Should OU suspend basketball players for useing "N" word on national TV?

[Shadowrider]

The two situations aren't equal. It's the cultural processes in ingroup vs. outgroup dynamics. Many things that are ok between ingroup members are not ok with somebody outside the group. The frat situation is clearly racist...whereas the basketball situation is not. For example, I can call many of my friends on this forum a "redneck bastard" and we'll laugh together; but if a black stranger were to call one of those friends a "redneck bastard", it would surely lead to a fight.

And therein lies the problem. Hypocrisy. It either is or it isn't. People sure get their feelings hurt easily these days and it sure seems that they pick those times selectively when it suits their need. They need to get over it already. Bunch of pansy ass girlie men this nation has become.

 

[RidgeHunter]

No, it's not the same thing, but it doesn't have to be. You do realize that you're on a mostly conservative gun forum with some closeted and not so closeted racists, defending the use of the word by white people, so long as it's done "in context"? And you come up with comedians and some rock stars used it as justification? Hasn't Louis CK gottn in a couple of kerfuffles over rape jokes and homophobic word use?

News flash, most of us aren't professional comedians or rock stars. Most of us don't represent major univeristy athletic programs and most of us recognize the out of control suppression of free speech in public.

It's not that the frat boys were actually going to go out and hang black folk. Not one single person believes that was going to happen. It's not that in and of itself, two black b-ball players calling themselves the n-word is offensive. It's the double standard that's offensive. I don't give two poops about who was oppressed and who was the oppressor in history. If you want true equality and racial harmony going forward, you have to make a stand that all are equal and all are equally jugded by their words and deeds. So long as a double standard exists, you'll never get there. JMO, YMMV...

Well since most of us aren't professional comedians or rock stars, nor do we represent major university athletic programs, it should be even easier for us to use that word and "get away with it".

I'm taking issue with this alleged "double standard" of yours. It doesn't exist. The basketball controversy here was the word used in a benign way. Black people use the word all the time in a benign way. I illustrated white people using it under similar circumstances. The SAE chant was quite different and you know that.

We use context to help us form opinions and judge situations and words all the time. Why not over this particular word? Because white guys are butthurt black guys are "getting away" with something? What exactly are they getting away with that a white man cannot?

"F*ck" is a strong word in our society. If I'm at quicktrip and hear a guy in the parking lot say "Dude, they were out of f*ckin' cheetos." it won't even register with me. If I hear "Get the f*ck back in the car or I'll knock another f*ckin tooth out." I'm going to react in a different way. Why? Was it the word "f*ck"? Tooth? Car? None of those words mean much without context.

I told my boss "that sounds like a f*ckin" mess" on the phone earlier. He didn't have issue with it. If I'd said, "go f*ck yourself" he probably would have reacted differently. Why? what about those two sentences is different? The "strong and controversial word" was used in both of them. Why am I allowed to say one and not the other?

What you're calling a "double standard" is simply how the English language works. The SAE chant and this have almost nothing in common.

 

[yukonjack]

So in a nutshell this all boils do to the difference between "a" & "er"?

 

[RidgeHunter]

The context was speaking out loud on national TV, as a representative of the University of Oklahoma. If the OU President has no comment on the matter, then it's a tacit admission that OU condones a double standard regarding offensive language.

OU didn't cite offensive language as the reason the took action against SAE and SAE members.

 

[TedKennedy]

Bob Dylan, Frank Zappa, The Offspring, Dead Kennedys, Sex Pistols, Marilyn Manson, John Lennon, Nick Cave, Patti Smith, Axl Rose...they all got to use it just like those "privileged black rappers"

Yeah, but none covered it with class like David Allan Coe.

It's still a freakin' word. A WORD.
No one was denied entrance to the lunchroom, no one got squirted with a fire hose. Have we devolved into such a bunch of thin-skinned pansies that A WORD causes us to sue, run, or cry?

 

[RidgeHunter]

Yeah, but none covered it with class like David Allan Coe.

It's still a freakin' word. A WORD.
No one was denied entrance to the lunchroom, no one got squirted with a fire hose. Have we devolved into such a bunch of thin-skinned pansies that A WORD causes us to sue, run, or cry?

I already said I've heard white singers cover If That Ain't Country with no fallout. Many times.

I agree it's just a word. The "reverse racism" crowd ironically gives it as much power and the PC pansies they are so against.

 

[TedKennedy]

If that Ain't Country is not the song I was referring to, but it's a good one.

 

[Glocktogo]

Well since most of us aren't professional comedians or rock stars, nor do we represent major university athletic programs, it should be even easier for us to use that word and "get away with it".

I'm taking issue with this alleged "double standard" of yours. It doesn't exist. The basketball controversy here was the word used in a benign way. Black people use the word all the time in a benign way. I illustrated white people using it under similar circumstances. The SAE chant was quite different and you know that.

We use context to help us form opinions and judge situations and words all the time. Why not over this particular word? Because white guys are butthurt black guys are "getting away" with something? What exactly are they getting away with that a white man cannot?

"F*ck" is a strong word in our society. If I'm at quicktrip and hear a guy in the parking lot say "Dude, they were out of f*ckin' cheetos." it won't even register with me. If I hear "Get the f*ck back in the car or I'll knock another f*ckin tooth out." I'm going to react in a different way. Why? Was it the word "f*ck"? Tooth? Car? None of those words mean much without context.

I told my boss "that sounds like a f*ckin" mess" on the phone earlier. He didn't have issue with it. If I'd said, "go f*ck yourself" he probably would have reacted differently. Why? what about those two sentences is different? The "strong and controversial word" was used in both of them. Why am I allowed to say one and not the other?

What you're calling a "double standard" is simply how the English language works. The SAE chant and this have almost nothing in common.

You're putting far too much importance on context. What is equally relevant is how the work makes people feel. f*ck is one of the most versatile words in the english language, n***er, isn't.

You're dismissing the fact that forbidding the use of the word by one group while condoning it for another builds resentment. Offense is in the eye of the beholder. We both know that I'm playing Devil's Advocate here, because the word itself simply doesn't offend me. That stupid SAE chant wasn't about oppression, because it wasn't made to anyone that might be oppressed by it. It got leaked by some sensitive soul who WAS offended by it, regardless of the fact it wasn't directed at them. They assumed the mantle of offense for others who weren't privy to it.

That any white person would be offended by blacks, freely using a word they'd be pilloried for using in public may indicate they're overly sensitive, but we're being overrun by sensitive types these days. Are you arguing that it's OK to offend some people but not others? because it sounds like you are. That is by it's very definition, a double standard. Double standards will always foster hate and resentment.

If you think it's OK to offend some people but not others, then you're tacitly supporting hate and resentment. You can have your own opinions, but not your own facts. FWIW, I'm as unbiased as they come. I hate and offend everyone equally.

 

[RidgeHunter]

If that Ain't Country is not the song I was referring to, but it's a good one.

Ah, yeah, never heard that one covered. Funny, though. Misunderstood a lot.

Here's one of his best anti-hate tunes.

 

[Glocktogo]

OU didn't cite offensive language as the reason the took action against SAE and SAE members.

What was the reason cited? Racism? What form did the racism take? Words...