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Quote by: Scribbler1 Sorry, I suppose I'm just stupid then, because I happen to believe words CAN be used as weapons. You can indeed hurt the unarmed and innocent with words. You can't hurt me, for instance, but you can hurt others and that is almost ALWAYS unnecessary.
Not as seriously as a baseball bat to the head, but words, properly used can hurt.
So why the defense of such words? You have the right to say them and I have the right to be angered by them. THAT is freedom. You sound like you advocate one side only, where you can say whatever you want and everyone else must just put up with it. The real world ain't quite like that and if you want proof, just go into a bar with a lot of large motorcycles parked outside and say everyone at the bar's mother is a whore.
But give me your address first, because I'll need to know where to send the flowers. |
That is different, obviously. I am provoking anger from them because I am not only directly making fun of their mothers, a touchy subject, but I am also asking for a fight. And you didn't even go against my argument, which the parallel would be if all the bartenders went around to everyone else and called their mothers whores. But they don't, do they? Motorcycle gangs don't rap about how their mothers are whores and they don't tell each other their mothers are whores, do they? No, they have no involvement in the "hurtful" speech of calling someone's mother a whore. Yet nigger and nigga are used in songs by many, in school by many, on the streets, wherever.
Not only that, but you're completely ignoring context. I have no reason to insult the mothers of the those motorcycle gangs, yet calling your friend a nigger (even derogatively, since I've called my friend's mother a whore once), singing a song with the word in it, or using it in common speech should be tolerated. It's a WORD!! And you can stop saying words "hurt," just say they lower self-esteem, because that's so much more realistic. And whose self-esteem should the word "nigger" lower? The black kid who uses it with his friends everday, the kids who sings their eminem songs with the word in it? Other people who choose not to use the word? It's speculation and thus deserves toleration.