[quote=“Mother Theresa”]I agree that the term negro may seem old fashioned but shouldn’t be seen as offensive. It certainly wasn’t meant as such by Reid and is still used by lots of reputable sources.
I agree that the term negro may seem old fashioned but shouldn’t be seen as offensive. It certainly wasn’t meant as such by Reid and is still used by lots of reputable sources.[/quote]
It’s rare that I would even ask this, because certainly foreigners can live and learn more about one’s home country then the natives, but are you either of you from the US?
There is not one person I know in the US who would say that “Negro” is acceptable. I would challenge you to ask any black man (the term “black” is acceptable in the US in most cases) in the US if he would be offended if he were referred to as Negro by a non-black. I would also strongly caution referring to Caribbean immigrants as being “new negro immigrants”, I’m telling you, it is definitely offensive. I’m not saying that’s fair or proper, I’m saying that’s the way it is.
The United Negro College Fund has had that name when it was still considered acceptable, and they have chosen to keep it, but they promote the acronym UNCF now, because it is absolutely positively not an acceptable term to use in the US in common speech, except when in reference to historical events that involve it. Reid knows that, he’s let it slip by accident from the good old boy days.
There’s a different between pointing out a problem, as Reid did (albeit through a very poor choice of words), and being part of the problem, as Lott was.
Also, if we want to see who’s more likely to be racist, we should look at voting records. For instance. Out of Reid and Lott, who supported the Voting Rights Act? Who supported honoring MLK with a holiday?
Fair enough, if you feel the need to call it out further than it already has been in the MSM. We all did, by the way, learn about the gaffe through the MSM, right?
The MSM calls these things out, and then we (the moderate public) give it a look. If we take a look at Sen. Reid, we see nothing (voting records, other comments, or affiliations) to corroborate the suspicion that he is particularly racist. He is also a member of the Party that, based on its platform, is perceived (rightly or wrongly) as being less racist and more pro-black interest than its competitor. It’s no great surprise that the MSM doesn’t see a story to pursue, though they’ve already done their best to make one.
Sadly, a Republican who makes a similar comment, even if he is personally colorblind, must lie in the bed that his Party made for him (party-line votes being the norm these days). Then the storyline has legs. It sucks if the Republican isn’t actually a racist, but it’s not some sort of conspiracy. You have to earn the benefit of the doubt - on race relations, the Republicans have cultivated their own uphill battle.
Wait, which is it:
Obama was nominated/elected because he is black? (Commonly stated Republican theory.)
Obama was nominated/elected despite being black? (Due to “redeeming” qualities that Reid referred to.)
[quote=“TwoTongues”][quote=“Mother Theresa”]I agree that the term negro may seem old fashioned but shouldn’t be seen as offensive. It certainly wasn’t meant as such by Reid and is still used by lots of reputable sources.
I agree that the term negro may seem old fashioned but shouldn’t be seen as offensive. It certainly wasn’t meant as such by Reid and is still used by lots of reputable sources.[/quote]
It’s rare that I would even ask this, because certainly foreigners can live and learn more about one’s home country then the natives, but are you either of you from the US?
There is not one person I know in the US who would say that “Negro” is acceptable. I would challenge you to ask any black man (the term “black” is acceptable in the US in most cases) in the US if he would be offended if he were referred to as Negro by a non-black. I would also strongly caution referring to Caribbean immigrants as being “new negro immigrants”, I’m telling you, it is definitely offensive. I’m not saying that’s fair or proper, I’m saying that’s the way it is.
The United Negro College Fund has had that name when it was still considered acceptable, and they have chosen to keep it, but they promote the acronym UNCF now, because it is absolutely positively not an acceptable term to use in the US in common speech, except when in reference to historical events that involve it. Reid knows that, he’s let it slip by accident from the good old boy days.[/quote]
Mother Theresa made a solid point that the US government continues to offer the term “negro” as a self-descriptor on the Census form based on 55,000 write-ins from the 2000 Census.
That said, I agree that - as a white, American, Southern, 30-year-old male trained in anthropology - I would not feel comfortable calling an African-American person a Negro, even though it literally means the same damn thing as “black”. Race relations are by nature tricky, confusing, and charged with emotion. How do you explain to someone objectively that it is acceptable in the American English lexicon to call someone a “person of color” but completely UNacceptable to call someone a “colored person”?
