Frelga wrote:And then claims that you are stifling his freedoms when you try to take the can away, yes.
This is relevant to the thread. Because that kind of blatant racism, from an elected official no less, is what people have to deal with every day. It's exhausting. It can be scary. So when a perfectly well intentioned person mentions blackface in a "harmless" context, it's on top of that. It's on top of your local candidate referring to a public hanging, and your aunt telling you how her cousin was lynched, and police shooting a black security guard for being a genuine hero. That's the harm.
I can't claim I understand African-American experience. But it's the anniversary of the Kristallnacht, and only a few days since Pittsburgh. So I do have some idea of what a few innocent words can do, on top of many, many not-innocent words.
And, yes, to all of this.
I'm in the camp that would like to have some objective way of measuring offense, but I honestly have no idea how that can be done. The only thing I can think of is that the majority of people in that culture itself would have to say, "Nah, that's not offensive." I can't think of an example of a majority of a culture saying that something
isn't offensive, but I can think of plenty where they say that something
is offensive. For example, the n word has been deemed offensive. (I happen to agree with that, but there you go.) The majority of black people have said that it's off limits (unless you are black, different topic). So the cultural zeitgeist in America is now if I, as a white person, use the n word, I am being deeply offensive and racist. That makes sense to me. The culture in question has made the decision. It doesn't necessarily come down to individuals, particularly individuals getting their panties in a wad over something ridiculous. This is a real and deep offense, and black culture has spoken. I think some of these other things—like white people wearing dreads*—are still being figured out, and we don't know yet what the majority of black people might decide. If people could just learn to dialogue meaningfully and respectfully, that would be helpful. And, of course, in our day and age, it's hard to separate out whether something is felt by a majority of people or just being complained about loudly by a few.
We should get rid of Facebook and just go back to messageboards.
*To me, this isn't offensive, but I need to be respectful and listen to the people who say that they are. And, then, I like to know the reasoning behind why they're offended, just as I like to know the history of the potential offense. In this case, like someone else pointed out, dreads aren't exclusive to black Americans or black culture, and this is part of why I don't think they should be considered offensive. However, time will tell.
There needs to be a whole lot more listening on the part of white Americans.