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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Calling People Apes
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
And that leads in to making it possible for me to post that when I first opened this thread I thought it was going to be about some religious group or other objecting to humans being included with gorillas, chimps, bonobos, orangs and gibbons.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
When "ape" is shouted at a person from an Aboriginal background, for example, it's not because someone's pointing out his opposable thumb or his lack of a tail.
You're choosing to infer racist intent, sir Cnicht. As others have upthread. While others infer the opposite. Presumably based on their own experience of how language is used in their own subculture. In both instances.
Seems to me there should be some trade-off here. The closer you think racism is to being a serious crime, the more those accused have the right to be considered innocent until proven guilty.
Best wishes,
Russ
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
quote:
Seems to me there should be some trade-off here. The closer you think racism is to being a serious crime, the more those accused have the right to be considered innocent until proven guilty.
That is actually one of the problems, among numerous others, I see with hate-speech legislation. How does the law distinguish between just saying that so-and-so hates some racial group, and accusing so-and-so of commiting a crime?
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I have the power...Lucifer is lord!
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S
And that leads in to making it possible for me to post that when I first opened this thread I thought it was going to be about some religious group or other objecting to humans being included with gorillas, chimps, bonobos, orangs and gibbons.
Happy to be of service. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
Funny how a 13 year old girl has been virtually treated like a criminal for reminding us of the theory that the scientific establishment has been wearisomely promoting for years, namely, that we are all just animals. And furthermore, the idea that some races are more evolved than others is perfectly consistent with that theory.
But, hey, when our pet theory comes into conflict with something called 'reality' (as well explained by this book), let's not have any qualms about stealing ideas (such as the inherent equality of dignity of all people) from those nasty creationists!
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
Posts: 3625 | From: South Coast of England | Registered: Sep 2009
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
Terrible, innit?
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
Posts: 3625 | From: South Coast of England | Registered: Sep 2009
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Funny how a 13 year old girl has been virtually treated like a criminal for reminding us of the theory that the scientific establishment has been wearisomely promoting for years, namely, that we are all just animals. And furthermore, the idea that some races are more evolved than others is perfectly consistent with that theory.
But, hey, when our pet theory comes into conflict with something called 'reality' (as well explained by this book), let's not have any qualms about stealing ideas (such as the inherent equality of dignity of all people) from those nasty creationists!
And the impressive thing was how quickly it happened, too. It only took about a year from the time Charles Darwin invented racism in November 1859 that a group of Americans tried to form an explicitly white supremacist nation. Now some may argue that America's "Peculiar Institution" was racist even before 1859, but as EE has helpfully pointed out that's clearly impossible.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Terrible, innit?
Truly.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
But, hey, when our pet theory comes into conflict with something called 'reality'
Unintended irony or an admission?
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
the theory that the scientific establishment has been wearisomely promoting for years, namely, that we are all just animals. And furthermore, the idea that some races are more evolved than others is perfectly consistent with that theory.
I think the "just" here is misplaced.
You had a really good point just now, and you've gone and spoiled it with some sloppy language that drags in a very dead and smelly horse.
Your good point is that saying that all humans as a species have many characteristics of apes is today considered normal and factual and non-offensive (although in Victorian days this might not have been so).
You could have added that calling an individual an ape may be apt (if they have long arms and walk in a way that brings to mind non-human primates) or inapt depending on the characteristics of that individual. It's generally uncomplimentary in a harmless way.
What is offensive is the view that some racial groups are less than fully human,
So if A calls B an ape, it's only "hate speech" if the meaning is "you are ape-like because of your membership of a particular (racial or other) group" rather than "you are an ape-like individual" or "you are a member of an ape-like species".
The error of racism is treating people as "just" examples of a particular race - completely subordinating their individuality and humanity to their race.
The error of anti-racism seems to be much the same.
Best wishes,
Russ
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
You're choosing to infer racist intent, sir Cnicht. As others have upthread. While others infer the opposite. Presumably based on their own experience of how language is used in their own subculture. In both instances.
