Dog Whistles and Insults
White Americans, and many people outside of the United States,
know that they can't use the word 'nigger' where black people can hear
them. It has only just recently occurred to me that some white people
think that 'nigger' is some kind of black person dog whistle, where being
of African descent makes that syllable combination physically painful,
triggering rabid snarling and the urge to violently silence the source of
the painful sounds.
If you think that, you are wrong. As is made clear by the fact that
some black people do say 'nigger' to one another as a form of
acknowledgement or greeting, or they use it in conversation between
themselves to disparage some third black person without causing a fight,
the collection of sounds is not the problem.
What a word like nigger (and all of the similar racial insults for
people of color or non-Christians: kike, gook, slant-eye, redskin, spic,
towelhead, etc.) means is that the speaker considers that, by virtue of
ancestry or affiliation, the insulted party is unworthy of respect,
subhuman, and bestial. It says, "You are not of my kind, you are not of my
species, you are no more worthy of my consideration than a cow or a
chair."
What some people have failed to consider is that, because it is the
connotation, the subtext, the implication of 'nigger' that is the problem,
other words can be just as infuriating and insulting in the same way, even
if they do not denote anything like 'nigger', which denotes "insult for a
person of African descent." Because connotation is tricky, and may not be
included in a dictionary definition, it is even quite possible for someone
to use a word or phrase with a racist connotation and be unaware of it.
If you do use a word or phrase with a racist connotation you were
unaware of, and someone who knows that connotation points it out to you,
the person educating you is likely to be huffy, snide, or otherwise
perceivably annoyed. Do you know why? Because you've insulted them
before the conversation even started. You have, by using the word
with the racist connotation, called them a 'nigger.' This person is mad at
you, because you've said something maddening.
Here's the thing. Many people of color realize that you probably didn't
intend to offend them. For one thing, American white people hate to be
called racist and lose their shit when it happens. So, generally speaking,
to get out of this awkward social situation, all you have to do is a) say,
'I did not realize that was racist' and b) stop using that word. If you
can't bring yourself to say racist in relation to your own actions, you
can say something like: offensive, a problem, would hurt anyone's
feelings, would make you feel that way. The point you are trying to get
across is that You Did Not Know That.
Sometimes people have a problem when it comes to stopping using
offensive language. They think that once they explain that they didn't
mean to use the word 'that way' the offended party should change their
feelings instead of trying to get the white person to change their
behavior. I would like to explain to you how this conversation goes down
in the mind of a person of color when a white person refuses to change
offensive language, after the offense has been explained to them.
PoC: You are calling me nigger. Stop it.
White Person: No. It is more important to me to do X than to acknowledge
that you are a human being. Have a nice day and fuck you very much.
If there's some outside reason it is absolutely required that a white
person continues to use the racist language, if they are, for example,
translating a text which is racist, they need to take steps to ameliorate
the offense. At a minimum, this includes clearly identifying the term they
are using as an offensive term which should not ordinarily be used, so
that someone coming along surfing on the internet doesn't see the term and
incorporate it into their vocabulary without realising its offensive
nature.
This is how the transition from someone who is accidentally offensive,
because the culture in which we live is racist and they are unaware, to
someone who is deliberately offensive occurs. People of color know that
you may say things out of ignorance that hurt us without intending to hurt
us. However, after we've told you that it hurts, and you continue to do
that thing, the understanding we have of your actions is that you intend
to hurt us. In the same way that, if you were standing in a crowd, and
someone stepped on your foot, and you said, "Hey, you are stepping on my
foot!", you would find, "I have to stand on this particular spot in order
to see the Queen," evidence that the other purpose felt no consideration
for you as an ordinary human being.
This post was prompted by something specific. daily_deviant
is a Harry Potter kinkfic community. The mods post themes each month from
an encyclopedia of sexual terms. One of the terms used this month was miscegenation
which they defined as Sex or marriage between two people (or magical
creatures) of different races. Stories written in response to this
theme included human/human, human/magical sapient (i.e. werewolf,
house-elf), and human/goat. What follows are the e-mails we exchanged on
the term.
Subject: Miscegenation
From: "zvi"
Date: Sat, July 28, 2007 2:05 pm
To: Daily Deviant Mods
You have picked an offensive word for use as this month's daily deviant
theme. Miscegenation has the connotation of polluting or corrupting a
white person by having sex with or marriage to a person of color. The
Wizarding equivalent of the term miscegenation would be something like
"blood treachery." Your use of this word infuriates me.
