Big Brother racism 2!

I said it is gradually dying out. I didn't say it has disappeared. It's become unacceptable now in a way it just wasn't 40 or 50 years ago. Clearly we still have a long way to go. There was a time when the word was widespread, not to say acceptable, we had people saying nig-nog on primetime television, wog and ****** were commonplace epithets, far more common right up to the 70s than they are now. Now when people yell it in the street we know that they are the exception and their use of it defines them as racist bigots... quite possibly we could report them to the police for racial abuse. If kids say it at school they're likely to get suspended or expelled for racial bullying, if people say it in the workplace they will be sacked: right across our society, in polite society, in professional life and throughout our print and media culture that usage of the word is totally out of order, more so now than ever. The Big Brother episode itself demonstrates the sensitivity we have about the word but was a result of a confusion / misunderstanding of the word's two distinct meanings (or more likely excessive caution in light of the Shilpa Shetty incident).

All this represents society clamping down on the racism which so often accompanies the word and attempting to make it something which is culturally unacceptable. But you can't kill off a word, and as long as people still give it the power of offensive taboo it will still be used. That's why it's so valuable to fight a rear-guard action which attempts to reposition the word and strip it of some of the power of taboo.

Again, please stop with the "outsider" thing, please stop making judgements about me based on the colour of my skin, thanks As a participant in society I am capable of forming rational and considered opinions about that society: people are capable of understanding things without experiencing them, just as they are capable of experiencing things without understanding them.

 

No offense, Nay; but I think I've given a LOT of personal life experiences (not just watching some comedian) that I've based my opinion and beliefs on. I used the comedians as ONE example that is all. So, no, I'm not "sadly mistaken" as you claim as I have (though obviously I'm not black) had to deal with racial prejudices of my own when I was in a long relationship with someone who was black. In case you didn't realize this, in most parts of the world if you are screwing a black guy be you white or polka dotted they consider your ass to be black too. I've been called "****** lover" and many other things that I'd prefer not to get into. So don't go telling me what is offensive and what is not and that my opinions are only based on bleedin' rap music and comedians. I use these as examples because typically I prefer to skate over some of the seedier aspects of my own life. But for anyone to consider or call me a racist is completely messed up. I don't know what it is like to have been born a minority and been taunted since birth or treated differently because of the colour of my skin; but don't ever once think that I haven't been the target of racial slurs and have no clue what I'm talking about.

 

excellent points. that is the core of what i've been trying to say and have always thought about the matter.

 

again, some people live around that world all their lives or have lived around it a good lot of their lives. just cause you want to avoid it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. and it's not just "hip hop culture" as you put it, i actually find your terms of modern American black culture degrading. Visit the States. Go visit any city in America and go into any poor area. There's no escaping what you keep terming as only "hood culture" or "hip hop culture". Where do you think the music came from? Just randomly evolved from some white producers head? No ... it came from the heart and souls of people that were long ago living in the sort of environments and areas they rap or sing about. Maybe not all of it is peaches and cream, but it is what real life is like in those areas.

 

have you even read the posts that both Jon and I have written? or are you just skimming them or even skipping them and spewing the same comments over and over?

 

It is valuable to quote the examples of comedians, musicians, filmmakers etc firstly because those are the examples of language we all share and which to a large degree disseminate new linguistic forms and influence our shared linguistic environment and secondly because often these artists are people who are exceptionally sensitive to new formulations and connotations of language and who think hard about what they are saying and why. Our linguistic culture is moved forward by people like Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, Dave Chappelle, Simon Pegg. ("Sup nigga" in Shaun of the Dead anyone? "Nigga" has gradually been permeating UK culture for a number of years)

 

I don't think lithium is trying to ''reclaim'' the word ''******''.
I agree with you here - that word is never going to lose its negative connotations.
lithium repeats the word ''nigga'' - that I think he is trying to turn into a ''positive''.

 

in the 60s you would have had the same conversation on the word black

 

How did that conversation end ?.