Well, OK, but yelling 'ape' at someone is never going to mean "look at all those ape-like characteristics that he and I share with chimps and gorillas," and is always going to mean "he is much more like a (non-human) ape than me or people like me.
As to whether that's because our heckler is a racist who thinks brown people are marginally smarter than monkeys, or whether there's not a racist bone in his (her) body, but (s)he thinks that the target of his abuse has long hairy arms and carries himself in a manner that is more chimp-like than most people, we can't tell for certain without more knowledge.
It's pretty clear what Mr. Goodes thought it was, though.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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Nicolemr
Shipmate
# 28
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Posted
I can't believe that this has gone on for this many pages. The girl doesn't dispute what happened, or the racist intent of what she said. Surely we can all agree that deliberatly insulting people is a Bad Thing and should have soome repercussions? Getting ejected from the game seems quite reasonable on the face of it.
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On pilgrimage in the endless realms of Cyberia, currently traveling by ship. Now with live journal!
Posts: 11803 | From: New York City "The City Carries On" | Registered: May 2001
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
Speaking of non-human primates, Eddy McGuire could be facing accusations of speciesism (not to mention sexism) on top of racism, if he is not careful.
Shortly before the current furore, he told the story, presumably apocryphal, of the (white)AFL footballer who has described as looking like Tarzan, playing like Jane and smelling like Cheetah.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Nicolemr:
I can't believe that this has gone on for this many pages. The girl doesn't dispute what happened, or the racist intent of what she said. Surely we can all agree that deliberatly insulting people is a Bad Thing and should have soome repercussions? Getting ejected from the game seems quite reasonable on the face of it.
It is in fact far from clear whether the girl used the term “ape”with “racist intent”, and on balance it would seem that she did not.
Nor is it clear whether insulting other people, something which goes on all the time at sporting events, political meetings, in the media, and elsewhere, should always be sanctioned, especially legally.
This whole incident bristles with big, difficult issues, including the limits of free speech; the age of understanding and responsibility; and the question of whether abuse, racial or otherwise, is to be defined in terms of the intention of the abuser (including the problem of how intention can be demonstrated) or the claimed perceptions of the alleged abusee.
Your simplistic response simply trivializes these issues.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
It is in fact far from clear whether the girl used the term “ape”with “racist intent”, and on balance it would seem that she did not.
Nor is it clear whether insulting other people, something which goes on all the time at sporting events, political meetings, in the media, and elsewhere, should always be sanctioned, especially legally.
This whole incident bristles with big, difficult issues, including the limits of free speech; the age of understanding and responsibility; and the question of whether abuse, racial or otherwise, is to be defined in terms of the intention of the abuser (including the problem of how intention can be demonstrated) or the claimed perceptions of the alleged abusee.
Your simplistic response simply trivializes these issues. [/QB]
Kaplan Corday thinks yelling terms commonly used as Racist abuse and recognized as such by a large number of people is much too complicated to address and so should be ignored.
Kaplan Corday thinks that thirteen year old girls attending football matches should be allowed to yell words commonly recognized as racist because she may have had some post modern ironical intent or may have been too naïve to understand what she was saying.
Kaplan Corday thinks that someone who has endured racist treatment for most of his life should just ignore abuse because he's well paid and he's badly over-reacting by pointing out the abuse to the Stadium Security.
Kaplan Corday thinks it's all so complicated and a restriction of freedom of speech for a officials running a public event to have regulations on what speech and behavior is allowed in the venue. Presumably not allowing people to walk onto the field and give a half hour speech is a brutal repression of their rights.
It's all so simple. Racist behavior is just too difficult to recognize or prevent.
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
Presumably based on their own experience of how language is used in their own subculture. In both instances.
Colour is not culture, sub or dominant. Monkey, ape, gorilla, chimp, baboon are used in a derogatory nature by white people of various cultural standing against black and brown people of various cultural standing.
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
It is in fact far from clear whether the girl used the term “ape”with “racist intent”, and on balance it would seem that she did not.
