Re: U.S. Presidential Election 2008
 

Ahahah! Thank f00k for that. Cos I really did wonder if it was just me not really understanding what the f00k you were on about :p

Re: U.S. Presidential Election 2008
 

I am sorry if I offend here, but now you are being silly. NO WAY is calling a woman (or anyone else) a sweetie anywhere near in the same league as calling someone a n.... (can't even bring my self to type that word) a spic or a fag. Period.

Re: U.S. Presidential Election 2008
 

There's obviously some sort of general consensus on severity of offence, though, isn't there Cacophony? If Obama had said "bitch" instead of "sweetie" I'm sure we'd all agree that that would have been worse.

I've known people who have been offended by the word "madam". As you say, we don't get to determine what someone else finds offensive.

Incidentally, I don't remember the last time anyone called me fag and just said it out of habit, and meant no disrespect. Can you imagine Obama being confronted by a gay reporter and saying "Just a second, fag!" :D

Is that your point - that you think the consensus is wrong or unfair?

Re: U.S. Presidential Election 2008
 

Well those are inherently derogatory labels. The sole intent behind those words are to insult someone - unless you're a rapper. "Sweetie" is, at it's foundation, a term of endearment. My wife and I call each other sweetie on occasion. So these comparisons aren't appropriate.

That's absolutely true, but I would also add that if you know your reaction to a word like this is particularly strong based on your own personal pet peeves, then shouldn't you also acknowledge that the person who says it doesn't necessarily deserve the full brunt of your frustrations? I'm having trouble articulating what I'm thinking here, so here's a simplistic analogy to clarify. Say the color green just pisses me off. I hate green with all my soul. If I see someone wearing green, I'm not exactly justified in running up to them and cussing them out over it, because my problem with green is just that - it's MY problem with green. They didn't know I hated green with a passion, and I shouldn't expect them to know it. And I also shouldn't conclude that they're an asshole because they wore the color I hate.

I know the analogy's imperfect but am I getting the point across okay? Again, I can see where it's the wrong choice of words on Obama's part, so I'm not saying this is only your problem and he can say whatever he wants. But it's clearly not an indication of his overall attitude towards women as far as I've seen.

Re: U.S. Presidential Election 2008
 

i'm saying consensus doesn't have anything to do with it. for example, the consensus would be that cunt would be much more offensive. but if someone called me that i'd be far less offended than if someone spoke down to me by calling me "sweetie" especially in a professional environment.

i had a friend who is scottish and italian and she used to call herself "scotty mcwop" as a nickname. there are a lot of people who find the elements of that name derogatory. the consensus might agree. but it's subjective. and it's personal.

okay so you guys don't like my examples so let's go for something a little more parallel. what if a white candidate was asked a question by a black male journalist, and the candidate replied, "hold on, boy." it's not the wicked "n" word (which, for many, holds no more power than any other word anymore) but it's a diminishing way to address someone of that particular profile.

if "sweetie" had responded by calling obama "boy" who would have committed the worse offense? i would say their offenses would be equivalent. it's a diminishing way to address someone. it makes the addressee small, and it's offensive in all ways.

would we be having the same discussion if a black member of this forum was offended that the word "boy" was used to address a black man? somehow i don't think so.

Re: U.S. Presidential Election 2008
 

you just summed it up. YOUR WIFE. not a coworker, a contemporary, a professional in a professional relationship.

let me ask you this, is something only derogatory if it's intended as derogatory? if someone says something derogatory but they say something that reduces your humanity, is it not derogatory? is the offensiveness purely dictated by intent?

let's go back to the example in my previous post. have a look at this photo from 1939. look at the ages of the guys in the photo. now read the caption, which is the original from 1939. is referring to those young men as "boys" derogatory? the photographer seemed to use the word as a reflexive colloquialism. so is it derogatory? i was actually just having a conversation with a coworker the other day about his personal experience with the word "boy" and he would say yes. would you argue with him that he would have no right to be offended because the photographer certainly didn't intend it that way?

