magma wrote:
Personally I can't think of any time I'd use any of the words mentioned unless quoting someone else, but I can see how context can make pretty much any string of words mean anything to anyone. Common sense dictates that if you're communicating using language that MUST be understood within its proper context you therefore MUST make sure that all those overhearing are in on the context. Running up to your group of mates in the club and yelling "WHAT UP MY N-WORDS!" is a perfectly valid reason to get stabbed in the neck by a stranger and the stranger would have every right to be offended.
In the case of Suarez, he threw a racial descriptor into a sentence insulting someone like John Terry supposedly did, didn't he?. Of course the racial descriptor was part of the insult. If I thought you were a cunt (which obviously I don't), I wouldn't call you a white cunt, I'd just call you a cunt unless I also thought being white was a bad thing. Easy.
Sorry for the time it's taken to respond but I think the post merits it.
I see a conflict between the positions in the two paragraphs above. I agree with the first there has to be some context. WRT the OP if he is offended by his friends use of language he has a right to challenge the context they intended it. Generally I don't ever see a group of white people using racial epithets positively, similarly with straight people using homophobic language where even gay has become some generic pejorative.
That said I'm reluctant to accept a position that requires some moral absolutism. I have no music in my collection that has white people using racist language, certainly not to my knowledge, with the possible exception to Pink Floyd on the wall but that has a very specific context. I have hundreds of tunes containing rappers using cracker. If we accept some absolutist position all of this should be condemned but we don't. I'm sure there's been discussions about why white racism is relatively worse because of the power inequality and I'm not really wanting to divert the discussion but suffice to say we apply a context to it an adopt a more relativist position that things are interpreted subjectively. We then interpret them within the group that we are acting.
If it's ok for a white guy to drop the N word in with a group of black mates then we understand that only applies to that group. I'm not sure it ever is but that may be my failing to get it or ever understand why a white guy would want to.
Finally in relation to Suarez he did use a racial descriptor but he didn't call him a c
unt. You mentioned at the time he wasn't black enough to use the language he did but the fact a grandparent was black suggests that in his immediate parentage two generations of racial integration. To just condemn him as a racist applies an absolutist position to a situation that in my opinion doesn't warrant it. Should he do it again understanding the cultural context then that's another thing entirely.