I can give a little slack to a Senator with a demonstrably non-racist voting record and who spent 4/7ths of his life in an environment where “Negro” was the proper word, and who accidentally let the word slip again.
Hailing most recently from Kansas, I note that “Native Americans” have recently pushed for the moniker “First Peoples”, and the term “Indian” is now considered derogatory. Oops. I’ll have to work on that, but please don’t judge me in the meantime.
[quote=“GeographicCure”]Fair enough, if you feel the need to call it out further than it already has been in the MSM. We all did, by the way, learn about the gaffe through the MSM, right?[/quote]The problem is we are hearing about all this almost 2 years after it has happened. The reporters who wrote “Game Change” sat on the news till it became personally profitable for them and the story was finished. They never reported it as the campaign was happening.
The MSM is 90% registered democrat. You’d have to go to one party states to find that sort of ideological purity.
[quote=“GeographicCure”]Wait, which is it:
Obama was nominated/elected because he is black? (Commonly stated Republican theory.)
Obama was nominated/elected despite being black? (Due to “redeeming” qualities that Reid referred to.)[/quote]Obama got in because of a few things. I would say no voting record, 2 popular autobiographies and a reputation as a good speaker along with most importantly, no MSM scrutiny. After the debacle of Gore and Kerry and the present at the time debacle of Edwards and Clinton, they really needed to look outside the box for a candidate that could win. Even Naomi Wolf dissed Gore. Kerry was a complete fucktard. Edwards was a flaky phony. Do I really need to go into Hillary Clinton? When you consider their last great national politician was Bill Clinton and that wasn’t a good time to be a democrat. They really needed someone out of nowhere to save them and that man was Obama. Despite republicans hating McCain, McCain suspending his campaign to handle the financial crisis :ohreally: , and him being a really uninspiring candidate, he still managed to eek out 46% of the vote despite 8 years of Bush and incredible amounts of Palin hate.
I used the term negro when speaking to black people when I worked in St. Louis. Having a traditionally negro name helps a lot. I only got into trouble once for using boy and that almost got me knifed. You really have to be aware of your coworkers and such if you are going to use such language as they could use it to bite you in the ass.
And let us not forget Jimmy the Greek, whose views of blacks’ greater aptitude for certain sports were received as racist, despite substantial scientific support.
Or on the other side of the fence, the widespread mockery of “Ebonics.” Neither the media nor Jesse Jackson could be bothered to learn what it actually was (a pedagogical system for teaching standard English to native speakers of AAVE, NOT a proposal to formalize AAVE and make it the medium of education).
Something about the subject makes people just turn off their brains and react with the knee-jerk.
Just watch Trading Places, see how Dan Ackroyd uses the term “Negro”, and tell me that wasn’t done precisely because it’s unacceptable. And that was 25 years ago.
“Louis Winthorpe III: I had the most absurd nightmare. I was poor and no one liked me. I lost my job, I lost my house, Penelope hated me and it was all because of this terrible, awful Negro.” (courtesy of those wonderful folks at IMDB)
It ain’t right, because of the connotations the term had from slavery and segregation days, and I strongly suggest anyone who goes to the US not use the term. The existence of the term in a government form (e.g. “negroid”) is not justification for its use in speaking.
I’m not saying that it’s not acceptable in specific forms, but in the vast majority of communication, it simply is not, and Reid knows it.
So, despite it being small potatoes, you’re just posting it to bring balance to the force. As a moderate, I can appreciate that.
And it sounds like you’re on the right track in ascribing profit motive to the MSM, which ranks pretty high in the Republican pantheon of just motivations. I happen to agree with that part of the platform, I just don’t think you get it both ways - it’s not both profit AND ideologically driven (other than coincidentally).
The MSM is business, and the constant ad hominem attacks against them are the last refuge of people who are caught being naughty. See Bush’s last 8 years, and the Clinton’s “Vast Right Wing Conspiracy”. We can certainly make a limited case for media bias, but I’d go with the media’s code of ethics over the non-existent one followed by the politicians over whom they provide oversight.