No, she said ape and did not add further comment during the game, so this is neutral as far as discerning intent. She later apologised to Goodes for using racist language. So, this is neutral as well since it hinges on believing or disbelieving her sincerity.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Kwesi
Shipmate
# 10274
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Posted
EtymologicalEvangelical quote:
the theory that the scientific establishment has been wearisomely promoting for years, namely, that we are all just animals. And furthermore, the idea that some races are more evolved than others is perfectly consistent with that theory.
In my opinion the second sentence is dangerously incorrect because it confuses “species” with “race”. Evolutionary biologists, as far as I am aware, are concerned with the origin of “species”, amongst which all human beings are classified as “homo sapiens”. “Race” is a pseudo-scientific term and seems to rest principally on an imprecise division of humanity into groups determined by skin pigmentation. Attempts to give “race” a scientific respectability have proved to be nonsense. If “race” is used scientifically it can be no more than a synonym for “species”. If “race” is used as a synonym for an “ethnic group” then it ceases to be a scientific category. Social Darwinism, designed to give a respectable basis to “racism” is a social and political ideology that is not grounded in science, so the claim above that “that some races are more evolved than others is perfectly consistent with [Darwin’s] theory” is false. As to the matter under discussion I conclude that not all Australian apes are black.
Posts: 1641 | From: South Ofankor | Registered: Sep 2005
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Kwesi,
You are, of course, correct. But, ISTM, EE's statement was more about saying "Science is stooopid" than making a statement about race.
[ 31. May 2013, 07:14: Message edited by: lilBuddha ]
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
Kaplan--
I don't know what I'm getting into here, but why is this so personal for you?
That's the only reason I can think of that you continue to defend the girl so vociferously. Many of us have said that maybe the stadium staff and the authorities could've handled the situation better. No one's called for her to be clapped in irons. The general sense I get from most posters is that she did something stupid and wrong and hurtful, and they hope she'll learn from it and go on to treat people better..
But the things you keep posting, and the way you keep posting, make it sound like she's the only thing that really matters, and everything else be damned
It's really confusing. Is it possible for you to enlighten us, please? What are we missing???
Thanks. ![[Angel]](graemlins/angel.gif)
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Yes, it is sure is making a mountain out of a molehill. Good grief, why go on about it?
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
She called him an ape, was overheard and ejected by police.
It was assumed it referred to his colour.
She has apologised. He's accepted the apology.
Enough.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
Before Darwin provided a "scientific" basis for derogating non-white groups, didn't the sort of people who would do that use the story of Ham as a biblical excuse for that sort of behaviour?
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
Palimpsest thinks that a term which is understood as racist in one context should always be interpreted as racist (and intentionally so) in another where it is not.
Palimpsest thinks that thirteen year-olds always say and do things with a full understanding of what they involve, are therefore as culpable as adults doing or saying the same things, and should therefore never be cut any slack.
Palimpsest thinks that an intelligent adult in a position of relative power and influence should always exploit that advantage to humiliate children who have upset him.
Palimpsest thinks that in the volatile atmosphere of a sporting contest attended by tens of thousands of people, a large proportion of them hurling abuse (and not just racial) which any decent person would find abhorrent, it is a simple matter to define the gradations of acceptability and pinpoint one scapegoat.
I don’t believe that you think any of the above, and I don’t believe you really think that I believe what you claim I do, either.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
But why go on and on about it?
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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goperryrevs
Shipmtae
# 13504
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Colour is not culture, sub or dominant. Monkey, ape, gorilla, chimp, baboon are used in a derogatory nature by white people of various cultural standing against black and brown people of various cultural standing.
I think there is a cultural element. They're words that can have racist connotation, but don't necessarily always do.
Monkey and chimp, for example, wouldn't have racist overtones for me. They'd go with "cheeky", as in "cheeky monkey" - someone who's mischievous or whatever.
Baboon would be an idiot or a fool. A "blundering baboon". Probably due to the similarity of the word "buffoon"
And I can quite conceive of ape or gorilla referring to someone who is large-built and thuggish - a bouncer type.