i want to point out that the only reason this story even appeared in print, that it came to my attention, is because enough people it saw as bothersome enough that it bubbled up to the surface of all of the election static.

so it's not that *I* have a personal problem. it's that enough of us have a personal problem that the word had a big enough impact to create a stir. i may be the only one on this forum "who hates green" but that doesn't make me the one bitter woman in the whole world.

i'm trying to think of how i can explain how sweetie is offensive but cunt and bitch are not. the thing is, sweetie is worse BECAUSE it's not intended to insult. meaning the user lives with the belief that it's okay, it's flattering, it's endearing. like the photographer casually captioning his photo with "boys", the fact that it's such a reflexive unconscious use makes it much worse because it means the diminishing term is more ingrained, less questioned, more colloquially accepted. at least with the profane terms the intention is to hurt and insult. you can fight harmful intent. what you can't fight is an ingrained assumption that it's okay to address certain people in our society as though they were children.

Re: U.S. Presidential Election 2008
 

I get what you're saying about it being more more insidious than those other more overtly offensive words. I get that it can be intended as patronising (and therefore demeaning) and, even when not intended as such, some people will still deem it so, as you and others appear to. In that sense, I completely accept (as does Obama himself) that it's not something he should have said, given that risk.

What I think pricked people's ears up here though was your statement that "it speaks volumes about a man". I think it doesn't take into account the often indirect nature of the way casual language is adopted, and instead tries to attribute some sort of deep misogyny onto any man who has adopted that habit from whatever culture he happens to have learned it from. That's my problem with your position.

My parents used to talk about 'coloured people' because it's how their time and place thought it appropriate to describe non-white people. They didn't realise the underlying demeaning nature of the phrase (seeing the world as white vs non-white, non-coloured vs coloured) but since explaining this to them, they've tried to get out of the habit. But you know what? They still do it occasionally, and a look of embarassment falls over them when they realise what they've said. Are my parents racist? Short answer: no. (Longer answer: no more or less than most people). Do I think their occasional slip into a bad habit "speaks volumes about them"? No I do not.

Re: U.S. Presidential Election 2008
 

i don't consider a descriptive like "colored" to be a similar thing, though. that's like saying "indians" instead of "native americans" (incidentally I have an uncle who is chippewa and he rolls his eyes when white people say "native american." he says, "call me an indian, i don't care." again, consensus doesn't determine offensiveness)

the reason i think it speaks volumes is that it speaks of a subconscious view. maybe not an important part of someone's personality, maybe not a large part of their makeup, maybe nothing so insidious as outright bigotry. but it is a view of a very small distortion in someone's perception. would he have used, "sweetie" if the journalist were a man? highly doubtful. therefore there was, at least on some subconscious reflexive level, an evaluation of the speaker's gender and rather than addressing the speaker neutrally his brain reflexively picked up a word reserved for addressing women.

did i explain that clearly? he didn't just reach into his brain and pull out a universal word. in a lightning-fast reflex moment he looked at PERSON and saw WOMAN and pulled a pet name out of his brain. there is a level of evaluation and selection there that speaks to a person's view of the world. now, does it mean "obama hates chicks, man"? absolutely not. does it mean that maybe he tends to see women in a man/woman dynamic and his brain reaches for the expression of affection in those circumstances? probably. does it mean that maybe he's inclined to associate women with a susceptibility to flattery? perhaps. a lot of people wouldn't think that's a bad thing. but enough of us do. it can be very insulting to be treated as though you can just be flattered when you really want answers. like you'll just flush and giggle and go on your merry way, appeased.

if a man had addressed him and he needed to say, "just a minute," does it seem likely that he would have used a pet name? it's possible. i'm willing to grant that with a man he would have said, "just a minute, chief." if someone wants to find some evidence that he's a nickname kind of guy and he applies them liberally across all people, i'd be happy to accept that he's a reflexive nicknamer. but from what i can see that doesn't seem to be the case.