Furthermore, what’s the alternative? Joe the Plumber as our “fair and balanced” source of news? The RNC, the DNC? Hey, fmr Gov. Palin’s got a journalism degree! Sorry, I think we’re stuck with that over-educated, hyper-informed, “elite” class of scoundrels we call journalists. Sorry if they happen to have reached (apparently at a rate of 90%, according to you) a conclusion contrary to the platform of your political affiliation.
[quote=“Okami”][quote=“GeographicCure”]Wait, which is it:
Obama was nominated/elected because he is black? (Commonly stated Republican theory.)
Obama was nominated/elected despite being black? (Due to “redeeming” qualities that Reid referred to.)[/quote]Obama got in because of a few things. I would say no voting record, 2 popular autobiographies and a reputation as a good speaker along with most importantly, no MSM scrutiny. After the debacle of Gore and Kerry and the present at the time debacle of Edwards and Clinton, they really needed to look outside the box for a candidate that could win. Even Naomi Wolf dissed Gore. Kerry was a complete fucktard. Edwards was a flaky phony. Do I really need to go into Hillary Clinton? When you consider their last great national politician was Bill Clinton and that wasn’t a good time to be a democrat. They really needed someone out of nowhere to save them and that man was Obama. Despite republicans hating McCain, McCain suspending his campaign to handle the financial crisis :ohreally: , and him being a really uninspiring candidate, he still managed to eek out 46% of the vote despite 8 years of Bush and incredible amounts of Palin hate. [/quote]
First, none of that speaks to the factor of Obama’s race in the election - so, which way is it? I feel like the Right wants it both ways, or dances between the choices depending upon which is seems more damaging to the Dems. Understandable, but not consistent or intellectually honest enough to sway the independents.
Second, there are too many subjective statements in there to address in narrow terms (which is not to say I disagree with all of them), but I’ll note that Gore got 48.4% of the popular vote in 2000 (Bush 47.87%, Nader 2.7%), Kerry was running against an incumbent during wartime (48.27% even with Swiftboaters), and it’s unclear whether Palin ultimately hurt or helped McCain’s 46%.
What is it that more MSM scrutiny would have turned up about Obama? Muslim? Kenyan? “Most Liberal Senator”? ACORN affiliation? Ayers? Reverend Wright? If you’ve heard these story lines, it’s through the MSM, and they followed them until the evidence dried up… then they followed the people who continued to push the storyline as a story in themselves (e.g. Birthers). Then they changed their product to suit their consumers. That’s business.
[quote=“Okami”]
I used the term negro when speaking to black people when I worked in St. Louis. Having a traditionally negro name helps a lot. I only got into trouble once for using boy and that almost got me knifed. You really have to be aware of your coworkers and such if you are going to use such language as they could use it to bite you in the ass.[/quote]
Free tip: any time you refer to someone in a way that makes them think you see them as property, they will not be happy with you. Shocker.
Between the two, I’m less afraid of a single old man who uses the word “Negro”, in conversation and not as an epithet, even if it is not the currently approved term than I am of the Republicans, who consistently expend political capital to emphasize that the Confederate battle flag be kept flying as part of their home states’ flags, to pay tribute to the single-plank segregation platform of Strom Thurmond, to play songs about Obama being a “magic negro” as their personal anthem, to kiss ass to hate groups like the C.C.C. (“Council of Conservative Citizens,” previously known as the “White Citizens Council”) and the KKK (e.g., David Duke, Hal Turner, etc.). Meanwhile, the Republicans just love rallying around big photoshopped photos of “Obama” shining shoes and wearing a bone through his nose because that seems to appeal to their winnowing demographic in the place of ideas. And they were lining up at the Texas Republican Convention to buy those buttons questioning whether we could still call it the “White House” if Obama won… pathetic.
[quote=“GeographicCure”]And it sounds like you’re on the right track in ascribing profit motive to the MSM, which ranks pretty high in the Republican pantheon of just motivations. I happen to agree with that part of the platform, I just don’t think you get it both ways - it’s not both profit AND ideologically driven (other than coincidentally).
