Kevin's Watch

I had an experience when I was a teen that has made me wonder about something since then.

I was on the phone with this cute boy and we were talking about really nothing as teen girl/boy calls often do go and I mentioned some quiz show thingie I had seen because he liked the show. I said how dumb one of the people were and said something about 'then the dumb black guy said...'. The boy I was talking to was half black and there was this uncomfortable silence followed by us not talking much again.

I had never considered myself to be racist. But, of course, it must be there even a little? Or, was it something else? I think the boy I was talking to took it so, but there I was flirting with him, so ...

I am not a politically correct type, so this is not about that. But, since that day, I have always noticed that, when someone does tell a story, they will mention the 'otherness' of someone in the story if that person is of the non-standard persuasion. For example, you don't mention the whiteness of the man in a story if you are from a white community, but when you mention a black man in your story, you do call out that he is black even when it has no bearing on the story at all.

I noticed that people do this all of the time. Recently, I was talking to someone I know and he did mention something about 'your gay friends' when talking about them. This person I was talking to only knows the gay couple of all my friends, so it was an unneeded descriptive since I would know who he was talking about no matter what. He doesn't know any of our other friends at all- for all he knows, these are our only friends but he still felt it necessary to mention they are gay despite it having no bearing on the topic.

So, why do we mention the 'otherness' of people in conversation? Is it just that we are inclined to note otherness or is there more to it?

Of course, I have my opinions, but I am curious what yours are.

Because the otherness exists and abstaining from mentioning it would contribute to a poorer conversational experience, since not all of the imagery is conveyed.

I'm the shaman/bard type of guy, you know, not keen on being the center of attention, but pretty good at it when - as it is bound to happen since I normally hold the most diversified cultural baggage and sharpest wit, not to mention speaking seven languages - I have to. And then I have absolutely no mechanism, instinctive or acquired,in place to make me choose sensitivities over efficacy.

Otherness is in the ears of the "belistener"

Morning wrote:Because the otherness exists and abstaining from mentioning it would contribute to a poorer conversational experience, since not all of the imagery is conveyed.

Agreed. Mentioning the color of skin as a descriptor is no different than mentioning the color of a shirt.

Since no one ever hesitates to speak of 'old white guys' in derogatory or derisive terms--a demographic category I'm steadily approaching--I think it would be sheer hypocrisy to treat any other demographic as if they're above derision. We're all human. We can all be dumb/greedy/whatever. Just because someone is black does not mean the word "dumb" is an invalid qualifier. Some blacks are dumb. And of course, so are some whites.

I had a similar experience with a college teacher who was a jerk. He was obese, but what mattered even more was that he was an asshole. So I was once describing his behavior to some of my friends, and I said, "...this fat fuck..." One of my friends was fat. She got really quiet and didn't talk to me anymore.

I wasn't saying all fat people suck. I just didn't like this one teacher. But my friend was sensitive--and I was insensitive--so that's how that went. I regretted it, and felt awkward, but really I think it was her problem.

Agree. Cue the danish paper that published Mohammad with a bomb for a turban.

If people want to be offended because of other people's stance on their stance, it's alright; as long, as you aptly put, they realize it's their problem, and their job to deal with it without trespassing into anyone else's integrity.

What the hell, just laugh back or draw a similar, but counterdirected, cartoon. I'd be filthy rich if I had a cent for every time some functionally illiterate hoi polloi moron calls me an elitist.

Ananda wrote:I said how dumb one of the people were and said something about 'then the dumb black guy said...'.

Depending on how you emphasize that, you might be referring to the dumb black guy among the other black guys, or you might be emphasizing how black guys are always dumb. If your friend took it as the latter, that explains it. If there was only one black guy there, he might be more likely to go that way.

The notion that it was the word "black" and not the words "dumb black" which were considered offensive is quite a red herring.

Just ask Morning if, when he talks about what libtards are doing, if he is referring to only those liberals who are actually diagnosed with mental retardation. It's a good bet he's not. Which I think proves the distinction I am making. Frequently - even usually - people add perjorative adjectives, not to distinguish one from among many, but to load their statement with an extra dash of derision.