 

I think generally people stopped calling people negro and coloured and started using the word black

 

I remember growing up my parents and grandparents used the word "coloured", that was seen as a polite way of not mentioning the unfortunate fact that someone was black and as such is seen as an embarrassing and cringeworthy euphemism now but at the time was the "correct" thing to say. Jonny's right, the word "black" was once a pejorative epithet but is now a standard / neutral factual term. ****** originated as a pronunciation variant of negro and was not always offensive; it was used non-offensively in literary works by Mark Twain, Charles Dickens and Joseph Conrad. It's only in the 20th Century that it's come to be a pejorative term, those who say that words are fixed and that ****** will always be offensive just don't understand the way language works - who can say what we will think of the word in 100 years time? Nigga / ****** may have died out or may have become attached to quite different connotations. Words only have the meanings we give them.

 

I don't mind ''coloured'' - I'm not black.
I suppose in the 60s less people were a lighter shade of brown.
It made a little bit of sense then -

Jon I think I know how language works - what pisses me off it is not being letft to the natural way language moves on. It is seemingly being hurried along by people like yourself - that irks me. It irks me because on the one hand it could lose all meaning but on the other hand it leaves the word ''out there'' - my ultimate wish would be for it to dissapear. I never want it to be ''normal'' ever again. It no longer is a ''natural'' process it is a political football.

 

While I'm flattered that you credit me with the invention and dissemination of this neologism, all I'm doing is picking up on something which is so completely "out there" in the wider culture that to ignore it, rail against it or dismiss it is futile. This is a word which has "naturally" blossomed, there's no conceivable way in which it could be artificially generated and disseminated - it happens naturally because it fulfills an expressive need for people, it catches on and gets repeated from mind to mind and from continent to continent. That's how language evolves.

This word is here! All I'm saying is that you can't ignore it, to label it as racism is to misunderstand its recent history, and frankly you'd better get used to it, or just stop participating in culture...

 

I believe America has the worst racism. While it was bad to see that racism has yet again infiltrated the Big Brother house. It is good to see the common British person from every nationality, ethnic origin uniting together to denounce this kind of behaviour. I believe Britain are now taking the lead in the fight against racism. Nice one Britain



Additional: Actually makes me feel proud to be British. Aswell as English Butter and an Indian curry to choose from. It is great that Britain knows the meaning of true unity, togetherness.

Additional Additional: Group hug :grouphug:

 

John it really is astonishing how you can be so wrong about so many things...

 

America has a lot of racism issues. More so than in Britain. Not saying Britain doesn't have any but atleast Britain is making progress.

 

Absolutely - mmmmmm well to be honest I do not know.
mmmmm maybe many people [with all the best intentions] could have attempted to do what you seemingly are attempting to do.
Do all words have a natural progression or are some words forced too change ?.That is what I mean -

This word seems to have been forced to change. Nobody here wishes for it to remain a negative do they ?. .
Patti Smith did not right ''rock n roll ******'' for shits and jollies did she ?.
There was a conscious effort on her part to de-stigmatise the word.

I'm not suggesting it is being ''artificially generated and disseminated'' - well maybe !. The way I feel is: some people like you are attempting to not allow it to move on at a natural pace. Consciously attempting to trivialise the word to remove its power is not ''natural''.

I'm not talking about any of this.

 

Leave him alone -
I like his optimism.

 

It's a combination of both. People deliberately and consciously attempting to deflate its vindictiveness (Lenny Bruce) and arguing that the widespread use of the word strips it of some of its power, positive reclamation during the early nineties (Niggaz With Attitude, Ice T etc), and the widespread acceptance and dissemination through cultures which has followed. It's impossible to separate precisely how when where and why the word split into two, but I tend to think those who theorise about the word and its meanings are responding to cultural changes not causing them. Words just don't catch on in so widespread a fashion unless it's by a "natural" memetic process. I don't think many people who use the word think too hard about the issues, they just respond to the culture around them and repeat succesful memes; those of us who do think about it are attempting to understand what's happened more than anything else. You cannot artificially create such a virulent neologism as this.

 

The distinction between "artificial" and "natural" is something of a false dichotomy anyway - words naturally evolve by people talking about them and using them, this is how they always have changed and always will change. Some will use them deliberately and consciously for effect, others will mimic what they've heard. It's an ineluctable natural process.