Re: CHAT: Ebonic Christmas

<flame>
hoensch@SOFTHOME.NET wrote:

> Who of the complainers was actually black?  Or are we
> just a bunch of white guys whining as were brainwashed
> to do so?
David Bell is "actually black" (he says so, and see
his picture), and he was the first to respond.

> Oh, and the prospect that only a member of a people
> can criticize/joke with those people is a rather pathetic
> invention.
No, it reflects the realities of the distribution of power.
(ObLang:  I originally wrote "power distribution" and realized
that that looks like what electrical wires do.)

> Abrigon, especcially if he is black (which was the impression
> Gray Wizard gave),
I don't know where you get this impression.

> has done nothing wrong.
> Do we know what free speech is?
No one has proposed sending Abrigon to jail, or even to
Coventry.  We are expressing our free-speech right of
public criticism.

> And I have to say it is rather pitiful that until Gray Wizard
> expressed his outrage, nobody else seemed to mind.
Say what?  David's reaction was seven hours later than
Abrigon's original posting.  That is pretty quick for a
small mailing list like this one, especially as the
original post went out at 2:39 A.M., David's local time.

> Something does not become offensive just because TV says so.
A slur against <JEDR>s becomes a slur because the <JEDR>s
say it is.  There is no obvious reason why the term
"Hep!" was offensive to 18th-19th century Jews, except
that mobs howling the word regularly (who knows why;
there are several specious theories) invaded their
villages in Eastern Europe to rape, loot, pillage, burn,
and kill.

> So how many of those fatally offended happens to be personally
> offended as opposed to having an overactive, visually triggered
> conscience?
Me, for one.  "An attack on one is an attack on all."  (IWW slogan)
</flame>

--

Schlingt dreifach einen Kreis vom dies! || John Cowan <jcowan@...>
Schliesst euer Aug vor heiliger Schau,  || http://www.reutershealth.com
Denn er genoss vom Honig-Tau,           || http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
Und trank die Milch vom Paradies.            -- Coleridge (tr. Politzer)