There is a common word used in the porn industry for pornography involving
people of different races: interracial. That word and the kink as applied
to human/human interaction, while not without problems, are much less
historically loaded with racist hatred and fearmongering.
Please change the term in your list of kinks, your tags, and as the
warnings on the relevant stories.
--
zvi likes television
website - http://www.slashx-files.com/
journal - http://witchqueen.livejournal.com/
Subject: Re: Miscegenation
From: [Name redacted at the daily deviant mods' request]
Date: Sat, July 28, 2007 4:11 pm
To: "zvi"
Dear Zvi,
Thank you for your kind message. We receive messages every month from
readers who
are upset about our choice of themes, in fact. It is their right, as it is
yours,
not to read our stories or view our art.
In case you have assumed we deliberately chose this word in order to be
offensive,
let me explain a bit about how we choose our monthly themes. In fact, we
choose
them at random from a large "encyclopedia" of sex-themed words and
phrases, both
historical and contemporary. We choose numbers in advance at random, then
go to the
corresponding page numbers in the encyclopedia. Whatever is on that page
becomes one
of our themes for the month.
The community administrators decided very early on that they would
never censor what
came up on the page, and we never have. This has caused much grief over
several
themes in the past, and it continues to do so this month. Still, we will
not censor
or alter the phrases as they come up. Every term in that encyclopedia is
offensive
to someone, after all.
Our writers and artists are free to interpret the themes as they see
fit, and that
could include, if they wished, a critical analysis of the term and why a
character
in their work may find it offensive. Some have indeed done this. We
welcome critical
engagement with the themes, in the form of the stories and art produced.
Again, thank you for voicing your concerns.
Peace,
[Name redacted at the daily deviant mods' request]
DD co-mod
I did not assume that you chose the word miscegenation in order to offend.
I assume that when fans are racially offensive, they are acting out of
either ignorance or lack of thought.
I do not, however, feel that your reply is responsive to nor
satisfactory
of my concerns. If you feel for [sic] your policy of random chance is more
important than not offending people, even if offense is not your overt
intent, there are several things you could have done to ameliorate the
foreseeable offense.
1) You could have picked a book which didn't include racially offensive
terms. You can't displace your responsibility for posting the terms onto
the book or the book's author. You chose to continue using that book after
you found that it included terms which were going to be problematic, you
chose to adopt a policy of not re-choosing or altering terms when the ones
that were chosen at random were problematic, and you chose to follow that
policy and use the racist term miscegenation.
2) Your strict policy of random chance selection and refusal to alter
terms is not made clear on your userinfo or any of the entries linked to
from the userinfo explaining the function of the community.
3) You have posted the term miscegenation completely without context or
any indication to your membership that the term is racist and using it
outside of the community might lead people to believe that they are racist
for using it.
4) You defined the term in such a way as to increase the offense of its
use, conflating interracial relations between humans with bestiality.
I approached you privately at first because I assumed you used it out of
ignorance. To be very clear, the use of the term connotes, implies, and
subtextually states that people of color are subhumans, are beasts, are
niggers, kikes, spics, gooks, and redskin scalpers. Since you are not
willing to change your use, I am going to speak publicly about why I think
the use of the term is wrong. Because I plan to submit this livejournal
post, when I make it, to Hogwarts Today, The Quibbler, and Metafandom, I
am cc'ing the writers and artists whose work is tagged miscegenation so
they can prepare for a negative response. I don't plan to post on the
subject before Monday, so they all have a chance to receive this e-mail.
When I make this post, I am going to include both of my e-mails to you. Do
you want me to include your response below? If you don't, I will simply
say that you refused to do anything in response to my e-mail. If you make
a public statement and I become aware of it, I will link to it.
Look, it's not my intent to make you daily_deviant mods into bad guys. But
I'm not going to let you implicitly say nigger out loud and in public,
without making it clear, out loud and in public, that I think anyone using
the term 'miscegenation' is implicitly calling people of color niggers,
and that they are wrong to do so.
--
zvi likes television
website - http://www.slashx-files.com/
journal - http://witchqueen.livejournal.com/
They replied to me
saying that I should quote their e-mail above in full, and that that
e-mail, although it was sent from an individual mod's e-mail account,
represented the statement of all of the DD mods, and I should not single
her out when I posted. I was not sure if they also gave me permission to
quote this e-mail. I have asked them, and if they say yes, I will include
it.