I'm aware that there are also racist uses, and, for example, monkey chants at a football match would stand out for me. But in my limited life experience, I think it's true to say that I've never heard any of the above words used as a racial slur. But I have heard them in those other contexts.
However, in this specific case, and the cultural context it was in, it was a racial slur - the girl's admitted so. So, L'Organist sums it all up pretty well:
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
She called him an ape, was overheard and ejected by police.
It was assumed it referred to his colour.
She has apologised. He's accepted the apology.
Enough.
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"Keep your eye on the donut, not on the hole." - David Lynch
Posts: 2098 | From: Midlands | Registered: Mar 2008
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Sylvander
Shipmate
# 12857
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mili:
Sorry Gee D, I was responding to Sylvander who asked if all AFL supporters and players were ruffians.
Actually it was a stab at humour, quoting a common phrase from the UK. Never mind.
Thanks for enlightening me on "Godwinised". I never cease to learn here, and so even ken got a one-in-four "valid" rating in his post :-)
"Nazi" comparisons have various dimensions. People usually equate Nazism with the Holocaust. But before the holocaust started (1941) the Nazis ran Germany for 8 years and only gradually increased the pressure. So a Nazi-comparison is not necessarily a liking something to genocide, it may be referring to much more ordinary forms of totalitarianism e.g.:
Well into the late 1930s the legal situation of Jews was not considerably worse than that of negroes in the Southern US. Jesse Jackson said something to this effect in an interview after his wins at the Berlin 1936 Olympics. Nazi anti-semitism was more conspicuous inter alia because it came suddenly and it looked worse because it affected Jews in middle class and high positions - positions which southern US negroes never even got into, so they did not get kicked in the dust so much as they were born there.
Another dimension was the Nazis' attempt to change and control language (French "Adieu" was not to be used any more, "Heil Hitler" instead of "Guten Tag". Getting the latter wrong could get you in serious trouble). Language was used to distinguish friend and foe. Whoever did not go with the latest politically correct term was suspect. That is one parallel which I often use to show in what unsavoury mindset some people's thinking in today's debates is rooted. Terms like "negro" (Neger) and "gipsy" (Zigeuner) were perfectly harmless. I hear they now censor Martin Luther King's speeches on US telly, bleeping out the "negro". Then someone declares them inappropriate and continued use equates to racism. Control over language is one major feature of totalitarianism.
Would people agree if the rule in the stadium said: Anybody shouting grave insults will be evicted? So that "cunt", "fag", "ape" etc. are all treated the same? Thus one would not single out racism unreasonably as the worst of the worst.
It might make life a bit difficult to legislate all unpleasant things away, of course. I remember once calling a football referee "you mole" for he was as blind as a dead chicken in a black bag. I am glad that the 50,000 others shouting "bribed motherfucker" drowned me out and that he was neither hairy, nor handicapped nor greyish-black in hue.
Posts: 1589 | From: Berlin | Registered: Jul 2007
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Except that I think racism is worse than common abuse. If one footballer calls another a dozy twat, it's no big deal; if he calls him a dozy black twat, that seems in a different category to me. Racism has so many cultural and historical associations, that it is (rightly, in my view) considered to be heinous.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Kaplan--
I don't know what I'm getting into here, but why is this so personal for you?
That's the only reason I can think of that you continue to defend the girl so vociferously. Many of us have said that maybe the stadium staff and the authorities could've handled the situation better. No one's called for her to be clapped in irons. The general sense I get from most posters is that she did something stupid and wrong and hurtful, and they hope she'll learn from it and go on to treat people better..
But the things you keep posting, and the way you keep posting, make it sound like she's the only thing that really matters, and everything else be damned
It's really confusing. Is it possible for you to enlighten us, please? What are we missing???
Thanks.
I think that your problems are those of fear and historical insularity.