the point is the use of the word does speak volumes about him. it speaks to that reflex, the evaluation and selection of language when stimulated by a human being of a particular description. the tricky thing is, the "volumes" it "speaks" isn't spoken in a universal language, or a language that any of us from our remote viewpoint can really truly understand. none of us have been to a backyard barbeque with him and observed that he calls all men "chief" and all women "sweetie." we know what we can see of him through editorial media. and we have to make our judgments on that.

so to me, based on that view through the window of editorial media, it says a lot. it doesn't have to say a lot to everyone else.

Re: U.S. Presidential Election 2008
 

Taking what you're saying about reflexive comments, and how they, without our even wishing, can reveal volumes of sometimes offensive assumptions, attitudes and behaviors, I'd like to suggest a different outlook on this. Maybe something no more or less justifiable, but definitely more pragmatic.

1. Low hanging fruit

Take Michael Richards (Kramer) for an example. Does his racial blow up indicate volumes of subterranean hate beneath the surface of his clownish, silly exterior? I really have my doubts on this. I mean nobody likes to be heckled, and everyone gets stressed at their job, only a handful of people (let us assume) carry racial rants lurking down in their darkened souls. So just out of probability he just lost is temper, wanted to go for these guys, had nothing else to go on but appearances, the most striking of which was their skin color, and then boom pow, he's the kkk grand wizard. Doesn't make it right. But it does put it in context to the situation.
Its this low hanging fruit talked about in In Human Bondage. The character with the limp foot that's really a symbol of his homosexuality. He makes the observation that whenever people don't like him, its the foot that always comes up first.

In either situation it wasn't the skin color or the foot that is the cause of people's ires. but they use those immediate apparent aspects of someone when they are angry, and therefore not as thoughtful or intelligent, and want to go for someone.

Is this subconscious? Are these tips of ugly iceburgs? I guess the point is there's too much speculation to make a fair assessement of someone's inner dialog.

2. Smoke without Fire

My wife is in the magazine/fiction world. As both an editor and a writer she's seen the sexism played out on both ends. She's commented several times about how men with little talent but a lot of arrogance/confidence manage to slide through the filters and onto bookshelves and magazine racks, meanwhile women writers second guess themselves, become defferential to dominant male editors whose opinions the women allow to hold sway over their career and how they define their own work. And now a new trend of women having better success by sending in glamour shots with their transcripts to the agents.

And isn't situations like this the fucking problem, more immediate, less dependent to speculation, more objectively verifiably wrong, than a politician who gets three hours of sleep a night calling someone "sweetie?"

And wouldn't you have to admit the more offense, the more emotional, intellectual expense you pay out to these more speculative situations of reflexive language you are making it more likely that these more real situations keep going on unchecked? And so forget about Obama, send him up the river if you want, there's still the problem of how this strategy of branding people for these Don Imus like moments may do more harm to your cause than benefit.

Re: U.S. Presidential Election 2008
 

Some good points in the above posts. No time to do them justice right now, but just to say, I see yet another person (this time, arch manipulator Karl Rove) has used that word, effete, to describe Obama.

Effete. I keep hearing that. Is it a coincidence that my thesaurus lists one of the sets of derivatives as being effeminiate, unmanly, girlish, feminine, soft, timid, lily-livered, wimpish?

The whole skinny, intellectual, mild-mannered aspect of Obama is what I find so utterly at odds with mainstream American political culture - the tough macho posturing that seems to dominate it (and beyond). Rove is no idiot, he knows the word works as an insult, he knows the feminine=weak link just as he knows the Muslim=enemy link.

I find these kinds of attacks, constantly flowing from various sources against Obama, far more offensive than his reflexive use of the word sweetie. I simply can't begin to imagine him using such tactics himself.