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Cake day: September 27th, 2023
  • xmunk@sh.itjust.workstoAsklemmy@lemmy.ml•Would you use the R-word if it was socially acceptable again and how do you feel about it becoming unacceptable?
    3·
    1 year ago

    I agree that the N-word is far worse - I didn’t mean to equate them but to use it as a point of comparison. The really fucking hateful and widespread usages of the n-word mostly date back to the 70s - it’s now used almost exclusively by badge wearing racists… so it has had about fifty years of pop culture non-hateful uses but is still clearly unacceptable.

    The R-word was seeing widespread usage a mere twenty years ago - it’s still part of the active memory of millennials and older.

    An interesting comparison might be gypsy (I type it out only because I can’t think of a clear way to abbreviate it) which is seen as an unacceptable slur (especially in the verb form) which had fallen out of social use in the 50s - even that word (though it is less openly hateful) is still pretty unacceptable.

    It’s a similar story for other less common racial slurs - once a word becomes such a hateful slur it seems like the most common social response is to just abandon it with reclamation being a rarity and confined to the in group in every case I can think of (the n-word and the f-word both have gained some usage within their communities but it isn’t universal… I have an extremely negative memory of the f-word which makes me uncomfortable even when people I trust use it).

  • xmunk@sh.itjust.workstoAsklemmy@lemmy.ml•Would you use the R-word if it was socially acceptable again and how do you feel about it becoming unacceptable?
    2·
    1 year ago

    It becoming socially acceptable is a really nebulous bar - if I found myself among folks who found it acceptable I wouldn’t use it as I consider it unacceptable at a personal level - but if it’s usage completely changed in the year 2270 then sure I might use it.

    The n-word and r-word will never be socially acceptable in our lifetimes and anyone who says differently is just an asshole trying to cloak their behavior. I also don’t really see a need to put effort into reclaiming either term…

    In general, I think it’s a bad thing that we have words that have become unacceptable to use and I wish those words had never been so associated with hate - but they were do we are where we are.