• shweddy@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    Comes off racist if youre scared to use the word black for describing the color of a thing to someone who is black. Black isnt a bad word but you’re thinking of its negative connotations applied to people by racists.

    • threeonefour@piefed.ca
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      5 days ago

      Reminds me of The Office joke where Michael asks Oscar what his ethnicity is and Oscar says “Mexican” and Michael says “There’s gotta be a better word to use than that”.

      • NotASharkInAManSuit@lemmy.world
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        5 days ago

        Also the bit in 30 Rock.

        “It’s not because you’re a… uh, what do you call yourself?”

        “A Puerto Rican.”

        “No, I know you can say that, but what do I call you?”

        “A Puerto Rican.”

        “Wow… that does not sound right.”

    • pHr34kY@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      Calling a black object “black” = Does not offend.

      Calling your car’s late ignition timing “retarded” = Does not offend.

      Calling your dog a “bitch” = Does not offend.

      Calling your rooster a “cock” = does not offend.

      Calling a tied bundle of sticks for burning a “removed” = Does not offend.

      Just follow your friendly dictionary and you’ll be fine.

      Also: Hi mods. You’re probably here because of your word filter.

      Edit: Something replaced “f-a-g-g-o-t” with “removed” automatically. I’m going to leave it because it’s hilarious that bundled sticks are forbidden.

        • Logi@lemmy.world
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          5 days ago

          That’s literally fascist propaganda. Fasces is Latin for a bundle of sticks and that was the image of strength that Italian fascists were trying to evoke.

      • k0e3@lemmy.ca
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        5 days ago

        Oh, so there is an automated censoring system in place. I thought people were saying removed en lieu of re-tard on Lemmy on whichever instance I was visiting. Kind of like how people use unalive.

        • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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          5 days ago

          I don’t think it’s Lemmy. I think it’s per-instance. Lemmy.world is not a great or open place. They’re very close to Reddit, with way too much control over Lemmy where it’s almost synonymous. Take this as a warning if you’re creating a community or new account to spread things out.

            • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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              4 days ago

              .ml doesn’t influence Lemmy much. Lemmy.world is the largest instance by far, and they leverage that control to force things on the larger Lemmy community. ml has issues, but at least they don’t force things on anyone else. The lead developer of Lemmy is there, so they could, but they don’t.

              Anyway, the point is that Lemmy is only as safe as it is diversified. People should be joining smaller instances, and communities created on other instances, rather than just going to the largest one.

                • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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                  4 days ago

                  Yeah, like I said, they could, but they really don’t. How often do you see posts from that instance in your feed? They influence each other, but it doesn’t spread far beyond that.

        • sunsofold@lemmy.zip
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          5 days ago

          Mods need to turn that shit off. Computers should never tell a human what to say.

          • knatschus@discuss.tchncs.de
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            5 days ago

            Fuck off. Writing about how and why faggot is a slur is a legitimate use. Informing who used the term faggot in a degenerative way is a legitimate way to use it. Writing about the history of the word faggot also is.

            Censorship sucks.

            Automated Censorship is stupid and dangerous.

            • Kangae_Hishiryo@scribe.disroot.org
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              5 days ago

              If tomorrow some nazi fash starts using the word “goal” as some slur, would it be then incorrect to say “I have goals” or “omg, we’re goals” (“we’re goals” as “we’re matching”)?

              If we concede them every word they co-opt, then they’ll colonialize all language. Just as with the word queer, we should be the ones reclaiming it for ourselves. That’s a way of letting them controlling language.

            • AntiOutsideAktion@lemmy.ml
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              5 days ago

              It’s not that I just want to use slurs. I’m… um… principled! That’s the ticket! Stopping me from saying slurs is a moral hazard. What if I were a historian and this were a conversation about the history of the slur?? It’s not… but if I can construct a pretext then… uh… stop woke! DEI!

              Don’t you understand there are categories of inferior people, and we need to be vile to them???

              • knatschus@discuss.tchncs.de
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                5 days ago

                English isn’t my native language. Hard-R is that retard?

                I fear that refusing to use those words even in a educational sense is rewriting history a bit.

                It’s weird how americans who been all over the Internet claiming germany has no free speech because gloryfication of the Nazis is forbidden.