Subject: Re: Re:
Miscegenation
From: "zvi"
Date: Sun, July 29, 2007 5:28 pm
To: "Daily Deviant Mods"
You misread my statement. I would not have said that you didn't answer my
e-mail, but that you refused to take any action in response to my e-mail.
If you proposed any action in your first response, I did not understand
you and would be pleased to hear of a clarification.
Further, I am not seeking wank. I am seeking to make fandom a place where
I, other fans of color, and anti-racist white fans are not implicitly
unwelcome. I particularly don't want it be a place where we are offended
by those who don't intend to offend us. The use of the term miscegenation
is offensive, whether or not that is your intent.
You, as the DD mods, have decided that it is more important to follow your
self-imposed theme selection rules than to make a fandom a place where
fans of color are welcome. I don't believe that everyone who is a part of
fandom feels that way, but I do think they may not know that miscegenation
is an unacceptable term in polite company. I am publicizing this because
your use of the term miscegenation, as something neutral and unmarked, has
been disseminated widely, as the HP newsletters have picked up the stories
written in response to your theme and readers have seen those stories
labeled as such.
Last but not least, I want to make it clear that I never tried to stop you
from having a theme which was "Sex or marriage between two people (or
magical creatures) of different races." I didn't give negative feedback to
any author who wrote on that theme or attempt to make them stop writing
any such stories. I just wanted you to substitute the common pornographic
term 'interracial', which more precisely accords with the definition you
gave, instead of the racist term 'miscegenation', which carries additional
meaning you neither explicitly stated nor disavowed.
Thank you for your permission to post your first reply. I am uncertain
whether you intended that I should also have permission to post your
second reply. I know that you have closed your correspondence, but I would
like clarification on that point. If you could respond, "yes, you may post
our second e-mail" or "no, you may not post our second e-mail" I would
appreciate it. If you do not respond, I shall assume I do not have
permission.
Response by the daily_deviant mods to my public post. To be clear, this statement is not the second e-mail they sent me.
Also, if you read the full text of the wikipedia entry and answers.com pages they link to, both clearly spell out the racist history of the term. The wikipedia entry flat out states the racist connotation. The answers.com link merely implies it, by noting that Southern states were repealing their anti-miscegenation constitutional clauses up until the tail end of the twentieth-century. miscegenation.com is not an interracial dating site, it's a link farm.
Before you berate the DD mods for speaking for their members without giving their members to discuss, freckles_42 testifies that The daily deviant comm has had several locked discussion posts on this topic. F42 is a member of the comm, although not a mod.
Last but not least, it has been pointed out to me that using an icon with the term honky on it while requesting racially sensitive language gives at least the appearance of hypocrisy. Frankly, I'm going to say right out that it is more important to me to use my icon than it is to make all white people reading this entry feel welcome in it.
First of all, the discussion from which the icon comes is Some advice to white people in fandom, in which context makes clear that what I am saying is that it's okay to be ignorant of how to act without racism or to combat racism, but it's not okay to be deliberately racist.
Second, when I speak publicly on race issues on fandom, I try to speak dryly and dispassionately, because I want white people to listen to me when I talk about race. This doesn't work for every white person, but it works for many more white people than when I talk emotionally. However, the things that drive me to speak about race in fandom usually leave me so furious I am literally shaking. I need to express that anger, even if only obliquely, and the term honky does it. When I am using the term honky, I am deliberately insulting some white people.
Finally, the icon's text itself makes clear that I am not insulting every white person. I am insulting the insensitive ones. It is not their whiteness which makes them useless to me, it is their action.
For some white people, my use of the term honky means that they are not able to hear me when I talk about race. I'm sorry about that, but I need to say it more than I need them to listen to me talk. However, please consider reading annavtree's eloquent post or, perhaps instead, ciderpress. Anna is white. I do not know ciderpress's ethnicity.
That's kind of really amusing. The daily_deviant post which is a reply to this post does not link to this post. I mean, that's classic.
To clarify: I did not mean to imply that people who take offense at my icon are wrong to take offense or that their offense is illegitimate. People are perfectly within their rights to be mad, and I encourage them to tell me and the rest of fandom that they are mad and exactly why; the solution to speech with which one disagrees is more speech. I wanted to explain why I was continuing to use it, knowing that by doing so I am offending some people, not to tell those people they couldn't be mad at me. I am sorry about that.