quote:I think you greatly overestimate voter intelligence.
On the contrary, I have a pretty good notion of the average intelligence of the electorate.
It is unfortunate, but in the world of modern sound-bite politics, making a big deal about this quote is a very good political move. Unfortunately, many of today's voters lack the initiative to pursue the context of a quote like this, and insinuation is everything in politics. If you can use this quote to hint that Romney is racist, and do it over and over again, you can score cheap political points. It is unfair and represents a despicable trend in politics, but I fear that sort of trick will only become more and more common.
Taking all this into account, perhaps I should amend my comment to say that trying to make ado about this particular issue is an insult to the intelligent voter.
Posts: 786 | Registered: Jun 2003
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I heard it in spain but I got the impression that Conejo had the same implication pretty much everywhere.
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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2 similar terms which I have issue with before I leave for the day:
1) Since I just watched Clerks 2 this weekend: Porch Monkey. I had never heard the term before the movie, and my immediate thoughts on hearing it were exactly as implied in the initial use of the phrase (i.e. someone lazy sitting on their porch just watching life go by). I dunno, while the situation in the movie is obviously ludicrous there seems to be some legitimacy to Randall's crusade.
2) Indian. While in a creative writing class senior year of college we read a number of Native American short stories and poems and discussed them. When at one point I made reference to something "Indian" I was immediately reprimanded by almost the entire class. I was confused because I had always seen the term as fairly neutral, if silly. Obviously it could be used in a negative manner (as any racial title can be depending on tone and context... see NINA) but I'd always just viewed it as the term (incorrectly labelled though it was) for those individuals 'originating' in the Americas. I was further taken aback when some of my classmates also seemed to take offense at 'Native American' though I'm at a loss for what they considered to be an appropriate label.
Can anyone comment on either of these similar instances?
Posts: 1038 | Registered: Feb 2006
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Grimace, while I think people have the right to prefer whatever label they want, I agree that jumping all over someone's case for innocently failing to read their minds and keep up with the PC trends is silly and counterproductive.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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Grimace, I would have chided you for saying Indian and not meaning the people of central Asian country India.
Your classmates probably glean a sense of satisfaction for being able to play the PC card on you since they probably did not have anything inteligent to say.
I agree with Icarus, though it always seems to be white people who complain about any name used to describe that particular group of people. Maybe we shouldnt be trying to group them together in the first place <shrugs>
Pixiest: no hablo espaniol (you will have to translate for me to a limited extent) sorry!
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by The Pixiest: Rabbit is a sexual euphemism in spanish.
What spanish? 'cause that's news to me.
Every country has different phrases that mean different thing; makes translations in to Spanish brutal (my father is a professional trnslator). I know, for example, that you can't use the term "cojer" (to take) in Argentina because it has sexual connotations down there.
Posts: 3486 | Registered: Sep 2002
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The newly opened museum on the mall is called the Museum of the American Indian. I think that's an okay term.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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Interesting anecdote from NYU Law...our first year lawyering class ends with briefs and oral arguments over a made up case, Wanoda Tribe v. Miller, in which a California Native American tribe is suing California's Department of Children and Social Services for a general violation of the Federal Indian Child Welfare Act. One of the questions that kept coming up (primarily for the lawyers representing California, since we had to appear sensitive) was whether to use the term Native American or Indian, since the act in question uses the term Indian, but it was written in 1977 before the term started to be considered insensitive. Very annoying.
Posts: 170 | Registered: Mar 2001
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quote:I'm inclined to believe that unless someone is intending to communicate something offensive to you in the words they use, it is wrong of you to blame them for something offensive that you found in their words which they did not intend to communicate
Yes. This is how is should be. Sadly people just take things the way they sound to them, because people rarely pause to wonder what the intended meaning is.
To the person (Icarus I believe) who disagreed saying "what if the intention was not to offend, but the thought behind it was offensive", I think that still falls under this umbrella. If the intended meaning "girls aren't good at maths" is offensive, then it is offensive, but just suppose I said "blah, blah, maths, it's not for girls" parodying the Yorkie ads here in England, the intended meaning is not "girls can't do maths" so it isn't offensive.
If you mean something offensive, it's offensive. If you don't, it isn't.
This doesn't stop people being offended though, and never will.
I know about this recently because I made a totally innoccuous comment on someone's blog, about the difference between their blanket statement about the opinions of "the community" and the actual opinions prevalent in my community. They took this as a blanket denial that that opinion ever existed anywhere, and a deeply offensive attack on them for thinking that anyone could hold that opinion. It wasn't. I was pointing out that excessive Generalisation about issues is pointless because of the variety of human experience, but that didn't bother them. Banned. Gone, and not allowed to point out what I really meant, which did not contradict or insult them. Their interpretation of my words was the 'real' one, which is absurd.
Posts: 83 | Registered: Sep 2002
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quote:If the intended meaning "girls aren't good at maths" is offensive, then it is offensive, but just suppose I said "blah, blah, maths, it's not for girls" parodying the Yorkie ads here in England, the intended meaning is not "girls can't do maths" so it isn't offensive.
Maybe I'm missing something here, but I don't see the difference between saying "girls aren't good at math" and "math, it's not for girls."
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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Neither seems like a particularly favorable comment.
I mean, you could say "Bob isn't good at math" or "Math is just not for Bob" - both are commenting on Bob's poor math ability. How is one doing so less than the other?
