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No words, just go look. – LDP
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“[The Bush Admin.] said Cabinet officers should not face the threat of “crippling personal liability” for their official actions, especially when they were “charged with responding to an extraordinary national security crisis like the Sept. 11 attacks.”
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“A former Mount Kisco police officer was acquitted of all charges on Tuesday in the death of an illegal immigrant from Guatemala, ending a case that roiled the Westchester County suburbs a year ago.”
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“Moreover, “The Sun Vow” was conceived in 1899, so it has an excuse for its old-fashioned depiction of traditional Indians. More than a century later, what’s Gray’s excuse?”
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“Increasingly, many of our big cities’ creative elites — both native and foreign-born — see themselves as citizens of the world. Our intellectuals are exploring the declining significance of place in the new globalized world order.”
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“Do Ivy League schools set caps on the number of high-achieving minority students admitted, comparing Asian-American applicants against one another instead of the rest of the applicant pool?”
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“I’ve heard people mock guys I dated for having yellow fever, and even in jest, this is an insult to me, not some enlightened comment of political awareness. But of course I’m paranoid about it too …
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of
Sue Katz wrote:
I just discovered your blog and I’m busy reading backwards. What a treat.
Posted 19 Jun 2008 at 6:42 am ¶
Slush wrote:
Re: White people go vote for the new white slur:
Apparently “whitey” is actually better than any of those there, in terms of it’s actual slurishness. (Cite: Frenzy around alleged/unfounded Michelle Obama statement)
Also I have simply no idea what “rambins” is a reference to.
Posted 19 Jun 2008 at 7:33 am ¶
Fiqah wrote:
Re: white racial slurs – “Mayonnasians”? Sugar-honey-iced-tea, I just about peed myself laughing at that one!
Posted 19 Jun 2008 at 7:40 am ¶
Fiqah wrote:
Also…er…White folks get to CHOOSE their slur? Huh. That must be nice…
Posted 19 Jun 2008 at 7:56 am ¶
Slush wrote:
The comments below the voting chart have a clear preference for ‘Nillas. Ha! I vote for Nillas.
Posted 19 Jun 2008 at 7:57 am ¶
Michael Meehan wrote:
Due to the Smear Machine that is attacking Barack Obama i have started a web site that satirizes and collects the racial and other slurs against Obama and puts them all in one place. The point is not only to make fun of them but to collect them in one place so that anyone can easily see them for what they are.
Did you know there is an email circulating that accuses Obama of being endorsed by the KKK?
Yep.
Stop by and scream at the ignorance and leave a note about something you have seen or heard that is equally reprehensible.
Bigots Unitrd for McCain (B.U.M.S.)
Posted 19 Jun 2008 at 10:46 am ¶
JJH13 wrote:
I echo Fiqah! If that doesn’t indicate some privilege, I don’t know what does…
Posted 19 Jun 2008 at 11:04 am ¶
CEdwards wrote:
You have to read this article from WSJ “In South African, Chinese is the new Black” at http://blogs.wsj.com/chinajournal/2008/06/19/in-south-africa-chinese-is-the-new-black/?mod=yhoofront. What’s more disturbing: The fact that South Africa is doing this (although, truthfully, if the Chinese can benefit from the government affirmative action plan, I’m down with that) or the comments on the article, especially the call to arms on “white discrimination”. Say WHAT????
Posted 19 Jun 2008 at 12:07 pm ¶
HA wrote:
Gawker has officially ruined irony.
Word Association with Richard Pryor and Chevy Chase
Posted 19 Jun 2008 at 12:09 pm ¶
Nina wrote:
Off topic but please blog about the upcoming Italian Vogue that will feature 100 pages of black models. There is an article in the Styles section of NYTimes today. The article is called Beautiful is beautiful.
Posted 19 Jun 2008 at 12:53 pm ¶
Kendra wrote:
@ CEdwards
I was trying to comment there. It was much too full and the ridiculous of those comments was killing me. Of course, this speaks volumes for America’s obsession with race and “whitey.”
The thing had absolutely nothing to do with white South Africans (or simply whites). The writer personally specializes in articles relating to China, so no wonder the subject dealt with the ethnic Chinese in South Africa. Doy!
Posted 19 Jun 2008 at 12:54 pm ¶
marge twain wrote:
Okay, I just could not laugh at the white people slur survey because I am too tired of hearing dumbass racist comedians like Carlos Mencia and Larry the Cable Guy claim that they make fun of everybody, even white, and that makes it all okay. This is the process by which ALL racial slurs become more acceptable for white people to use, even as the white racial slur has no real power to sting. It’s easy to own being an “Ivory” or whatever when it has no social/historical connotation of badness.
Posted 19 Jun 2008 at 1:54 pm ¶
Slush wrote:
@Marge
Probably you couldn’t laugh because it wasn’t very funny. It was a good attempt, a lighthearted stab, but it wasn’t that funny because the core of it was driving home a really serious, un-funny point: there are no slurs that hurt white people comparably to the ones for people of color (White men, I should say. There’s plenty of nasty things to call women of any color.) And making them up doesn’t have the same effect, especially when white people get to drive the process. So even though it was well done, and clever or humorous for what it was, it was taking on a pretty depressing subject, and was, intentionally or not, unable turn the tables on it.
Posted 19 Jun 2008 at 2:08 pm ¶
RainaWeather wrote:
Ditto Fiqah. WTF?!
From my experience there is only one word that truly offends a white person…”racist”. A racial slur has to have historical context so one for white people would have to be related to colonialism. I don’t want to get into the words that popped into my head though.
Posted 19 Jun 2008 at 2:10 pm ¶
marge twain wrote:
@RainaWeather: Yeah, I wonder why they didn’t put “racist” on the list. Maybe because it’s not completely silly and it truly offends them?
Posted 19 Jun 2008 at 8:40 pm ¶
Britta wrote:
@Slush-
I agree with you totally. (Though I did laugh really hard at mayonnasian, it’s pretty inherently funny. It didn’t work though, I tried it on my boyfriend, and he was like “man-asian? WTF? Is that some sort of weird slur for asian men?)
One thing that struck about all the slurs is how unslurrish they were. If you look at words that are really offensive, they tend to be 1, 2 syllables max, and full of harsh consonants. Most of the options given tended to be longer and more mellifluous. I thought a lot of the options sounded like the name of an 80s sitcom. (The Nillas?)
Slurs like honkey or cracker are probably slightly more potent than “whitey,” but that’s because they are aimed at a certain class of whites, esp. in a certain region. Really, they’re more class slurs tied to race than they are racial slurs.
Posted 19 Jun 2008 at 8:55 pm ¶
Matt wrote:
Honky, even, stems from slurs for people whose whiteness was contested. The link offers two etymologies; this one is, that I’ve seen, more commonly cited. “Honky comes from bohunk and hunky, derogatory terms for Bohemian, Hungarian, and Polish immigrants.”
Posted 20 Jun 2008 at 10:40 am ¶
sylvie wrote:
@Fiqah: “White folks get to CHOOSE their slur? Huh. That must be nice…”
Word.
Posted 20 Jun 2008 at 12:38 pm ¶
Britta wrote:
Matt
Interesting, I didn’t know that. I knew about “bohunk” as a slur for Bohemians/central Europeans. and it doesn’t seem like a stretch to get from “hunky” to “honkey.” Really does show that slurs for white people are based on them not being “white” enough. I wonder what the origin of “cracker” is.
Posted 21 Jun 2008 at 10:15 pm ¶