Warbler said:
while it is important to note that he wasn't fired, he resigned, I agree with you Gaffer. My point was that the initial reaction was understandable, and that David Howard could have saved himself alot of trouble if he had used his head.
But you do realize it was a forced resignation, right? He couldn't have kept his job if he wanted to. "Resignation" is a fancy synonym for "fired", allowing the person being fired an opportunity to "save face". Had he not opted to take the dignified way out and resign, he would have been fired. That is how it works with things like this.
Also, according to Wikipedia: "Bond also said, 'Seems to me the mayor has been niggardly in his judgment on the issue' and as a nation we have a 'hair-trigger sensibility' on race that can be tripped by both real and false grievances."
if that is what Bond thinks, that's good enough for me.
Is it perhaps okay for Bond to use this word, without suspicion of racism, based on the fact that he is black?
C3PX said:
Yet all those same people you mentioned, both the people at the NAACP meeting and the fine folks of Camden, NJ, would happily use the word themselves, or at the very least listen/watch media that uses it frequently and not mind it a bit.
that is true for some of them, but not all them. I've heard many black people complain about the rappers using the n-word. Please read the reasoning that I gave gaffer as to why SOME of them think its ok for black people to use the word, but not white people. Again, I don't agree with the reasoning, but that is what some of them think.
I know not all of them agree with its usage as slang. I read every bit of your posts, so I have read your explanation to Gaffer, there is nothing there I didn't already know. I know why SOME of them think it is okay, and I frankly could care less. That has NOTHING to do with my point. My point is, you have products and you are selling them to impressionable audiences of varying ethnicities, then you act shocked when they use catch phrases and slang that come from those products.
The fact that SOME African Americans feel it is okay to use that word in those contexts, just so long as you are the right shade of brown, and feel comfortable with having the entertainment media bursting at the seems with it, is a problem for ALL African Americans. Maybe instead of going wide eyed when a young teenager, who doesn't know any better and who is head over heels in love with his favorite rapper, uses the "N-word"; maybe they ought to turn their focus over to the cause and point finger where they belong. Instead of screaming "racist" at the poor kid who uses the word mimicking people he admires or thinks are cool and clearly has no racist intent; perhaps the focus needs to be turned to their own community and the effect they are having on people of other shades of brown need to be more carefully considered by all.
You mentioned slave owners using the word to refer to their slaves, well, the word has taken a huge shift in meaning since then. It has gone from derogatory slur to friendly slang. The old slave owners and the fifteen year old white O.D.B. fan have two entirely different meanings and intents behind that word, so why should the fifteen year old be treated like a slave owner for using it?
Maybe the world needs to except the fact that the meaning of this word has changed (not to say the old usage is invalid, but much like the word "gay", it simply doesn't always mean "happy" anymore) and not be so sensitive about it when used in a non-racist context (coming full circle, Darth Solo's post and the reaction it received being a perfect example of the above mentioned sensitivity as well the non-racist context). Or maybe they need to simply stop their people from selling that sort of stuff to white fifteen year olds.
I reacted as any average American would react.
I am afraid you are probably right, hence my annoyance at Americans and their inherent lack in ability to understand anyone who doesn't also happen to be an Americans.
You complained about me being harsh on Americans, but I guess that is my own personal N-word. I am an American, so I have the right to complain about them all I like.
You realize that alot of other forums would have banned him for using that word. Just go to another forum and use that word and see what happens, and then come back here tell me my reaction was over the top.
That is pretty sad. I guess when it comes to the internets where we are all faceless there are two basic assumptions about you, 1). You are an American, and 2). You are white.
C3PX said:
I'm not really in the mood to read an entire sermon of yours, Warb, so forgive me if I forgo our traditional paragraph-by-paragraph response on this one.
not sure how to take that. btw, I'm in a bad mood too. I feel that everyone is picking on me and I've had it. I responded to Darth Solo in what I thought was calm, rational way. In the past, my react would have been alot worse, and yet still people jump all over me. I've about had it with this s**t.
Suit yourself. You were not the only one that reacted that way to Darth Solo, yet you singled yourself out as being the victim. My original "jump all over" was not addressed directly or solely at you. React as you like. It is obviously something you feel strongly about, so I'd encourage you to do what you feel is right. I also feel strongly about the subject, so I too felt the need to pipe up and say something.
