Media Matters Misses the Point on Racism and Black Culture

[liveonearth]

http://mediamatters.org/action/drlaura/
(you can listen to what she said here, it's 7 minutes long)

Media Matters wants to chastise Dr Laura Schleissinger who spoke about racism on the radio, calling her comments racist and "breathtaking". She is a bit feisty and sometimes

Comments

[bodylove]

I think the point you may be missing is that it's not about how comfortable You feel w/ the word.

"Some blacks become unable to see that not every remark that mentions blacks or contains the word nigger is inherently racist."

....I think that was an inherently racist statement...why didn't you write "some people"....of course I don't know your history, but it seems like you haven't experienced much prejudice

Call me hypersensitive, but if someone used the term "kike" I would be offended b/c it's a derogatory term and would be putting me down.

[liveonearth]

Words only have the power that we give them. Nigger or kike or any other derogatory term can only hurt if you permit it to. And talking ABOUT such a term is not the same as directly applying it to someone. YOU brought up the term "kike" and I don't even know what it means----but now if I say it you will be offended? Isn't that a waste of time?

[bodylove]

kike is a derogatory term for a jewish person. similar to the "n word." yes of course there is most definitely a difference in talking about a term vs applying it directly to someone, but in the context dr laura was replying to, she wasn't simply talking about the term...the caller jade had said her husband's friends were using the term and it upset her, and dr laura went on her rant about how using the term should be acceptable. the point is that it's a racial slur and offensive to many people.

saying racial slurs only have the power that we give them is like saying a gunshot wound only has the power we give it ..... a wound is a wound and hurt is hurt.....you can take all the power away from the gun and the bullet but you're probably still gonna feel a sting when you get shot. people can heal and not let the wound bring them down, but it's still gonna hurt

[liveonearth]

As long as you give others the power to hurt you with words you are going to be suffering. A word is not the same as a bullet. Of course words have immense power. They have substantially more when people allow their conditioned responses to govern their reactions to them.

[machmed]

Dr. Laura might be right on this topic, but she's still an enormous tool. Furthermore, I don't know what she specifically said against lesbians, but I do know that she is generally extremely anti-gay.

[liveonearth]

She's definitely bitchy, I got that point. Oh, am I an anti-feminist because I think she's bitchy? These subjects make everybody ultra sensitive.

[machmed]

Well, this subject doesn't make me ultra sensitive. I don't care about empty words like "nigger." What I do care about is people like Dr. Laura who go out of their way to encourage legislation that negatively affects gay people and same-sex couples. She has, for example, explicitly expressed support for legal bans on same-sex marriage and adoption. Offensive words don't matter much to me; offensive actions most certainly do. And Dr. Laura is undoubtedly a bitch. I would even venture to say she's an outright cunt.

[machmed]

Dr Laura is undoubtedly bitchy*, I mean.

[bodylove]

I feel so strongly on this issue I woke up thinking about it. I think it's b/c I sensed a "blame the victim" mentality that perpetuates racism. Here's an old article that may be of interest to you:

http://www.discourses.org/OldArticles/Discourse%20and%20the%20denial%20of%20racism.pdf

[liveonearth]

Everybody is a victim when there are disputes like this. I am the victim of your pinning mentalities on me, when to me people are people are people. We have all manner of visible and invisible differences, and if we know that we are all different and all worthy, the whole fight evaporates.

Good quote. I am mostly in agreement except that I don't think it has to be about blaming the victim. It's about getting to where we can talk frankly with each other and do some self-soothing. When someone hits one of our buttons, instead of taking it out on them, we work on our buttons.

note to self: bigot = forming opinions without just cause, prejudiced, intolerant, attached

[liveonearth]

Today's subject line on the email from Media Matters is: Dr. Laura quits: Bigotry has consequences.

They are calling her a bigot.

Bigot =

a prejudiced person who is intolerant of any opinions differing from his own
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

A bigot is a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bigot

bigotry - the intolerance and prejudice of a bigot
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

bigoted - blindly and obstinately attached to some creed or opinion and intolerant toward others; "a bigoted person"; "an outrageously bigoted point of view"
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

bigoted - Being a bigot; biased; strongly prejudiced; forming opinions without just cause

[liveonearth]

Fox is not a news network -- they are simply part of the Republican machine.
--Ari Rabin-Havt