Biophany Posted October 21, 2014 Posted October 21, 2014 Here is an article (and I use that term very loosely) that has popped up all over my Facebook feed recently. I would love to hear what Stefan and you all think of it. The title is, "Douchebag: The White Racial Slur We've All Been Waiting For". https://medium.com/human-parts/douchebag-the-white-racial-slur-weve-all-been-waiting-for-a2323002f85d
J. D. Stembal Posted October 21, 2014 Posted October 21, 2014 I am a white, middle class male professor at a big, public university, and every year I get up in front of a hundred and fifty to two hundred undergraduates in a class on the history of race in America and I ask them to shout white racial slurs at me. I stopped reading after the opening paragraph.
alwazqestion Posted October 22, 2014 Posted October 22, 2014 I should have stopped when you did. I got this far: White racial slurs are not common in our colorblind age because they don’t work on people who possess white privilege. When it does work, like “Red Neck” or “Cracker,” it has the power to engage a class politics that draws together people of color and urban, middle class whites (otherwise known as the Democratic party).
fractional slacker Posted October 22, 2014 Posted October 22, 2014 "White racial slurs are not common in our colorblind age because they don’t work on people who possess white privilege. Strip the obfuscation and here's the argument being made. Arbitrary descriptions about people are not common because they don’t work on people with arbitrary traits.
Biophany Posted October 22, 2014 Author Posted October 22, 2014 I stopped reading after the opening paragraph. I wish I had done the same. The worst part is multiple people on my Facebook feed, (who I have since unfriended / ignored) wrote, and I quote "this is the best article I have ever read" and "WOW! Greatest.Post.Ever." EDIT: How do I delete a thread? I actually don't want to bring more attention/traffic to this guy's article.
J. D. Stembal Posted October 24, 2014 Posted October 24, 2014 It might be too late since we replied to it. Flag down a moderator. I don't think it was a bad post, just a terrible start to a worthless article, which I still haven't finished reading. Imagine if a writer wrote the same article replacing white with non-white. It would be an interesting thought experiment to see the reaction to such an article. Edit: I read the whole article (skimmed it, really) and my nerves are a bit frazzled. I couldn't resist signing up for Medium and posting a reply. Double edit: Oh, Gack! Look at this nonsense Professor Cohen hyperlinked in the aforementioned article - http://jezebel.com/5905291/a-complete-guide-to-hipster-racism/all
Biophany Posted October 25, 2014 Author Posted October 25, 2014 It might be too late since we replied to it. Flag down a moderator. I don't think it was a bad post, just a terrible start to a worthless article, which I still haven't finished reading. Imagine if a writer wrote the same article replacing white with non-white. It would be an interesting thought experiment to see the reaction to such an article. Edit: I read the whole article (skimmed it, really) and my nerves are a bit frazzled. I couldn't resist signing up for Medium and posting a reply. Double edit: Oh, Gack! Look at this nonsense Professor Cohen hyperlinked in the aforementioned article - http://jezebel.com/5905291/a-complete-guide-to-hipster-racism/all Ill read that one now. I see its on jezebel, so I can guess already that it will be aggravating.
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