On racism... *rolls up sleeves*

[celandineb]

Now. You all should know by now that I really, really dislike wankery; I find it a waste of time and energy, and something that promotes ill-will without resolving anything. I dislike even more, however, being told that I am a racist.

Comments

[penknife]

Dictionary definitions don't convey how a word has been used or the negative associations people have with it. I can tell you that certainly in the part of the United States where I grew up, a lot of people have very strong negative associations with this term. I would not use it in conversation to describe an interracial relationship, because as it's often used in context, it doesn't just mean neutrally "interracial sex or marriage."

That doesn't make everyone who's used it a racist. That doesn't make the members of the community a racist. I am not saying you are a racist. But it's a term that a lot of people are finding hurtful because of their associations with it, and I don't see a strong enough reason for people to continue using it in this context (as opposed to, say, in the context of dialogue in historical fiction, where it serves the purpose of characterization, historical accuracy, and describing historical context.)

And to me the amount of censorship involved in changing the wording of a mod prompt is minimal. It's not as if the members chose that wording on their own to make a specific point -- they were tagging with a prompt set by the mods. If I were the mods, I'd change the wording to avoid hurting people's feelings, because I don't think there's any good reason not to. That's really all I can say.

[celandineb]

Many, many things may be hurtful, whether intentionally or not. And censorship is censorship and the beginning of a slippery slope. I can't support censorship on those grounds.

Moreover I point to what Florahart linked to above (near the bottom of the post here, which strongly suggests that in fact it's not the word "miscegenation" that Zvi is opposing so much as the possibility that people might get turned on by a situation where two persons with different skin colors are having sex. Whether you call it "miscegenation" or "interracial sex" it's the same activity that's being described, and she seems to object to (and thus wants to censor) the activity.