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But all of this does raise some really interesting questions about what constitutes unacceptable and who needs to accept or not accept it.
Case in point: During Paranoidwriter's move towards banning, he started to demand of anyone who used the word "Christ" as an intensifier "You a Christian?", on the grounds that he felt it was not acceptable on Barbelith for people who were not Christians to use the word "Christ", or possibly that nobody should use the word "Christ", and that people who were using it were being insensitive to the needs of Christians. He did not get the hang of countersuggestions that actually a) there was no prohibition on non-Christians using the word "Christ" and b) that the kind of people who would be offended by the use of the word "Christ" would be offended by so much of Barbelith (profanity, homosexuality, alternative lifestyles) that to change behaviour to suit them would be in effect to destroy the board.
We don't have that problem with "honky" - there's no inherent contradiction between not wanting to see one form of skin colour-based term and another at all.
(And Nina, I don't think, with respect, that you not having heard the term has a lot of meaning, unless that is universal. Personally, I saw it as a combination of "honky" - an archaic, insulting US term for a white person - and "Mister Hanky" - the South Park character - but that does not mean that anyone else would have made those associations).
However, as I say, the term doesn't really offend me at all, and I think that the rarity of usage and the power relation are parts of that reaction, along with the absence of any reference to a threat - nobody has ever called me or mine "honky", and certainly it has never been attached to a threat of violence or disenfranchisement of me or mine. However again, there are things that we deal with here without anyone necessarily having stood up and said "I am offended by this", or indeed "as a member of the group referenced by this, I am offended by this". No Jewish people registered their offence before the Fetch was banned, for example, to my knowledge.
So, what makes a name unacceptable on Barbelith? I agree with .trampetunia that either of the starred-out names he suggested would be picked up on near-immediately. Likewise a name that referenced violent [gendered?] acts against a group of people [represented on Barbelith?] - the one case I can think of of someone being banned for their username was Sensitive Rapist.
So, begging Illmatic's pardon, I don't see it as a waste of time to raise or discuss it, and begging Flyboy's I don't think it is foolish to raise it; if somebody is genuinely not happy with this name, because it is resonant for them of disenfranchisement or prejudice, then let's talk about it. At present, I don't think anyone is - we have had inquiries about whether it is equivalent to other forms of abuse based on race and sexuality, and to be dealt with in the same way. In which case, personally I don't have an adverse reaction to the word, but I'm happy to entertain the possibility that other people do or will, and I think we should as a group be ready to talk with anyone who does. Not, for me, as big a deal as .tramp's other examples, though.
Persephone said something that I often come back to on this - when I pointed out that seeing on Barbelith terms that were abusive to people of other races, it made me angry and upset, she responded that that was fine and admirable, but that when she saw terms that were abusive to her own people, it felt like being stabbed in the eye. I don't get that eye-stabby feeling from this username, myself. |
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