Ananda wrote:and I said, "...this fat fuck..." One of my friends was fat. She got really quiet and didn't talk to me anymore.

Ditto. Can -anyone- believe that "fat" was not perjorative, but only descriptive, in that sentence? Especially in a context where (I surmise) "this fuck" was sufficient to identify him?

I was thinking it goes a little deeper than merely being descriptive.

My thought on it is that we are a tribal social species and that we are hardcoded, so to say, to immediately spot the 'other' for danger, opportunity and so.

I think that, if the friends I mentioned were straight, the guy I know would not have said 'I saw your straight friends at the cinema last night' simply because it is the norm. Likewise, he didn't mention them being white, because that's the norm. If they had been straight but black, he may have said, 'I saw your black friends at the cinema last night' but would not mention them being straight.

But, if we were nigerian and my friends were black, he would have said, 'I saw your friends at the cinema last night' because that is the norm and no reason to mention that they were black. If they had been white and we were nigerian, he's have said, 'I saw your white friends at the cinema last night'.

So, I think we are wired to see and point to differences from our 'tribe' or the norm.

That does not mean racism or bigotry is implied there. It just means that we are wired for seeing it, in my opinion.

I do think racism, bigotry and the rest stem from this coding to see 'otherness', though. Noting otherness does not necessitate racism, bigotry an the rest, but I think it shares that source and takes it a step further than noting it.

I do think it is interesting, though, that we tend to point out otherness. If I am right and that it is our natural instinct, then it makes me, at least, think about what other instinctual things drives us in our daily lives even when we don't recognise them? As I said, I only think about this because of that conversation I had with the cute boy as a teen. It sort of jolted me out of the routine behaviour.

wayfriend wrote:

It wasn't Ananda who wrote:and I said, "...this fat fuck..." One of my friends was fat. She got really quiet and didn't talk to me anymore.

Ditto. Can -anyone- believe that "fat" was not perjorative, but only descriptive, in that sentence? Especially in a context where (I surmise) "this fuck" was sufficient to identify him?

That was not me who said that, but Z.

Regardless, one would think that if you were talking among friends that the benefit of the doubt would be given that "fat" was not the pejorative.

There was a teacher at one time who came up with a way to teach the kids in her class about bigotry. She set it up by saying all the blue-eyed kids were X and all the brown-eyed kids were Y. Can't remember how she defined X and Y off the top of my head, but one was complimentary and the other was not. And the whole thing played out in her classroom, just like it does with race or any of the other things we use to discriminate against the "other": the blue-eyed kids (I think the blue-eyed ones were the "bad" kids) became ostracized by the brown-eyed kids.

On the one hand, yes, we do use such words to define both "tribe" and "other". The problem comes in when we begin to define the "other" in other, derogatory ways -- when we begin to associate these "other" traits with certain behaviors or intrinsic qualities. It's one thing to recognize someone is black; it's quite another to stereotype all blacks as lazy, drug-selling, stupid, etc. Or all Muslims as terrorists or potential terrorists. Or all fat people as lazy, or all people on welfare as greedy system-gamers.

The biggest problem with these "other" labels is that eventually, they can become code for the stereotypical traits. So when you say someone is black, you may only be referring to skin tone, but your listener is hearing all the cultural subtext -- particularly if your listener has been accustomed to being vilified for those qualities by others. So the boy who heard "black" is hearing not "black," but "shiftless, lazy, drug dealer, etc." and the girl who heard "fat fuck" is not hearing "fat" but "lazy, can't stop stuffing her face, etc."

This kind of thing has happened to me, too. I had a group of friends in college who called each other crabby, in a joking way, and we all knew we didn't mean anything by it. I slipped one time and called someone outside the group crabby -- and she didn't get the joke, and basically didn't talk to me after that.

It might be unfair that people hear things in their words that you didn't mean to say. But it happens all the time, and there's not a lot you can do about it. You can't control others' perceptions of your words; the only thing you can control is what comes out of your own mouth. So the best any of us can do is to monitor our own speech, and apologize when we slip up (if you can still get the other person to accept your calls).

