<story><title>NYTimes Peru N-Word: My side of the story, in four parts</title><url>https://donaldgmcneiljr1954.medium.com/nytimes-peru-n-word-part-one-introduction-57eb6a3e0d95</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>xyzzyz</author><text>&amp;gt; What I think is happening is that (like almost everything) it comes down to group membership signaling.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s one aspect of it, but from another perspective, this is a simple power play. Everyone with even modicum of intelligence understands the use-mention distinction, that there is a profound difference between quoting and using the word. Everyone understands that it is clearly wrong and stupid to attack someone as evil for &lt;i&gt;mentioning&lt;/i&gt; the word, &lt;i&gt;especially&lt;/i&gt; if they mention it in the context of telling people how wrong it is to &lt;i&gt;use&lt;/i&gt; it.&lt;p&gt;Nevertheless, the person is still attacked. The goal is to make it clear to all people observing, that no matter how stupid and wrong it might be, they have full, unobstructed power to destroy anyone at will, under flimsy circumstances, so you&amp;#x27;d better not ever cross them. That this is stupid and wrong is the entire point: anyone can attack, shame and destroy people for doing wrong, evil things, but only powerful people and ideologies can attack and destroy people for absolutely nothing wrong whatsoever.</text></item><item><author>munificent</author><text>I find the current rapidly changing culture around the N-word fascinating, honestly. Decades from now, I&amp;#x27;m sure sociologists will build entire careers on what we&amp;#x27;re going through. This is, I think, the first time in my life that I&amp;#x27;ve seen a word in American culture become taboo.&lt;p&gt;By that I mean not that &lt;i&gt;expressing the meaning&lt;/i&gt; of a word is forbidden, not the &lt;i&gt;idea&lt;/i&gt;, but the &lt;i&gt;utterance itself&lt;/i&gt;. If, like me, you tend to assume that cultures become more progressive and tolerant over time, this is an interesting very strong counter-example. Having a word that you that literally can&amp;#x27;t say &lt;i&gt;even in quotation or reference&lt;/i&gt; implies something almost akin to magical thinking. As if the two syllables themselves, even when stripped of meaning, still have some kind of power.&lt;p&gt;What I &lt;i&gt;think&lt;/i&gt; is happening is that (like almost everything) it comes down to group membership signaling. Progressive, anti-racist US culture has decided that not saying the N-word is a marker of group membership. If you say the word, even when simply mentioning it, it says that you didn&amp;#x27;t get the memo about not using the word. Therefore, you might not be part of the anti-racist in-group. And if you aren&amp;#x27;t one of &amp;quot;us&amp;quot;, then you&amp;#x27;re probably one of &amp;quot;them&amp;quot;. And therefore maybe even just &lt;i&gt;mentioning&lt;/i&gt; the word becomes morally akin to actually using it.&lt;p&gt;You can look at this as similar to other arbitrary-seeming abstinences that groups take up. It is almost a &lt;i&gt;feature&lt;/i&gt; that the prohibition is arbitrary because it emphasizes that the abstainer is doing so for group signaling reasons and &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; for pragmatic ones.</text></item><item><author>hn_throwaway_99</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ll admit, I didn&amp;#x27;t read all four articles. I got about half way through the first one and was just wondering &amp;quot;I still have no idea what this is all about.&amp;quot; Fortunately, the Wikipedia article on the author has a brief summary.&lt;p&gt;In particular, I thought this quote from the Wikipedia article really summarizes the differences between older and younger generations: &amp;quot;there is a profound difference between using a racial epithet in the course of a discussion about that racial epithet&amp;#x27;s use, and using a racial epithet to diminish or to wound someone.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;For &amp;quot;socially conscious&amp;quot; people in my generation (Gen X), I think nearly all of us would find calling someone a racial epithet abhorrent. At the same time, while I understand culture has shifted and I wouldn&amp;#x27;t do it now, I still find it quite bizarre that &lt;i&gt;the mere utterance&lt;/i&gt; of the epithet, even in a sentence like &amp;quot;You should never call someone a &amp;lt;racial epithet&amp;gt; because that is extremely offensive&amp;quot; is considered itself racist by younger people.&lt;p&gt;I recall hearing about a young popular YouTuber about a year or so ago who was accused of being racist simply for singing along to the lyrics of a popular rap song. Even more strange to me was that his defense (which was true if one looked up his Instagram video) was that he did NOT utter said epithet, in that he was singing along with the lyrics but when it got to that word he just skipped it and didn&amp;#x27;t say it.&lt;p&gt;I understand culture changes, but it still bothers me that we&amp;#x27;ve gotten to the point where we completely disregard intent and focus instead just on the syntax of what was said. To be clear, I&amp;#x27;m not sure if that&amp;#x27;s indeed what occurred in Mr. McNeil&amp;#x27;s case, but I certainly have seen it in other examples.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>munificent</author><text>&lt;i&gt;&amp;gt; That&amp;#x27;s one aspect of it, but from another perspective, this is a simple power play.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I would characterize it more as a threat display with collateral damage. A power play implies that the thing you&amp;#x27;re using the power play on is the direct goal, but here it&amp;#x27;s more a signal to show that anyone can be taken down. Sort of like when the overlord kills a randomly chosen subjugant to send a message.&lt;p&gt;I do think there is an aspect of this to it, yes. I don&amp;#x27;t personally attribute any large scale organized (organized &lt;i&gt;who&lt;/i&gt;?) intention behind. More that the emergent properties of our culture have left this new shiny machine gun laying on the floor and some people, for various reasons, are firing off a couple of shots.&lt;p&gt;We&amp;#x27;re living in a tumultuous time where power structures are changing. That tends to temporarily leave a lot of destructive toys around and people are going to scrabble for them and do a lot of harm before things settle back down. I hope that when they do we find that the power in the US has been distributed more equitably than it has in the past.</text></comment>