Amongst Western middle-class people today, racism is regarded in morally exceptionalist terms as uniquely evil, and this goes along with a dread that unless one condemns it absolutely and unequivocally, even when there are questions about whether it has actually taken place, and if so, whether there are moderating, complicating and mitigating factors, then one will be labeled as a racist oneself.
Such a situation is not unprecedented.
In other times and places it has been patriotism, or anti-communism, or sexual morality, or religious orthodoxy, ie “You ask whether such and such a thing is really disloyal / communist / obscene / heretical? You suggest qualifications and investigation and questions and discussion? Aha! Then obviously you are a traitor / Red / libertine / Protestant yourself!”
Racism is always wrong, but it is neither wrong to recognize degrees of seriousness, nor to ask whether there are issues of interpretation and perception involved, however threatening that might feel.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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Reuben
Shipmate
# 11361
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Posted
All things considered I think her transgression pales into insignificance compared to Eddie McGuire's follow up blunder.
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"I got nothing." Barrie Unsworth
Posts: 227 | From: New South Wales | Registered: May 2006
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
Kaplan Corday thinks yelling terms commonly used as Racist abuse and recognized as such by a large number of people is much too complicated to address and so should be ignored.
Kaplan Corday thinks that thirteen year old girls attending football matches should be allowed to yell words commonly recognized as racist because she may have had some post modern ironical intent or may have been too naïve to understand what she was saying.
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Kaplan--
I don't know what I'm getting into here, but why is this so personal for you?
That's the only reason I can think of that you continue to defend the girl so vociferously. Many of us have said that maybe the stadium staff and the authorities could've handled the situation better. No one's called for her to be clapped in irons. The general sense I get from most posters is that she did something stupid and wrong and hurtful, and they hope she'll learn from it and go on to treat people better..
But the things you keep posting, and the way you keep posting, make it sound like she's the only thing that really matters, and everything else be damned
It's really confusing. Is it possible for you to enlighten us, please? What are we missing???
I can't answer for Kaplan specifically, but this kind of smokescreen is a huge part of white privilege. Any time a white person is publicly caught making some racist comment they can usually count on a large number of people grasping at any kind of straw ("maybe she was just making an anthropological comment!") other than the simple, straightforward idea that a racist comment was racist.
quote:
Originally posted by Sylvander:
Well into the late 1930s the legal situation of Jews was not considerably worse than that of negroes in the Southern US. Jesse Jackson said something to this effect in an interview after his wins at the Berlin 1936 Olympics.
I'm pretty sure you mean Jesse Owens. Jesse Jackson wasn't born until 1941 and, as far as I know, has never competed in the Olympics, much less won four gold medals.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Croesos
Very good analysis of privilege. It operates very widely, as with homophobia - there are many excuses for it of course, although probably they are dwindling today.
I suppose it's WASP privilege, or maybe, WASSP, where the extra S denotes straight.
I'm not really a bigot, I'm just responding to my cultural/anthropological/social context, where racism/homophobia/misogyny are deeply embedded, and after all, I am struggling against it.
Power and privilege and hegemony love to dress themselves up in fine clothes, but inadvertently reveal their trashy backside.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Mili
Shipmate
# 3254
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Posted
Kaplan Corday, don't assume you the motives of myself and others here who do not share your views. I do not stand up against racism in order to not be judged as racist myself - I do it because I care about my non-white family members, friends and everyone else who is hurt and disadvantaged by racism. I have never aspired to be 'cool' so am not just taking this point of view because it's the in thing.
Of course there are less and more serious forms of racism. That doesn't mean people should have to put up with the less serious forms because white people want the freedom to say whatever they feel like, regardless of other peoples' feelings.