Hashi Lebwohl wrote:On the one hand we should always exercise a little caution with our words because we may be unaware of the power they convey to someone else who may be struggling with issues of which we are unaware.

Hashi, you know where that ends.

What about the people who cannot muster the will to endure "trauma" at being called fat?

And those who etc. to do something about being fat if they don't want to be fat?

And those who do not, cannot, or will not work for their share of what society has to offer?

Liberals will say: "social peace has to be bought, otherwise there will be unrest; furthermore what would we, the do-gooders and keepers of the better fairer cleaner smarter PoV, become if we compelled other people?" while in fact compelling gazillions of people to conform to their notions of wellness.

Then some cavemen would say "burn'em, others began way below and made it farther up". This is why tradition is so important - it is the best, plainest textbook for success, or at least relative success, which is always better than crazy triple blind social experiments like same-sex adoption.

It's really a rather simple issue. The problem with enacting liberal policies is that society drifts toward the least common denominator, then it becomes unliberal.

Morning, you're expecting other people to change their own behavior to suit you. I would suggest that that sort of expectation never ends well for anybody involved.

There is nothing wrong with describing people how they are. A person's "blackness" may have no bearing on the plot of a story, but if you do not mention it you introduce an a possibility of inaccuracy... a white person may just assume the person is white. Not too big a deal, but it does introduce a point where communication may break down or become awkward.

There's a difference between saying something like, "That Asian in the video does not seem to like any of the food she's offered" and "That bitch should stick to her tofu and quit criticizing real food!" The first is using a racial characteristic to identify a person from the group, while the second is also using the racial characteristic to identify the person but also to simultaneously insult and belittle her.

aliantha wrote:Morning, you're expecting other people to change their own behavior to suit you. I would suggest that that sort of expectation never ends well for anybody involved.

No, I am arguing that we should not heed, in the slightest, the whining of people who expect others to lower (or dampen) their standards because of the first subjects' unwillingness to cope with themselves.

To an extreme, failure to follow this simple rule has historically presented itself through grand projects like Pol Pot's nationwide reeducation or Leninism. Jean-Claude Juncker and Jeroen Dijsselbloem, along with the Baroness from the Pit, are close on their heels.

Orlion wrote:There's a difference between saying something like, "That Asian in the video does not seem to like any of the food she's offered" and "That bitch should stick to her tofu and quit criticizing real food!" The first is using a racial characteristic to identify a person from the group, while the second is also using the racial characteristic to identify the person but also to simultaneously insult and belittle her.

Spot on.

aliantha wrote:Morning, you're expecting other people to change their own behavior to suit you. I would suggest that that sort of expectation never ends well for anybody involved.

Addendum: so what you suggest is that, for the sake of allowing people to keep their original, untainted behaviors, everyone else must pay (by taxation and conformity to the most demagogue boundaries) for those... er... freedoms.

Morning wrote:

aliantha wrote:Morning, you're expecting other people to change their own behavior to suit you. I would suggest that that sort of expectation never ends well for anybody involved.

Addendum: so what you suggest is that, for the sake of allowing people to keep their original, untainted behaviors, everyone else must pay (by taxation and conformity to the most demagogue boundaries) for this... er... freedom.

No, what I'm suggesting is a realistic approach. In any interaction with another person, the only person you can control is yourself. If you're annoyed when you say things that people take in a way you didn't mean for them to be taken, then you need to monitor your own speech so your listeners are less likely to take offense. If you don't care to do that, then you ought not to be surprised or annoyed when people take some things the wrong way. Because they will. It's human nature to hear others' words through our own personal filters.

I'm not saying *you* specifically, btw; I'm talking about everybody who feels this way.

Come to think of it, I think your view is probably the flip side of the folks who think everybody ought to make their speech as bland as possible, in the service of political correctness. And to be completely clear, I do *not* fall into the PC camp. I wrote a five-book series based on the premise that the pagan gods want a showdown with the Christian God, for crying out loud. *Nobody* better try to accuse me of being politically correct.

Okay, maybe I convoluted my rationale too much. How about this: I don't give a damn about how people take what I say, precisely because I would be ashamed if I gave a damn about how I take what people say.