The MSM is business, and the constant ad hominem attacks against them are the last refuge of people who are caught being naughty. See Bush’s last 8 years, and the Clinton’s “Vast Right Wing Conspiracy”. We can certainly make a limited case for media bias, but I’d go with the media’s code of ethics over the non-existent one followed by the politicians over whom they provide oversight.[/quote]Now imagine you are their boss who paid for them to report for you for that time and then you find out they held back on the product that you were paying them to collect. Considering how many reporters have either married into Obama’s team or have taken jobs there. I see a clear conflict of interest. You know how liberals go all apeshit over Fox news, well we feel the same way about the MSM in general.
I seriously doubt any of you actually know any republicans or conservatives.
You aren’t moderate so please don’t even pretend to try with me. Joe the plumber asked a simple question and had his records searched by state employees. He was demonized and eventually hounded out of his job for asking a question of a political candidate. Think about that for a moment. He lost his job and had Ohio state employees illegally go through his records. I would love to see how you can defend that.
We have blogs now to cut down on a lot of the fakery that is news now. CNN is suffering horribly for it. AP has blown a huge amount of credibility. Look at what sites and organizations are still profitable and growing in this environment. I can assure you that none of them are MSM affiliated.
Obama’s race was a non-factor in the election for conservatives outside of black folks. Even my conservative black friend voted for Obama because he was black and said so. He voted for Bush twice just to give you an idea.
Just admit that Kerry was a horrible candidate with more money than God in that election and Bush was hated, absolutely hated. You had the Guardian having it’s readers writing letters to voters in Ohio. Kerry just had the charisma of a dead fish and did nothing with his advantages. He basically got the nod because he wasn’t Dean. I mean we had such highlights as the hunting trip, the “I voted for it before I voted against it”, the thrown away medals ownership, the windsurfing, and the best was attending the Edwards’ anniversary trip to Wendy’s. I did like Teresa Heinz. She dropped the f-word, claimed to be African-American, and added the Kerry name hyphenated to hers during the campaign.
MSM scrutiny on Obama? Please you must be joking. They stuck his face on every cover they could. They dropped their former darling McCain like a cheap prostitute. They barely asked him any questions or reviewed his legislative record because he had wisely destroyed it. The voting present all those times. If it weren’t for youtube they would never have covered Wright. They have never mentioned that he has spent more time campaigning than he ever did as an elected official.
I never referred to my coworkers as property. Boy was a common way of referring to someone who needed to get the job done now and correctly with white folks where I grew up. If he were white I still would of referred to him as a boy in that sense.
[quote=“Okami”][quote=“GeographicCure”]And it sounds like you’re on the right track in ascribing profit motive to the MSM, which ranks pretty high in the Republican pantheon of just motivations. I happen to agree with that part of the platform, I just don’t think you get it both ways - it’s not both profit AND ideologically driven (other than coincidentally).
The MSM is business, and the constant ad hominem attacks against them are the last refuge of people who are caught being naughty. See Bush’s last 8 years, and the Clinton’s “Vast Right Wing Conspiracy”. We can certainly make a limited case for media bias, but I’d go with the media’s code of ethics over the non-existent one followed by the politicians over whom they provide oversight.[/quote]Now imagine you are their boss who paid for them to report for you for that time and then you find out they held back on the product that you were paying them to collect. Considering how many reporters have either married into Obama’s team or have taken jobs there. I see a clear conflict of interest. You know how liberals go all apeshit over Fox news, well we feel the same way about the MSM in general. [/quote]
Wait, so are we still worried about bias, or are we worried about newspaper editors getting screwed?
OK, thanks for sharing your doubts.
This is one of those times that a post says more about the poster than it does about the point he’s trying to make. You’re gott-damn omnipotent! You claim to know, not only who we know, but also the length and breadth of my political positions! Incredible! :roflmao:
I’m not terribly worried about convincing you of my political affiliations, or lack thereof, but here are some basic principals that I think you and your fellow Republicans will benefit from (and I think you can objectively admit that you guys are hurting even more than the Dems). Just because there is daylight between your position and someone else’s views on some topics doesn’t make them the enemy. Being moderate doesn’t mean not having an opinion on a given issue. It does not take a liberal to be frustrated by the Republican party over the last two presidential terms - that frustration is shared by conservatives and independents alike, though the reasons vary. When it comes time to vote, a moderate goes with the party that happens to line up more of his positions than the other. Sorry, but the Republican tent has only been getting smaller of late (see Specter, Snow, and other moderate Republicans being targeted by their own party). Don’t worry, it will swing back the other way eventually. And I look forward to that day, because I think having options is a good thing.