You say you believe racism is really wrong so I still don't understand why you are upset when people are held accountable for verbal racism. If your Indian friends in Melbourne were verbally abused by a thirteen year old on the train should they just grin and bear it or ignore it? I once confronted a group of teens for calling a man of Indian origin on the train a curry muncher and harassing him. I got sworn at and spat on for my trouble by a couple of them and told they were just joking. One girl even 'stabbed' me in the arm with a lego man holding a sword a few times and called me a bitch. (I'm glad to say the rest of the group apologised for their behaviour and wiped the spit off). A staff member at the train station also spoke to them and told one of the boys that men don't treat women that way. His excuse? He wasn't a man, just a boy, so he had every right to spit on me and swear at me for calling him out on his racism. I never went to the police because this was before they had transit police at stations and the teens were obviously from disadvantaged backgrounds themselves and I didn't see the point in getting them in further trouble.
And Sylvander I kind of got you were joking, I just didn't find it funny, especially on a thread about a serious topic so I was a little sarcastic in my response.
Posts: 1015 | From: Melbourne, Australia | Registered: Aug 2002
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
Sylvander, perhaps you missed my post. Care to respond? I'm particularly interested in how you deal with racist slurs in your workplace.
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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Amorya
Ship's tame galoot
# 2652
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Racism is always wrong, but it is neither wrong to recognize degrees of seriousness, nor to ask whether there are issues of interpretation and perception involved, however threatening that might feel.
Surely the degree of seriousness was recognised. Serious racism would be something like refusing to serve someone in a shop, and you'd be slapped with a huge fine. Really serious racism would be stirring up hatred, or committing racially motivated hate crimes. You'd be tried as a criminal.
Since this wasn't serious racism, the police weren't even involved. Sounds proportional to me.
Posts: 2383 | From: Coventry | Registered: Apr 2002
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sylvander:
... Another dimension was the Nazis' attempt to change and control language (French "Adieu" was not to be used any more, "Heil Hitler" instead of "Guten Tag". Getting the latter wrong could get you in serious trouble). Language was used to distinguish friend and foe. Whoever did not go with the latest politically correct term was suspect. ...
And if white people were being herded into labour and concentration camps in vast numbers for saying nasty words for brown people, you might have a point. A really bizarre, weird, twisted point that equates asking for courtesy and respect with violent racism. A point that can only be seen from the exalted peak of white privilege.
ETA: And this
quote:
... Terms like "negro" (Neger) and "gipsy" (Zigeuner) were perfectly harmless. I hear they now censor Martin Luther King's speeches on US telly, bleeping out the "negro". ...
It's a fair bet that the people to whom those terms were directed might not have found them harmless. And as for bleeping "negro", the continuing existence of the NAACP and Quentin Tarantino movies in the USA shows it's more complicated than that.
[ 31. May 2013, 18:13: Message edited by: Soror Magna ]
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Palimpsest thinks that a term which is understood as racist in one context should always be interpreted as racist (and intentionally so) in another where it is not.
Palimpsest thinks that thirteen year-olds always say and do things with a full understanding of what they involve, are therefore as culpable as adults doing or saying the same things, and should therefore never be cut any slack.
Palimpsest thinks that an intelligent adult in a position of relative power and influence should always exploit that advantage to humiliate children who have upset him.
Palimpsest thinks that in the volatile atmosphere of a sporting contest attended by tens of thousands of people, a large proportion of them hurling abuse (and not just racial) which any decent person would find abhorrent, it is a simple matter to define the gradations of acceptability and pinpoint one scapegoat.
I don’t believe that you think any of the above, and I don’t believe you really think that I believe what you claim I do, either.
Yes, I didn't realize that shouting "ape" at a player who is in a group that has been treated badly because of racial discrimination was really the little girl doing her biology homework at the football stadium, even though she later described the term as racist.
I doubt you really believe that the usage was non racist, it's just part of your flurry of excuses for bad behavior. Excuses which don't hold up if you look at them hard.
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
Yes, I didn't realize that shouting "ape" at a player who is in a group that has been treated badly because of racial discrimination was really the little girl doing her biology homework at the football stadium, even though she later described the term as racist.
What you don't appear to realise, as I explained upthread, is that the term "ape" has never had a racist application in Australia, as it has had in Europe, though as a result of this incident, it will from now on.
There is therefore no reason to believe that the girl was being deliberately racist.
