Europa: The Last Battle š
thesporkeffect
JoeBigelow
I'm back on my BS š¤ŖTo my Hispanic ears, ānāoā sounds like an Anglophone saying āblackā. Even when used derogatorily, my immediate first thought is that they pronounced it incorrectly, then the rest of the associated matters kick in and I realize what they are really saying.
Imagine if in the Hispanosphere , the word āblackā was almost synonymous with the n-word.
But yeah, donāt use nāo in English to refer to or describe anyone.
Call up the UNCF and let them know immediately!
(Yes, I know they mostly brand themselves as the United Fund now.)
bdonvrIt was used in place of black for a longer period, and wasnāt necessarily considered a slur in and of itself. But of course if you say it with a sneer, even āblackā can be used as an insult.
For example a lot of books (even written by people of color) used ānegroā and ācolouredā etc. interchangeably up to the mid-late 20th century. But in modern context very few people use it in a manner that isnāt derogatory.
I still have trouble referring to a person as āblackā. It feels like a slur, or at least an inappropriate racial caricature (theyāre not really black!) and it still surprises me that itās become the acceptable and inoffensive term.
The n word almost seemed more mild, being about the same thing (an inappropriate way to describe race from skin colour), but linguistically removed (Iām not a native Latin speaker*) so I can feel itās just a word, no need to be intrinsically good or bad.
- Or Spanish, whatever
From my experience, black people want to be called black. Iām a white kid, but was raised in a foster family with three black siblings and other black family, including some that lived in a ghetto in another city. It was the 90s and early 2000s, so we watched some BET, we watched the Boondocks, we listened to thug rap, we watched shows with black characters such as All That and Cousin Skeeter. Because it was all a part of my brothersā culture. In anything we participated in Iāve never heard a single African-American who didnāt call themselves āblackā and be fine being called that.
Iāve also sometimes made the argument in defense of āblackā, that āAfrican-Americanā is mildly politically-incorrect itselfā not that I have a problem with the term, just the hyper-vigilant enforcing of it . Because itās not synonymous with skin color itself, itās a statement about where they came from. We donāt call white people āEuropean Americansā, and what do we call non-black African-Americans from, say, Egypt or South America? Soā¦ yeah.
That makes sense.
Iām not American; never been to America. So I grew up with different culture. The dark skinned ethnicities near me were mainly Pakistani, and I donāt remember if they were happy to be called black or not. I think we basically grew up feeling like you have to ignore skin colour, the same way you ignore the size of someoneās nose. We werenāt supposed to see it as any more different than someone else is from Wales, and someone else is very tall, and someone else lives in this or that neighborhood - but to comment on āblackā skin or big nose might give offence.
I agree āAfrican-Americanā is an awkward term also, as you say.
I suppose part of the difference is the black community in America, as I understand it, has a very strong cultural identity, whereas when I grew up the idea was basically that your ethnicity was another part of your background, but not your community identity. A British Indian is a Brit who happens to have Indian heritage, that they may like to hold close or may like to distance from: but weāre all British. And someone from South Kensington might talk all posh anā all; and a Scouserās gonna Scouse: but weāre all British. That sort of thing. (And if youāre not British we still welcome you just as fondly; and to do otherwise would also be racist.)
Nutteman
Juniper (she/her) š«āSavagesā, "Redskinsā, āSquawā, and so on.
Some news headlines even refer to the second one as āthe R-wordā:
CNN: The terrible R-word that football needed to lose
Politico: The R-Word Is Even Worse Than You Think
These are extremely harmful words with hundreds of years of genocide behind them. I imagine the only reason they arenāt censored like the N-word is is because Native Americans make up a proportionally smaller population due to the effectiveness of the genocide, and because the reservation system is in contrast to racial integration as with American black people in so much as it limits interactions between them and racist whites who would overuse a dehumanizing phrase to the same extent.
The terrible R-word that football needed to lose
Our country cannot simultaneously embody equality while also promoting dictionary-defined racial slurs, writes Oneida Indian Nation Representative, Ray Halbritter. The Washington Redskinās name has been an explicit example of such a slurāAmerica is better for the team dropping it.
LizNon-American here. I also didnāt get this, thinking itās just puritanical bullshit. Some Americans seem obsessed with auto-censorship.
Anyway, I finally understood while watching Django Unchained. Itās an extremely dehumanising word, meant to separate people (who have rights) from things which do not. Itās a tool to be able to do this distinction and then do unspeakable evil to specific people because they donāt count as people and so itās alright.
Now remember that slavery was ended* only relatively recently, segregation was a thing during the lifetimes of many people and this mindset of black people not being even human is still prevalentā¦
The word is meant to be always used in hostility and itās still being used like that today. Thatās why you want to steer clear of it.
BluJay320I think a lot of the conflict around the word is centered on the fact that many black people use it (obviously without the r) in casual reference to other people, often even people that arenāt black. Itās essentially become equivalent to ādudeā or ābrotherā. So some people donāt see how itās wrong to use it in that context even if you arenāt black.
Iām not saying I agree, mind you. Iām just making an observation
Django Unchained
Isnāt it ironic that a movie with so many uses of that word helped you understand that word better?
To me it seems a very good reason to believe that people shouldnāt be afraid of the syntax of the word, but definitely oppose the use when the semantic is the despicable one.
Flying Squid
DUMBASS
BigBananaDealerAbsolutely. I moved from urban Southeastern Wisconsin to the upper peninsula of Michigan. I love visiting that area, and I got a job offer while on vacation. I snatched the opportunity to move to my favorite place and uprooted my life in under two months. I didnāt last two years before coming back.
The amount of times I got into verbal altercations with strangers and acquaintances over their use of racial slurs, most often the N-word, made me become a homebody. I was a bartender, though, so you canāt exactly hide.
Thatās not to say I havenāt heard it in public all throughout Wisconsin. The difference was how comfortable people felt using these words and sharing openly racist views and stories like they were bragging about it. It felt like an area where people breathed a sigh of relief and took their hoods off. I couldnāt stomach staying in a place where certain friends of mine couldnāt comfortably visit.
Still, all that is nothing compared to what I saw and heard living in Tennessee. Itās sad and frightening how many communities are like this.
No, youāre thinking about a different scenario. What matters is not if you are black, but if you are the target of the word you are comparing to the n-word.
She, as an obese person herself, proposed that āobeseā is equivalent to the n-word. She didnāt censor her word the same way a black person doesnāt have to censor the n-word. Thatās not a contradiction. It would be, if she wasnāt obese.
Not that I care about the actual point, just wanted to talk about the logic. My bad, if my assumption that she is obese, is wrong.