunch of pale bald men in suits... and wearing blue gloves*

I worry for my brain sometimes...

Same, I get occasional peeks at Toronto. But all you tend to notice while there is the high amount of homeless people they have... and the horrible traffic.

While Oakville (especially the malls) seem to have a thing for the no-belt, big pants fellows.

Oh, I mean people actually not born here with obviously foreign names and accents. People born here are just that, if somebody sounds like me I don't generally wonder where they're from.

 

[K3l]

Since I'm probably gonna be the only black person in this thread

What a mighty assumption my fellow caramel colored human.

 

[Dervish]

Every so often I say to myself: "I Should move to canada"


Be happy you don't have to deal with the european Far Right Wing. It tends to get ugly, real fast.

I'd say you're welcome to crash on my couch, but the dog will take that as an invitation to use you as a slowly deflating air mattress.