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While I agree that context can be used to establish a relative lack of threat/insult, I find:
I can imagine a paragraph in which an individual on here who is known to be a white British person uses the "p-word" in a post but explains very clearly that they are just quoting it as the term re-appropriated by certain British Asians, which would, I'd assume (as noted above) significantly reduce risk of offence, although not entirely neutralise it.
A dangerous pattern to approach. Essentially, I don't think it makes an enormous amount of difference what certain British Asians do when looking at what you, if you are not certain British Asians, do. To quote GGM, elsewhere:
To answer cholister and others re 'reclamation', my answer would be that while these terms are used at us - whoever the 'us' may be in this case, as hate speech, by one group against each other as a weapon, then it's neccessary to do something to take the sting, the violence, out of those words. To gain a space for response/take back some power.
If I thought the word Paki was never going to be used derogatively again, I couldn't justify its 'friendly'/sub-cultural use. But as long as it used in seriousness, there are peope have grown up with it being used *against* them. Using it themselves is one way of taking the sting out of it. If people aren't going to put the master's tools down, it's a little difficult to defend yourself if you don't have them as well.
In the case of Paki (and I suspect Chinky, in the UK, though I don't know for certain about this, but a Malaysian friend has had chinky thrown at him his whole life), a bunch of Bengalis for example using it amongst themsleves emphasise the ludicrousness of the fact that anyone from the Indian subcontinent, however they identify themselves, is lumped in as a Paki.
And they reference *shared experiences* (like, oh, being told to explain to the scary kid that's yelling it at you that 'you're not a Paki, because you're Indian', or being told to 'ignore it and they'll go away'. Er, no. but bless 'em for trying ) as well as hightlighting the precariousness of the space that such groups inhabit. Processes which, while I wish they weren't neccessary, damn well are when subgroups have their lack (of whatever characteristic makes them 'lesser' eg of whiteness, of heterosexuality) thrown at them *constantly*.
Using words like 'dyke, Paki' is much more than having built up a space of intimacy in which 'outside rules' can be dropped by common consent, using these words in safe contexts is a response to having had them used at one in entirely unsafe situations, a way to take that power.
However, if you are not within that community, then taking that power does not empower that community.
Hooever. More generally, I agree with both SW and MW that one can deploy context in various ways to limitthe likelihood of offence. The problem is, I suspect that there is a tendency to assume that the non-threatening context is successfully provided by having it appear on Barbelith to the right of a good person's name.
Example, of a sort: Dealing with somebody in "Feminism 101", I said don't get me wrong. I hate women. I just hate sloppy argumentation more. Somebody PMEd me, asking what I meant by that. I was assuming that everyone would get the joke because I'm on their side, but why should somebody new to the board know that? In what sense is it not a moderator saying that he hates women? Unlike the Guardian, we don't have an independent regulator that will fine us or otherwise punish us if we are found to be using racist terminology with racist intent. Nor are we a paper of record. Unlike a dictionary, we have no brief to collate and define a large numnber of words in usage in a language. And so on.
Back to the ranch. So, we can hope that the context of an apparently intelligent discussion among unprejudiced people minimises the likelihood that a word will cause upset. On t'other hand if somebody opens the page and the first word their eye falls on is a word they experience as hate speech, how much responsibility for that is theirs and how much is not-theirs. Quoting Persephone, talking about an instance where I had quoted another person's use of language I and she both found offensive but in different ways:
I think that you are trying to settle a question, and that's fine. I also think that you are already yourself decided on this question, as you say, the words make me recoil, in a purely literal sense. That is to say, if somebody used them around me, I would react very badly indeed. To which I say, exactly. I believe I once said that for me seeing that word is like getting stabbed in the eye. As it happens, that word was used around me and I did react very badly indeed. And I really felt worse "knowing" --perhaps I should say "assuming"-- that these are offensive words to you, and you went ahead and used them very prominently. And I should say at this point that I feel palpably relieved that they have been removed. |
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