[Sean]

Originally Posted by cacophony

i realized today that i never got back to you. i'm not dredging this up now to reopen old wounds, rather to address the issues you wanted addressed.

No wounds here to worry about. I like discussing this stuff.

Originally Posted by cacophony

i won't disagree that the degree of offensiveness lies on both sides of the issue, both intent and perception. i think in any discussion about potentially offensive language you have to take both sides into consideration. in this case the comment was notable enough to enough people to have been raised as an issue in the first place. how many words did obama utter in that one appearance that day? how many made national news? that speaks to an established precedence for the potential volatility of the word. if we can accept that, then we have to accept that his intent isn't purely the issue here.

Absolutely agreed. As I said, I believe that both intent and perception were at issue here.

Originally Posted by cacophony

i see your point, although i will say there's a massive difference between the hystrionic feminism of a college aged girl just coming to terms with her "womyn" power and the more general segment of the american populace that reacted to obama's comment. undoubtedly in college i spewed similar hysteria about the plight of women in the western world, just as i undoubtedly spewed some fairly offensive anti-christianity arguments during my most vocal pro-atheist phase. it's both blessing and curse that college opens us up to new ideas at an age when we're most vulnerable to charismatic thinking.

It was an intentionally extreme example that I used for two reasons. One, since it happened to me, the incident influenced my thinking on this subject as I matured and remained vivid in my memory, and two, it's extreme nature makes the point of perception versus intent ultra-clearly.

Originally Posted by cacophony

so while i appreciate your example and i understand the point you're trying to illustrate, i have to take it with a grain of salt. which is not meant to diminish her feelings on the subject. i'm just saying it would be as though we were discussing legislation about animal cruelty and you used an example about a PETA activist to prove the counterpoint. when you have an issue that's supported by a fairly general slice of the population, you can't entirely depend on extremist parallels to create a counterpoint.

I agree, but I would like to point out that I didn't "entirely depend on extremist parallels to create a counterpoint". I only used a personal story as a single example to clearly illustrate my point that simply because someone takes offense at a comment doesn't inherently mean the comment was offensive.

Originally Posted by cacophony

and i guess my point is that all we know of obama is what's edited in to nightly news reels. we know what he's allowed himself to express in public when people are watching.

There are other factors we can consider in reaching our conclusions as well, and that directly influence my thoughts on the subject. One big one would be Michelle Obama. It's clear that given her resume and her strikingly articulate public persona, she's a very strong and intelligent woman. Generally speaking, I think the odds are that a woman like her wouldn't be likely to settle down to raise a family with a raging misogynist. And please note that I said "wouldn't be likely" there....I'm not drawing any definitive conclusions here, I'm just playing the odds. Similarly, as far as I've seen, many men who are primarily raised by strong, independent-minded women as Obama's mother appears to have been, tend to come away from it with a better understanding and appreciation of women than most other men have. Again, not a certainty in Obama's case, but a strong likelihood. And even beyond that, the man has two young daughters. The vast majority of men I know who have daughters have been made more sensitive to the needs and feelings of women as a result. And frankly, the few I know who have run counter to this have ended up divorced, or at best in dysfunctional marriages.

So when I look at all of these things collectively, coupled with a public persona that gives no indication outside of the "sweetie" comment that there's any hint of misogyny, then I conclude that the chances of Obama being a sexist are extremely slim at worst.

Originally Posted by cacophony

we don't really know any politician's overall demeanor. i would go so far as to argue that the "hillary is a bitch" people don't know jack shit about what she's like outside of the public eye. she's got a family and friends and a longstanding career as evidence that what we see on the news isn't necessarily 100% of her personality. obama and every other politician live in the same dichotomy.

I would agree. By all accounts, Hillary is supposed to be a warm and appealing person according to those who know her personally.

Originally Posted by cacophony

the men in that photo are most certainly older than 15. the only way i can substantiate that claim is to say i spend a lot of time on shorpy and there's a comparable appearance among age groups in photographs of that era and those are young men, not boys. additionally, even if your age assessment were accurate i can assure you that photographer captions on images of white males in that age group are typically referred to at the very least as "young men." 15 year olds were not kids during that era, remember. by the age of 15 most young men had been working hard labor for years.

You're absolutely right about the context....that people around 15-17 or so would have been typically referred to as at least "young men" back in the year of that photo, but I still think they look like they're 15 at the oldest. I'm also typically pretty terrible at guessing ages though, so who knows?

Originally Posted by cacophony

and i would agree, as i think it was my original point, that the use of "boy" was not intended as derogatory. it was a generally accepted colloquial way to refer to black men during that time. but does that mean that the usage was not offensive? would you consider calling a black man "boy" now? i'm going to guess you're like anyone else and you wouldn't because you understand how strongly offensive it is.

Again, I'm bad at guessing ages. But if someone looks like a boy, then I'll call 'em a boy. I'm a huge opponent of political correctness for it's own sake, meaning that I won't typically lie on the off chance that someone may be unjustifiably offended, like in the example I gave of my feminist college friend.

Originally Posted by cacophony

the point to be resolved is whether obama's use of sweetie in that context was ultimately offensive. i would argue that is is, not because of his intent but because of the perception of the community that the word applies to. just like the photographer referring to those young men as "boys" during a time when the intent had nothing to do with maliciousness.

Since we're summing up our points here, I absolutely agree that his use of the word "sweetie" was offensive. What I disagree with is any assertion that it's a sign of a deeper misogyny on his part, because there's simply no evidence to support that point.

Originally Posted by cacophony

apologies from politicians are rarely anything to get excited about. they apologize when they're caught. they apologize when they're caught text messaging lewd sentiments to underage pages. they apologize when they cheat on their wives. they apologize when they out CIA agents. a politician's apology is one of the most worthless things on the planet.

but you're right in that the issue is a fairly small one unless and until he demonstrates a pattern of disrespect. unfortunately i don't blow off this one incident as just one incident. i see it as someone who had not yet set a pattern suddenly setting up the potential for a pattern. he took the first step. you can't create a pattern without that first step. he is more disappointing to me than someone who never made a slip in the first place.

I certainly didn't get "excited" about his apology, but I did find it appropriate and sufficient for the situation. He made a poor choice of words, and he apologized for it. We have every reason to believe this was an isolated instance, so there ya' have it. I'm not blowing it off as much as I am giving it only as much concern as I feel it deserves. A I said before, if a deeper pattern of sexist behavior emerges, then that's a different story. But I refuse to judge someone based on an isolated mistake.

Originally Posted by cacophony

do i ultimately think someone should weigh their support of him based on this one slip? of course not. but i find it irresponsible to simply brush it away. it's an element of a potential leader's personality. i want to see how he handles himself with regards to this issue going forward. hopefully it was just a one-off mistake. fantastic if that's the case. but i'm not going to forget it happened.

It shouldn't necessarily be forgotten, but it certainly shouldn't be dwelled upon in my opinion. I don't think we disagree on this by all that much ultimately, but my basic approach to people, and this has left me disappointed more than once, is that they're basically okay until they prove otherwise to me. Obama hasn't proved otherwise to me yet.