She described it afterward as racist, because that was what she had just been told.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Amorya:
the police weren't even involved
Actually they were at one point, but Goodes, to his credit, did not want charges pressed,
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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Nicolemr
Shipmate
# 28
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Posted
If 'ape" has never had a racist application in Australia, then why did the player consider it a racist slur?
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On pilgrimage in the endless realms of Cyberia, currently traveling by ship. Now with live journal!
Posts: 11803 | From: New York City "The City Carries On" | Registered: May 2001
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Vulpior
Foxier than Thou
# 12744
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
The term "ape" has never had a racist application in Australia, as it has had in Europe, though as a result of this incident, it will from now on.
Wrong. Did you listen to what Adam Goodes said in the presser the following morning? He said it wasn't the first time he had been called that. I think it was in that statement that he referred back to abuse at school.
And blaming the victim? Claiming that someone who called out an instance of racist abuse is to be blamed for that particular insult gaining wider usage? That's just f***ing rude.
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I've started blogging. I don't promise you'll find anything to interest you at uncleconrad
Posts: 946 | From: Mount Fairy, NSW | Registered: Jun 2007
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mili:
You say you believe racism is really wrong so I still don't understand why you are upset when people are held accountable for verbal racism.
Congratulations on your actions on the train.
I hope that I would have the courage to do the same in similar circumstances.
Your comparison of the MCG incident to a thirteen year-old’s racially abusing passengers on a train has two difficulties.
First, the abuse on the train is unambiguously racist, and secondly, remonstration on the part of the Indians, indigenous Australians or anyone else being abused, explaining why they found the comments hurtful and unacceptable, would be entirely appropriate because everyone in the carriage would have heard the abuse, and the incident and its perpetrator would not finish up in the national media.
Your claim that I am "upset when people are held accountable for verbal racism" is completely at variance with what I have written.
I made it quite clear, for example, that McGuire was culpable for his comment, first because as a result of the MCG incident any reference to non-human primates was now racist, and secondly because he is a shrewd and knowledgeable adult who operates in the public sphere and should have known better.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Vulpior:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
The term "ape" has never had a racist application in Australia, as it has had in Europe, though as a result of this incident, it will from now on.
Wrong. Did you listen to what Adam Goodes said in the presser the following morning? He said it wasn't the first time he had been called that. I think it was in that statement that he referred back to abuse at school.
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
I made it quite clear, for example, that McGuire was culpable for his comment, first because as a result of the MCG incident any reference to non-human primates was now racist, and secondly because he is a shrewd and knowledgeable adult who operates in the public sphere and should have known better.
I'm having trouble reading the highlighted bit in your second comment as anything other than a claim that racism is just something invented by non-whites to make white people feel bad.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Mili
Shipmate
# 3254
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Posted
The kids who called the Indian man a 'curry muncher' also claimed it was not racist, but a friendly term. It's like they think it was appropriate to call someone that if they didn't know his name. Just because the person using a term doesn't realise how offensive it is, doesn't mean it's not racist.
Also many white people in the past considered Aboriginal people to be the most primitive in the world and the least evolved or human 'races'. This was partly based on their use of stone and wood tools, rather than metal, and that they lived a hunter and gatherer lifestyle instead of farming. These past racists didn't take into account that most native Australian flora and fauna are not suitable for farming or that Aboriginal peoples had lived and survived for thousands of years living their way. Many white people assumed Aboriginal people were too primitive to adapt to 'modern' ways of life and would die off or have to be put on missions and be looked after by white people. So maybe they weren't directly called monkeys, but they were considered less evolved and even less human.
I'm relieved to realise that you do consider verbal racism to be real racism, and something that should be confronted. I was just confused about your views because you were so upset about the girl at the MCG being punished and thought you meant all verbal racism is something that should just be let go and ignored. I still stand by my view that the MCG has a right to eject racially abusive fans though.
Posts: 1015 | From: Melbourne, Australia | Registered: Aug 2002
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
... everyone in the carriage would have heard the abuse, and the incident and its perpetrator would not finish up in the national media. ...