I do have a lot of sympathy for Joe the Plumber. Asking a hypothetical question of a candidate should not be grounds for losing your job or being harassed in the way that he was. But you missed a significant step in his rise to infamy - the McCain/Palin campaign tried to use him. They named him “Joe the Plumber” and took him on the campaign trail. So, the man who hypothetically made $100,000/year and hypothetically was paying his taxes got an unusual amount of scrutiny that he never bargained for. The punishment, IMO, was far disproportionate to the relatively minor infraction.
The blogosphere certainly has a role to play, but it is currently heavily weighted toward people who want their preconceived notions fed back to them. Reaffirming people’s currently held opinions is big business. As blogging “news” is increasingly monetized, I suspect you will see an establishment emerge that will mimic the same profit motives you’re seeing in the MSM today. The barrier to entry is infinitely lower to blogging as compared to newsprint, so it will probably cycle quite quickly, though. Don’t throw away those BS-filter goggles just yet.
You don’t have any black friends.
Sorry, couldn’t resist. Anyway, thanks for the anecdote - based on the above information you apparently claim grasp both the entirety of the conservative vote and the entirety of the black vote. Impressive! :bravo:
My mention of Kerry was in response to yours. Your point appeared to be that the DNC was desperate for a viable candidate, and that Kerry, Gore, Clinton, and Edwards were examples of Dems that didn’t fit the bill. Then you referenced McCain’s 46% showing last November. That’s why I pointed out that Kerry got a higher percentage of the popular vote than McCain, in spite of sucking badly. And that Gore got a higher percentage of the pop. vote than his opponent. Thanks for letting make my point again!
They went with what was selling. See Palin’s constant and enduring presence in the MSM. The difference is that Obama held up well under the scrutiny. There were no substantive questions asked of Palin that were not asked of Obama. The difference in the resulting storylines is due to how well they handled them.
I wasn’t opining on your intentions, I was pointing out the impact the terms “Negro” and “boy” might well have on an African-American person to whom you are referring. Check with your black friend on this.
[color=#800040]“There is not one person I know in the US who would say that “Negro” is acceptable”[/color].
That’s really quite true at this point, except for blacks using it in jest amongst themselves, of course.
This whole Reid controversy is a totally hyped-up non-issue, in my opinion, and just a convenient distraction from other serious issues in the American politcal scene at present, especailly regarding public spending and war-for-naught. It’s a complete joke.
As to serious misunderstandings amongst blacks and others, though, it’s somewhat disconcerting to discover how few blacks ever make it to Taiwan, and to look at the reasons why they don’t.
Aside from black Americans being vaguely welcome here … between all the ROC embassies in Africa and … Haiti [now] … wouldn’t a little more cultural exchange be a good thing for local identity? There re thousands and thousands of Africans in Hong Kong and China too, as people surley know already.
Is this about trying to be ‘insular’ like Japan and keeping up with the Joneses? If so, that’s one very nasty and intimidating form of cultural competition.
Taiwan ought to be sponsoring a huge wave of young Haitian earthquake orphans, in good faith. Of course it won’t happen. That would be even worse than … importing US beef.
Talk about preference for segregation and institutional racism!
This came up in connection with the current US census forms (which list “Negro” as a synonym for “black” or "African American). Some people complained, but the census people explained that quite a few older blacks use the term, don’t like any of the others, and had been writing it in.
That’s correct. Mallard and others only need to scroll up and look at my prior post where I put part of an article about that very subject. It’s wrong to say no one uses the term or only in jest. Many older blacks apparently prefer that term to identify themselves.
In any event, whether it’s a pc term or not is less important. As mofo and others have pointed out, the key thing is intent. Reid’s intent was perfectly harmless and innocuous and he wasn’t using the term as a racial slur, unlike some of the republican yahoos that have been mentioned.
When you consider their last great national politician was Bill Clinton and that wasn’t a good time to be a democrat. They really needed someone out of nowhere to save them and that man was Obama. Despite republicans hating McCain, McCain suspending his campaign to handle the financial crisis :ohreally: , and him being a really uninspiring candidate, he still managed to eek out 46% of the vote despite 8 years of Bush and incredible amounts of Palin hate.
