o_O.Q said:
"White people used it with a specific intent to a specific people"
exactly, that is what is important, intent would you concede that its possible for a word to be used with different intents at different times? I began that argument by referencing the time it was first used. Hence the word 'useD'. Now, people use the word for a myriad of reasons, whether it be out of anger, to elicit shock, for humor, or whatever. But I am saying before all these uses, the word had one primary use and it was for belittling one group of people. That's it. "ealize them fighting to utter a word deeply entrenched in hate"
from my perspective a word by itself cannot be entrenched in any particular emotion it is people that project their own emotions onto words or through words, which is why as stated above intent is important not words and i made the reply that i did because of this:
"The people fighting for the right to say it may or may not realize that they are (implicitly or explicitly) holding onto that racist culture that existed long before PC culture" A word can be deeply entrenched in emotion (firmly established by or ingrained). That's decided on a personal level yes, but also it's decided by society at large. When the word was first used in our history, the entire use was racist. Not necessarily now, but that's where it was born from. A lot of people still feel you can't separate that definition of the word and the hate that went with it no matter how much you try to argue it away. Most curses have some reason for why they came about and who they were aimed at. Ethnic slurs are born from hateful attitudes against groups of people the users feel they are superior to. Whether other uses have arisen doesn't erase how the word came to be, and it doesn't erase that particular emotion that people have associated with it for generations. The phrase "emotionally charged word" isn't one I made up. Many feel that words have power. That is why something like the n-word is treated differently than something like ass for the f-word. And even then, those words have their places and uses. You can't just drop the f-bomb anywhere. But most don't attribute the f-word with a history that marginalizes a particular group. Same why the other f-word is not accepted. |