You know what? Fuck you.
"Looking back on when I
Was a little nappy headed boy..." Stevie Wonder
"Cant turn a ho into a housewife
"That's some nappy headed hos there..." Don Imus
Don Imus is a jackass. And so are you.
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As sure as I live and breathe there is a supreme human right: The right of free speech, the right to express thought, the right to make our ideas heard, the right to be heretical, the right to listen to ideas and learn from or discard them, and THE OBLIGATION TO IGNORE ANY IDEA EXPRESSED.
You may be offended. You may agree. You may not care. But my words are MY WORDS. You have no right to censor me, no matter what I say.
I'm willing to bet all of us have a list of 100 words that offend us, or would rather not hear. Does that mean those words are patently offensive? Does that mean those words should not be used? Does that mean those words are heresy?
Nigger.
Is that word more offensive than faggot? or cunt? or kike? or cracker? or Satan? or Nazi? or asshole?
If you believe "Yes, there is a difference. 'Nigger' is an abomination of a word, a reminder of hundreds of years of degradation, dehumanization, evil!" You are correct. But it is still a legitimate word.
Does that mean "Christ Killer!" should not be used? After all, the history of Jewish subjugation out-performs African slavery by thousand of years. If you disagree, then you have imposed your indignation and elevated your perceived sense of wrongdoing above everyone else's experience. And that makes you as wrong as the words you rail against.
Words are powerful.
And that is the beauty and wonder and aggravation of human communication.
BUT THE WORD IS NOT THE THING.
Words are only as powerful as you allow them to be. The more you invest energy in decrying a word, the more power that word has.
Listen all you faggots, cunts, niggers, and motherfuckers: turn down the sensitivity knob, and grow the fuck up.
Jesus, Mohammed, Confucius, Galileo, Aristotle, Hitler, Shakespeare, Machiavelli, Rand, Dante, Falwell, Sharpton, YOU. They all said controversial and perhaps heinous things. But their WORDS made us THINK.
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The rest of us are waiting.
When you evolve, so will the HUMAN race.
6 comments:
Right to free speech: 1
Right to Not Be Offended: Nonexistent.
Words are powerful, and you don't censor the ones you don't like; you just counter them with better ones.
My two cents worth.
I rather like the word "cracker".
It's meant to be insulting and hurtful, but it comes across as comic to me.
Though I dislike most of the words in this post, I agree fully with the reason you wrote them.
It rather reminds me of Denis Leary's "Libertarian Rant".
Well done.
Firstly - I'm thinking that continues posts means that KF lives and breathes. This is good news.
Second - I was nodding vigorously when I came across the notion here that words have power or offend us because of our heightened sensitivities to them due to outside influences villifying them or making them offensive.
That IS what you propose, correct?
The thinking is the thing.
First, and I agree with you 90%, Imus was not censored. That is, the powers at be let the public decide his fate. That public may be wrong, but we live in a democracy.
Second, while on the point, I think that his greatest mistake was apologizing. Or at least so profusely.
I apologize, Rennratt, but I think your comment typifies my only real complaint against the post. I do believe that racism is an institution, and as such there has to be a greater "evil" over you in order to validate the understanding of being degraded.
Before I continue, I assume that you're white. Which may be way off base - let me know.
"Cracker" is funny, or meaningless, or whatever, because there's no history of being under the heel of the black man.
The opposite is true of "nigger". There are still people alive who remember that being a common title. In fact, I'm sure that it's still used as a pejorative.
Words are powerful -- they allow normally rational people to be emotionally affected. It's difficult for me to tell people, "get over it!", when I can't understand.
I'm with you on slavery. Not only is it over in America (ostensibly), but it was (is?) the state of most conquered people. It's not like America invented slavery. If we're going to talk reparations, we need to go back to Babylon and before. The mind reels at the implications.
I'm sorry, I didn't realize how long this was getting!
Simply: There's a double standard in this country, for good or bad. No one (no one credible) is arguing for overt speech repression. But is it so wrong for the majority to decide the norms? Isn't that exactly what democracy is?
Just because we have the luxury of being "enlightened" doesn't mean that the anyone else doesn't know when they are being repressed. If I had more time, and I was sounding off on my own space, and not making the longest reply ever, I would argue that such callous dismissal is only a further example of racism.
Ala disabled-ness: "Can I help you up the stairs?" Seemingly benign, but likely the worst affront.
Thank you, Kom. As usual, your intellect and profound grasp of philosophy teaches the rest of us.
Isn't it great to be able to disagree with civility?
Thanks again.
Yeesh. I won't backhand the compliment, but I wouldn't go that far! It's just that I've had to make a certain peace with the situation, and never got around to writing about it on my own space.
It is great to disagree with civility. I find that more often than not, much of the disagreement is over little of the matter.
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