                Yet it was always fine to write that heil hitler was a common greeting of people who brutally murdered millions.

                While writing that fuckwit racists used the term nigger to put themselves over other humans is now frowned upon

              • k0e3@lemmy.ca
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                5 days ago

                I like to think of slurs as one of those, “we have freedom of speech but also you are not free from consequences for what you say,” sorta things. So, yeah, go ahead and say it if you want to, but don’t be a bitch about it if people tell you to fuck off or call you a Nazi.

          • Logi@lemmy.world
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            5 days ago

            Yeah, in the UK you might bum a fag. Which, now that I write it out, can mean something very different.

    • dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      I think the crack about Spanish is because the Spanish word for “black” is “negro.” But it is also not pronounced the same way as racist southerners say it. Spanish uses a short E, where as rednecks insist on saying it “neeegro,” perhaps in the hopes that it’ll make them taller. So don’t do that.

      The peanut gallery will win no points for guessing that the origin of the n-word is a mutation and/or corruption of “negro” and its various permutations in the other Romance languages that white people were all dragging with them across the Atlantic, all of which are just the words for the color black. For instance, in Latin it’s the even closer “niger,” single G.

    • noob@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      So decades ago I worked at a bike shop and some college students came in. One of them was black, everyone else in the shop was white. She sat down on a bike, that was all black with dark grey lettering. And I said “this bike looks great, I love the black on black look.” Everyone looked at me funny, she immediately got off the bike, and i literally died inside and froze up.

      20 years later and i still think about this.

      Also I should note that it was not the first time I used that phrase for that bike - when you work sales you end up with little automatic narratives that you barely think about.

    • Saapas@piefed.zip
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      5 days ago

      The implication I got from the comic imo is that the person is going to ridiculous lengths to appear anti-racist

      • nwtreeoctopus@sh.itjust.works
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        5 days ago

        Ehhh, context and tone can go a long way.

        In a neutral context, absolutely. I’ve heard people use saying it as an attack in some vile ways.

    • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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      5 days ago

      I agree, but also black for coffee isn’t just describing the color. It’s describing the character. Sugar doesn’t change the color, but that isn’t black coffee. Black for coffee is a label/category, not a description.

      It’s still stupid to be scared to call it black, just as it’s stupid to be scared of calling black people black. It’s a common term that everyone understands, and it isn’t an insult.

      • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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        5 days ago

        There is a long tradition of “black” being used to describe evil things, which may or may not be related to racism. I think being conscious of this can be useful, but black means a lack of light, and a black hole is something that light can’t escape from. It’s a perfect term for that.

  • FrChazzz@lemmus.org
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    5 days ago

    Was in an anti-racist training event for work and the man running the meeting told us a story about this time his white friend’s son referred to him as “Black” and the white dad gets all embarrassed. He scolds his son and then apologizes to his friend. Dude just goes, “it’s okay. I know I’m Black. There’s no need to try and hide it.”

  • Gladaed@feddit.org
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    6 days ago

    … Why would you say that(referring to the title). Just makes people use derogatory language in their head for the lulz.

  • Tattorack@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    This seems more offensive than just saying “coffee, black”.

    Never bothered Jeanway or Tuvok. :V

  • Broadfern@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    Black isn’t a bad word lol, but last I saw a mercworks comic was the mid 2010s so ¯\(ツ)/¯

  • BillyClark@piefed.social
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    6 days ago

    I recently had a similar experience. I was playing Codenames Duet in public, and because of their color, I had always referred to the “assassin” squares as “black.” So I suddenly realized I was out in public talking about how I was trying to “avoid the blacks.”

    From the context, I’m sure there was no confusion, but regardless, I thought it was a good idea to look up the correct name, “assassin,” and try to start using that word instead of “black.”

    • tatterdemalion@programming.dev
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      5 days ago

      I play a card game called Spitzer, where one of the rules is that the holders of the two black queens end up on a team. It is incredibly common to say things like “you beat the blacks”, etc. Context is everything.

      • BillyClark@piefed.social
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        5 days ago

        Since Spitzer is definitely of German origin, there’s an easy solution. Instead of saying “You beat the blacks,” you can simply say, “Du hast die Schwarzen besiegt.”