From: Olga Bourlin (fauxever@sprynet.com)
Date: Wed Jun 12 2002 - 00:46:45 MDT
From: spike66 > freedom is good, and proles are free, therefor
it is good to be a prole.
Olga previously wrote: Perception - while it may not be everything - is important to consider here. I try not to use terms that may SEEM pejorative (i.e., could hurt some people's feelings) if I can think of something else (and I'm probably not 100% successful). I don't use terms like "trailer trash." Calling any kind of people trash - even in jest? - seems unnecessary and unkind. Even "redneck" seems a bit harsh.
> Unfortunately, some people's feelings are easier
to hurt than others.
Unfortunately, you left out the part where I wrote about children being hurt - my primary concern is with them. Some children's feelings are easier to hurt than others, too, I suppose - but given the choice, why hurt the young and impressionable? (And, of course, not all adult people are as confident as you and I are, Spike.)
> Prole? OK. Cracker? Gringo? Whitey? Fine, I am all these,
I own them all, I have no problem with any of them.
There's a guy named Dan Savage who writes a column (called "Savage Love") about sex. He is gay. He either encourages people to write "Hey, Faggot" - or that's just how his "Dear-Abby"-type sex advice column entry begins. He has the same philosophy - if he begins to "own" that phrase, then he expects a kind of anesthetizing effect will eventually "de-nerve" it of any negative connotations. Perhaps. But in the meantime, schoolchildren are NOT using "faggot" as a term of endearment. Again, my concern is with them. Suicide is rampant among gay teens. I cannot be so cavalier about using a term that may hurt kids, and I think the term "trailer trash" has the same potential to hurt kids as "faggot."
> We should all be proud of what we are, regardless of what that is. By
owning a label, we disarm it.
I don't understand the concept of "being proud" very well at all. Okay, I've used it - there have been occasions when I've told my kids I was "proud" of them for doing something good, but the whole idea of "being proud" of "what we are" escapes me. (What can I tell you? - I'm a dunce.)
> It doesn't always work. The black athletes in the World
Football League were calling each other by the N word,
not as an insult but as an endearing term. Sponsors fled,
never to return. The athletes were not granted immunity for
being black, were they not given permission to own and
disarm the label. The league quickly folded.
There's way too much trauma connected to the "N" word for it to become an endearing term for general use. I'm not for rewriting history or censoring the "N" word - e.g., Mark Twain used it to depict the way people talked, and I'm opposed to trying to "whitewash" his dialogue or ban Huckleberry Finn. But as we've more than enough words in the English language to express ourselves bountifully - I don't see the need to use potentially emotionally harmful words.
> Trailer trash: those growing up hearing that term are
filled with a grim determination to make a financial
success ...
Aaaaaaah, romance just never dies, does it? It's Horatio Alger again - back for an encore. (Certainly Horatio Alger happens from time to time. But often?) We all know the gap between the haves and have nots has been widening in the last couple of decades.
> ... so that they can one day own the businesses
that the hurlers of the insult will someday come crawling
to for a job.
Hmmm, you're admitting it's an insult? And we've now moved from romantic fantasies ... to vengeful fantasies?
> Trailer trash often grows up to make some
of the best capitalists.
It's almost as if you're saying - the disadvantaged are often the advantaged. How very "1984"-Orwellian-doublespeak of you, Spike ...
> Take Steven Jobs, for instance.
{Please. Take him. Far away.}
It's not my Job.
My point? By co-opting or owning a epithet, we disarm it.
Olga, let us be proles. Let us be free.
> Are the epithets we discussed here even extropian? Technology transmogrifies and improves. Why not epithets? As far as I'm concerned, a lot of old words and phrases can be placed upon the ash heap of history (and, yes, I agree - let us be free ... of them!).
O.
spike
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