<story><title>NYTimes Peru N-Word: My side of the story, in four parts</title><url>https://donaldgmcneiljr1954.medium.com/nytimes-peru-n-word-part-one-introduction-57eb6a3e0d95</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>xyzzyz</author><text>&amp;gt; What I think is happening is that (like almost everything) it comes down to group membership signaling.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s one aspect of it, but from another perspective, this is a simple power play. Everyone with even modicum of intelligence understands the use-mention distinction, that there is a profound difference between quoting and using the word. Everyone understands that it is clearly wrong and stupid to attack someone as evil for &lt;i&gt;mentioning&lt;/i&gt; the word, &lt;i&gt;especially&lt;/i&gt; if they mention it in the context of telling people how wrong it is to &lt;i&gt;use&lt;/i&gt; it.&lt;p&gt;Nevertheless, the person is still attacked. The goal is to make it clear to all people observing, that no matter how stupid and wrong it might be, they have full, unobstructed power to destroy anyone at will, under flimsy circumstances, so you&amp;#x27;d better not ever cross them. That this is stupid and wrong is the entire point: anyone can attack, shame and destroy people for doing wrong, evil things, but only powerful people and ideologies can attack and destroy people for absolutely nothing wrong whatsoever.</text></item><item><author>munificent</author><text>I find the current rapidly changing culture around the N-word fascinating, honestly. Decades from now, I&amp;#x27;m sure sociologists will build entire careers on what we&amp;#x27;re going through. This is, I think, the first time in my life that I&amp;#x27;ve seen a word in American culture become taboo.&lt;p&gt;By that I mean not that &lt;i&gt;expressing the meaning&lt;/i&gt; of a word is forbidden, not the &lt;i&gt;idea&lt;/i&gt;, but the &lt;i&gt;utterance itself&lt;/i&gt;. If, like me, you tend to assume that cultures become more progressive and tolerant over time, this is an interesting very strong counter-example. Having a word that you that literally can&amp;#x27;t say &lt;i&gt;even in quotation or reference&lt;/i&gt; implies something almost akin to magical thinking. As if the two syllables themselves, even when stripped of meaning, still have some kind of power.&lt;p&gt;What I &lt;i&gt;think&lt;/i&gt; is happening is that (like almost everything) it comes down to group membership signaling. Progressive, anti-racist US culture has decided that not saying the N-word is a marker of group membership. If you say the word, even when simply mentioning it, it says that you didn&amp;#x27;t get the memo about not using the word. Therefore, you might not be part of the anti-racist in-group. And if you aren&amp;#x27;t one of &amp;quot;us&amp;quot;, then you&amp;#x27;re probably one of &amp;quot;them&amp;quot;. And therefore maybe even just &lt;i&gt;mentioning&lt;/i&gt; the word becomes morally akin to actually using it.&lt;p&gt;You can look at this as similar to other arbitrary-seeming abstinences that groups take up. It is almost a &lt;i&gt;feature&lt;/i&gt; that the prohibition is arbitrary because it emphasizes that the abstainer is doing so for group signaling reasons and &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; for pragmatic ones.</text></item><item><author>hn_throwaway_99</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ll admit, I didn&amp;#x27;t read all four articles. I got about half way through the first one and was just wondering &amp;quot;I still have no idea what this is all about.&amp;quot; Fortunately, the Wikipedia article on the author has a brief summary.&lt;p&gt;In particular, I thought this quote from the Wikipedia article really summarizes the differences between older and younger generations: &amp;quot;there is a profound difference between using a racial epithet in the course of a discussion about that racial epithet&amp;#x27;s use, and using a racial epithet to diminish or to wound someone.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;For &amp;quot;socially conscious&amp;quot; people in my generation (Gen X), I think nearly all of us would find calling someone a racial epithet abhorrent. At the same time, while I understand culture has shifted and I wouldn&amp;#x27;t do it now, I still find it quite bizarre that &lt;i&gt;the mere utterance&lt;/i&gt; of the epithet, even in a sentence like &amp;quot;You should never call someone a &amp;lt;racial epithet&amp;gt; because that is extremely offensive&amp;quot; is considered itself racist by younger people.&lt;p&gt;I recall hearing about a young popular YouTuber about a year or so ago who was accused of being racist simply for singing along to the lyrics of a popular rap song. Even more strange to me was that his defense (which was true if one looked up his Instagram video) was that he did NOT utter said epithet, in that he was singing along with the lyrics but when it got to that word he just skipped it and didn&amp;#x27;t say it.&lt;p&gt;I understand culture changes, but it still bothers me that we&amp;#x27;ve gotten to the point where we completely disregard intent and focus instead just on the syntax of what was said. To be clear, I&amp;#x27;m not sure if that&amp;#x27;s indeed what occurred in Mr. McNeil&amp;#x27;s case, but I certainly have seen it in other examples.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>everdrive</author><text>This should also demolish the argument that the use of the n-word in music and black culture has in any way &amp;quot;robbed the word of its power.&amp;quot; Clearly the word terrifies and offends people, even if this offense is partially performative. It&amp;#x27;s not a feckless word.</text></comment>