| Kasz216 said: I couldn't disagree more. Even if Chris Rock just called someone a cracker in anger.... nobody would care. Not because of double standards, but because there just isn't a sufficent history there to bug people. Being called a cracker isn't essentially being equated to property. |
I wouldn't say nobody would care. Some people would care because they are genuinely bothered by racial epithets. I wouldn't expect it to get any legs as a news story the way Michael Richards' meltdown did because the weak-spleened cultural elite in the media do hold a double standard about such things, but it is a double standard all the same. Look at the handwringing that goes on about racially motivated white-on-black murders like the white kid running over a black guy for fun in Mississippi and the way we're all supposed to get all introspective about it compared to the utter silence around the black-on-white Atlanta midtown murders where the racial motivation was completely ignored by the national media. That's also a double standard, and it flows from the same place. White liberals are downright giddy at the prospect of lecturing other whites about being racist because it makes them feel enlightened and superior, and they are not at all comfortable about confronting black racism.
| Kasz216 said: You can't get rid of something like sexism or racistm without getting rid of sexist and racist actions and words. Which means your going to get angry and specific things with racist and sexist commments. Therefore clearly you are going to get more upset at things which have more context to them, and completely blow off stuff that doesn't make sense or has little context. |
You don't get rid of racism and sexism by exercising a double standard, either. You can get rid of white racism (or at least make it radioactive to the point that it's largely driven underground) with such a double standard, but then you're letting other racists off the hook by creating the impression that white racism is somehow inherently worse. If it has been worse, it was only worse because white racists have historically had more power and could act more freely on their hate. A white kid beaten up for being white doesn't feel any better about it than a black kid who is beaten up for being black, and feeling differently about one situation over the other because of history that predates either kid's life and society's neurosis about race is pretty fucked up.
Just because people are more viscerally offended by something doesn't make it worse. What makes nigger more instantly offensive than cracker is its stronger connotation and history, sure, but what makes racist epithets generally offensive is the hateful intent behind them. The former is superficial, the latter is what really matters. It ought not matter if you only have relatively lame terms like honky or cracker to work with because a racist is a racist is a racist.
