Speaking of subtext...and racism...

[kouredios]

Brought to my attention via Alas, a blog:

"Over at the Weekly Standard, Dean Barnett tries to downplay Obama’s speeches:

In spite of Obama’s obvious strengths in this area, questions linger regarding Obama’s gifted speechifying. Do his speeches give us a glimpse at a very special man with a unique vision? Or are we merely witnessing a

Comments

[cybersattva]

I'd love to have a fuller discussion about this in person with you someday. We had a very similar discussion at work not too long ago, though the topic at work was sexual harassment, not racism. Even so, the main point was very similar--even words that are not intended to be sexual harassment can be perceived as harassment by the recipient (or even third parties not directly involved in the conversation). I personally find it challenging to decide who I should "blame" when someone is offended in the case of words spoken without malicious intent. I think, as with most things, it's not a black and white issue, but shades of gray, where in certain cases I would side with the speaker--that the listener was being unfairly sensitive, but in other cases I would side with the person feeling harassed--that the speaker was being unfairly insensitive. And of course we all draw the line in a different place based on our own sensitivities.

I'd also like to point out that I always felt the term in question "like a dog on hind legs" was extremely derogatory. However, I can easily apply the source of that contempt to political party in this case rather than race. *shrug*

[kouredios]

You got it. What has it been, 5 years? Amy and Chris' wedding, I think.

I think we're both trying to get to a gray area, I just feel like in order to get there we need to weigh intent a little less. :)