So racism can only be challenged when everyone hears it, but no one ever finds out about it? Those are your criteria?
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
I'm having trouble reading the highlighted bit in your second comment as anything other than a claim that racism is just something invented by non-whites to make white people feel bad.
Sounds as if you are “reading into” rather than reading.
Not only have I never heard the word “ape” used in a racist sense, but I have never come across such a usage being condemned on the ABC or in the Fairfax press, both of which I listen to and read regularly, and both of which are extremely thorough and alert in exposing racism.
If Goodes was ever called an “ape” previously, there is no reason to suppose it had reference to his Aboriginality.
If the insult did unambiguously refer to his Aboriginality (eg “black ape”), it might have been simply a reference to his appearance, and did not necessarily carry all the baggage of pseudo-Darwinian theories of differing evolutionary rates of different “races”.
If, as I am quite willing to believe, Goodes genuinely thought that her comment carried an agenda of Aborigines’ subhumanity and he was therefore justifiably upset, then I return to my original points:
1. I think he was mistaken, and that the girl did not use the term in that sense.
2. Even if he thought she had, his response was not appropriate and he could and should have handled it differently.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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Leaf
Shipmate
# 14169
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
What you don't appear to realise, as I explained upthread, is that the term "ape" has never had a racist application in Australia, as it has had in Europe, though as a result of this incident, it will from now on.
There is therefore no reason to believe that the girl was being deliberately racist.
She described it afterward as racist, because that was what she had just been told.
It is surprising, then, that the crowd seemed to express disapproval by booing at her. If the racist application were as unknown as you claim, puzzled glances might have been the response.
But I see that you have already made up your mind about your interpretation of this event, and that you have come here to persuade rather than discuss.
Posts: 2786 | From: the electrical field | Registered: Oct 2008
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
I find the proposition that there was anything wrong with Goodes' actions ludicrous. I especially find it ludicrous to ascribe to him an intent of subjecting the girl to a lengthy public humiliation. He doesn't control the press, he certainly doesn't control where Channel 7 points it's cameras. They should damn well be pointing them at the field of play, but of course anything off field they find amusing or titillating becomes the news of the moment instead.
Blaming Goodes for the role of other people, including yourself Kaplan, in extending this into some epic event is thoroughly misplaced.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
Also, the notion that ape is not used in Australia as a racist word is, in my opinion, bullshit. What little bubble are you living in?
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
an intent of subjecting the girl to a lengthy public humiliation.
Goodes no doubt did not want her subjected to a public humiliation, but by doing what he did, instead of going over to her and saying something to her one to one, he almost certainly guaranteed that it happened.
Goodes acted in the heat of the moment when he was understandably upset.
That cannot be said for all those people who have since reacted toward her with grim, rigid, ideological vindictiveness.
Under Stalin’s legal code, alleged offenders were treated as adults from the age of twelve.
That mentality now doesn’t appear as bizarre and unbelievable as it used to.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
an intent of subjecting the girl to a lengthy public humiliation.
Goodes no doubt did not want her subjected to a public humiliation, but by doing what he did, instead of going over to her and saying something to her one to one, he almost certainly guaranteed that it happened.
Goodes acted in the heat of the moment when he was understandably upset.
That cannot be said for all those people who have since reacted toward her with grim, rigid, ideological vindictiveness.
Under Stalin’s legal code, alleged offenders were treated as adults from the age of twelve.
That mentality now doesn’t appear as bizarre and unbelievable as it used to.
Why didn't you say she was shipped to a Gulag for 20 years as punishment? That didn't make the papers that I read. I guess you've fallen a long way down a slippery slope.
As for your theory that he should have gone over and talked to her about her abusive term. If he had done that, you would have heaped even more abuse on him for terrifying a poor little girl.
I'm also sure that his team management far prefers he hand such problem over to security
rather than dispute with the audience. He did exactly the right thing.
The great puzzle is how he knew it was a racist slur since it's never ever been used that way in Australia.
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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