this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2023
1058 points (96.0% liked)
memes
9819 readers
3021 users here now
Community rules
1. Be civil
No trolling, bigotry or other insulting / annoying behaviour
2. No politics
This is non-politics community. For political memes please go to !politicalmemes@lemmy.world
3. No recent reposts
Check for reposts when posting a meme, you can only repost after 1 month
4. No bots
No bots without the express approval of the mods or the admins
5. No Spam/Ads
No advertisements or spam. This is an instance rule and the only way to live.
Sister communities
- !tenforward@lemmy.world : Star Trek memes, chat and shitposts
- !lemmyshitpost@lemmy.world : Lemmy Shitposts, anything and everything goes.
- !linuxmemes@lemmy.world : Linux themed memes
- !comicstrips@lemmy.world : for those who love comic stories.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
It's funny because we made the word powerful by forbidding certain people to say it yet the people it's the most offensive to say it the most.
it's almost like context is important or something. nah, couldn't be that! nuance is for pussies
Depends what you think the nuance is. Maybe the nuance is that a group of people are self-perpetuating negative stereotypes and have trapped themselves in a situation where they can never be criticised for it, and where the they consider protecting that toxic trait to be "winning".
...or it's the difference between using it in slang vs using it as an insult/perjorative. And people usually get that. The whole hard R thing represents that difference really well. There's nothing wrong with taking back power over a slur. I can't think of any better way to mock the people who use it, in fact.
Generally speaking, the group taking back the slur isn't going to use it in a bad way, so it's assumed they're using friendly slang. If you aren't part of that group, that basic assumption isn't there. And considering how many racists are still alive today, that's fair. For me, it's also just basic respect. The slur isn't used against me and probably won't be. I have nothing to reclaim.
~~Look at it this way. Eminem has gone his entire rap career without saying it. He's really good friends and colleagues with a lot of black people. Undoubtedly someone has "given him permission" at some point, and I imagine almost everyone he's with would be fine with it, but he still doesn't use it.~~
It's ironic, actually. The people who understand this are also probably the people most likely to be "given permission". And they don't use it. That should tell you everything you need to know.
Edit: Correction, he had used it in the past, but he stopped quite a while ago. The general gist my point though is still the same, he's built an incredible rap career without saying it much at all, and he clearly hasn't seen the need to in a long time.
I agree with your message but Eminem has used it in his rap several times. I know it's old and some of those were as backing vocals just nice to see that he realized it wasn't right for him to say so he stopped.
Ohhhh gotcha. Let me edit my comment. Thanks for the correction!
It's not a difficult concept. Just don't say it. The word doesn't have any power above the comradery between black people and hatred coming from a white person. The power dynamic is what's important.
I never said it was difficult, it's just ironic. I don't say it. Can you read or are you just saying what you are thinking? It has a lot of power, it can make a room erupt into a riot in an instant or cancel your whole career/life...Look at Morgan Wallen for example..
Would have been so easy just to not say it, unless it was in his heart.
I don't agree or disagree with that but that has no relevancy. My brother in Christ, I was simply giving an example of how powerful the word is.