Uhm, clueless much?

[maygra]

Look, I can be as stupidly offensive as the next person. However, you don't need to have been brought up or live in the deep south to get what [[Witchqueen]] is explaining in incredibly patient and very clear terms. And you don't have to be a Person of Color to understand how deeply, deeply offensive and coded this word is, regardless of its etymology. How it was and has been used, in this case, is everything.

Also, see liviapenn's round up [[here]].



I haven't had much to say about the current fandom discussion/debate on race and racism. Mostly because I don't have much to contribute, and because living where I live, and having grown up here, I know without a doubt that that there are racist undertones to some of the ways I think and even some of the ways I act and react. Most of them I'm aware of and actively try to overcome, with lesser or greater success. Reacting to people on the basis of their skin color or race or religious persuasion in this part of the country is like breathing for most people. For others, it's like a sideline sport. You can ignore it, but you can't be unaware of it.

I don't know that I'll ever be rid of all of it. But I do know enough to understand that being a white woman in Georgia doesn't actually nominate me to be the know all and end all of what is or isn't offensive to People of Color.

When another white woman told me she was offended that I used the word "pissed" in what was, admittedly, a pretty angry diatribe, my concern that I'd offended her because I was cussing was markedly less than it would be if a person of color told me a word I'd used was offensive because it was racially coded. I'm pretty clear that if I'm really angry at someone, it's about something they've said or done, not the color of their skin.

I've got nothing more, because to say more would risk me either offending more or being offended more.

It's an effing fic prompt. Change the damn word.

Comments

[ginnytonnick.livejournal.com]

It's not just the mods. The members are supporting their decision.

http://reddwarfer.livejournal.com/304747.html?style=mine

http://celandineb.livejournal.com/569475.html?style=mine

http://faraday.livejournal.com/341260.html?style=mine

I just... I'm confused by the willful stupidity. Even when it's all carefully explained, these people are sitting there with their hands over their eyes and ignoring it all.

[nestra.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's depressing.

[batdina.livejournal.com]

wow. I'm just struck speechless.

[wrenlet.livejournal.com]

That is a stunning amount of fail on display. I know some people come from backgrounds that lead to less... awareness of racial issues, let's say, but even when the point is clearly, carefully, RATIONALLY explained it sails overhead without even ruffling their parts. How does that happen?

[halfshellvenus.livejournal.com]

"Willful stupidity" was exactly the term I used in commenting to witchqueen.

There's a concept that surrounds language called "connotation." It's why intelligent people use a particular word and not another which has a similar meaning but different overtones or slant.

The OED definition quoted doesn't show the connotation (most dictionaries don't, for crying out loud). That doesn't exempt an English-speaking person from understanding that "interracial relationships" and "miscegenation" have different meanings.

Unless a knife and an ax are the same thing, because both can cut. :(