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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I'm going to continue my aside, and say that black voters don't trust Republicans. Approximately 90 percent went to Kerry. Approximately 90 percent went to Gore. And there aren't any black republican representatives in congress anymore. The last assertion may be wrong. I thought that J.C. Watts was the last one, before he stepped down.
This doesn't have to be. It isn't a matter of representation in the upper eschelons, it's a matter of trust. Bush's entire cabinet could be black, and black people still wouldn't trust republicans. When Bush finally went to the NAACP this year, he gave neutered remarks,
quote:I consider it a tragedy that the party of Abraham Lincoln let go of its historic ties with the African-American community. For too long my party wrote off the African-American vote and many African- Americans wrote off the Republican Party.
That history has prevented us from working together when we agree on great goals. And it's not good for our country. That's why I've come to share with you. We put the interest of the country above political party.
I want to change the relationship.
The America we seek should be bigger than politics. And today I'm going to talk about some areas where I believe we can work together to reduce the obstacles for opportunity for all our citizens.
This sounds like a watered down apology. What Bush should have said was, "For fifty years, the Republican party has profitted from the votes of scared whites at the expense of black Americans, so much the case that now, a national campaign map looks like something out of a civil war battle plan. Sure, it's not the fifties and we don't use ethnic slurs, but code words like "law and order," "bussing," "quotas," and "states rights" have been artfully employed to let white people know that we are going to protect them from the influence of black people.
That's a shameful legacy, and one that poisons every member of my party. We sold black people out to get a lock on white voters. And let the words ring forth, from this podium at the NAACP, that the Republican party aims to work intimately with the black community to fashion public solutions that'll increase public participation of black people within the Republican party and within America.[/quote]
And if he would have followed it up by introducing a bill to let ex-felons vote, instead of 10 percent of blacks voting republican, it would have jumped up to thirty five percent, over night. And if he gives that same speech to some rich white southern audience, he could have gone to 40 percent.
The cost, of course, which may be evident in response to this thread, is that he is going to lose the support of whites. But who says that there isn't supposed to be a cost?
He is a fool who takes offense when none was intended.
It is getting a little ridiculous how easily we as a collective people jump to be offended by things that are said and done. Sometimes we should be but we definately take offense way too often.
(edited to add... I didn't read the entire thread and I am aware that it diverged somewhat from the original post. I'm not responding to anyone in particular just giving my meager thought) Posts: 1132 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
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The show doesn't mean to offend Mormons, just explore the conflicts endemic to having a mormon fire fighter. Are you saying that Mormons are fools for being offended by the temple garments exposure?
Posts: 5600 | Registered: Jul 2001
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I've never heard the term tar baby before. I was aware that "uppity" had been used to describe African Americans in the past, but it never would have occurred to me that having been used in that way would make it a racist term. When people talk about cracker in a discussion like this, I recognize it as being racist, although I have no idea what group it's used to describe. In general, though, if I heard someone described as a "Cracker" I would assume that they were crazy. I'm wondering how many more terms there are that I'm completely unaware are racist.
Posts: 4655 | Registered: Jan 2002
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You know, I doubt this. In fact, I think any show which makes the display of the garments a dramatic moment would almost by definition have to know enough about them to know that Mormons consider their display to be highly offensive. In fact, that they're "sooper-sekrit" is pretty much the only thing that most non-Mormons know about them.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:Maybe I'm missing something here, but I don't see the difference between saying "girls aren't good at math" and "math, it's not for girls."
You must be. And I'm not sure how.
The first one means "Girls aren't good at maths" The second one means "I am in context parodying an advert from TV, and in no way am actually commenting on the actual ability of Girls to do maths"
It's all in what is meant, rather than what is said. If I say "How you doing you old bastard" to a good friend, I don't in any way mean "How are you doing you illegitimately born person", even though that'd be the 'dictionary definition' of what I'd said.
quote:The second one means "I am in context parodying an advert from TV, and in no way am actually commenting on the actual ability of Girls to do maths"
What ad? This maybe be a form of humorous statement that's only funny to those "in the know" and has a lot worse meaning to those not in the know.
But, if the ad was for, say, men's deodorant or soap, and it said "Pumice Bar, it's not for girls" - that would mean "this isn't for sensitive skin" or somesuch. Joking by replacing "pumice bar" with "math" changes the meaning to jokingly say girls aren't good at math. It's still insulting, just veiled in a "it was just a joke" wrapper.
You could throw in "Driving, it's not for girls" or "Common sense, it's not for girls" or "Rational thought, it's not for girls" or any other word, and they all take on a "girls are bad at these things" meaning. It may be funny because of its relation to a commercial, but the message has been changed to something more insulting.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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Ah, I see. It's a joke made uisng a bad ad campaign - but, still, taking the slogan and applying to something different puts the speaker's own spin on it and refocuses on a different target. Instead of Yorkie trying to somehow show their bars are masculine, it is a joke made at the expense of girls not being able to perform well at ___________.
Consider some other slogan parodies turned to insults:
"Staying in the kitchen - just do it." (Nike) "White men - where's the beef?" (Wendy's) "Voting Democrat - sometimes you feel like a nut." (Almond Joy) "Your head - Like a Rock." (Chevrolet)
Just because something's a parody, doesn't mean it's automatically not offensive or insulting.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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