I have heard that word used with relative frequency all of my life.
I hadn't and I'm sure most Americans hadn't until that incident happened.
How in hell can you possibly assume ANYTHING about what MOST Americans did or did not know? You paint a picture of an America that is extremely ignorant and illiterate. It is kind of depressing, but in all reality, you are beginning to convince me that it might be true, at the very least, in the part of the country you are from.
C3PX said:
Hard to believe David Howard, the poor bastard who seemingly has a half way decent vocabulary about him, is the one being accused of being "real stupid".
well I don't know what else to call someone who doesn't stop think about using such and unusual and unknown word that is so easily confusable with the n-word.
Maybe he, like myself, never felt it was an unusual word. I'd never have stopped and thought twice before using it before I heard about this incident. I guess I am "real stupid" as well. Fair enough, everything else seems to have been turned ass upward with this whole thing, why not just go with the flow.
because it sounds so much like the n-word? I would think any reasonably intelligent person would have been able to figure out that trouble was going to happen.
Fine, I'll give you this one. Some people are pretty unintelligent to any reasonable degree, apparently, and they know what words mean and don't give a second thought to intelligent people who may be clueless to said word, and who might, very academically I might add, automatically assume it means the same thing as a word that sounds like it.
In the war against ignorance, enlightenment and education have taken a devastating loss here.
Most of America does [C3PX's note: I assume "not" is suppose to be here] use that word, I'll bet my life savings that not much of American knew of the existence of that word until David Howard used it.
I find it really odd that you are so certain that so few people knew that word, based on the fact that you yourself didn't know it.
I'd have to argue that it is a word that shows up fairly often in works that most high school educated Americans ought to have read, such as many of the works of Shakespeare, for example. To me, it stands to reason that, having been exposed to the word there, had they not known what it meant upon first reading it, they would have looked it up like most sensible people do upon encountering an unknown word. I refuse to believe that "Not much of America knew of the existence" of a word that appears multiple times in books such as Hamlet, The Canterbury Tales, and Paradise Lost, two of which are in most high schools in the US still required reading.
I have a hard time believing this discussion is taking place. You are pretty presumptuous, assuming everyone to fit in line with your view of things.
I could say the same thing to you.
What have I been presumptuous about? Did I make the claim that MOST Americans do or don't know something simply based on the fact that I myself don't know something. I honestly can't say how many Americans are educated enough to know what that word means, I'd hope for the sake of my own faith in the American education system that it is higher than what you claim, and I honestly think it is. It would be quite a presumptuous claim for me to say that MOST Americans know exactly what it means. I simply don't think it is as uncommon as you seem to believe it is.
You really think that if you took a time machine back to before the incident happened and did a national survey and asked people to define the word niggardly, that a large majority would be to do it correctly and would confuse it with n-word?
I never heard of this incident before reading Gaffer's link yesterday. I have heard that word in use since childhood, and had I not known of its existence then, I was exposed to it numerous times in high school and again in university.
I have no idea what the results of a national survey would have revealed. Perhaps you are right, and it would have revealed that we are a dumbfoundingly stupid nation that doesn't even bother to try to learn its own language.
C3PX said:
I have known that word and heard it in use since I was in grade school. I think most people with a tendancy to read would likely be familiar with this word, or at least have seen it in print before.
you must have been one smart grade schooler and I and much of America must be pretty stupid.
Another unfair presumption.
I was not trying to claim to be an ubermensch by saying I knew that word as a kid, I was trying to demonstrate that I don't think it is as uncommon and as unknown as you seemed convinced that it is. But you seem to have made up your mind that it was an incredibly uncommon and obscure word that no mere mortal would have known about prior to this incident, despite the fact that it is used in some of the most popular and best selling works in all of English literature.
It is used many times in the King James Version of the Bible, which has been the most popular and widely used English translation of the Bible for a very long time.
Now that I think about it, I am pretty sure it is used several times in The Lord of the Rings, and maybe even in The Hobbit. J.R.R. Tolkien even named the titular character of one of his stories a derivative of the word "Niggard" (Leaf By Niggle).
I simply don't think, and have a hard time being convinced, that the word is as uncommon or as unknown as you think it is.
