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I like how this thread is now 100% about a guy who said something clearly and undeniably racist and now is claiming it wasn't.

What a dumb, racist hill to die on.

OTOH permanent, irrevocably derailing by literally the second post has got to be some sort of Dakka OT record.

 Ketara wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

I disagree. The subsets of travellers responsbile are ungroomed and very hostile to any social group other than themselves.

If you have difficulty comprehending how the above is not racist (that is to say; insulting and discriminatory against an ethnicity based on little evidence), you need to take a good hard look in the mirror. As a rule of thumb, if you could take the word 'travellers' out from a statement about an ethnicity, and replace it with 'Jews' or 'Shona' or suchlike and watch the statement turn offensive? You're probably being racist.

Claiming that 'travellers are not a race' shows a poor grasp of what a 'race' actually is; since all 'races' are just ethnic social constructs.

There is a difference between "race", "ethnicity", and "nationality". And race has nothing to do with ethnicity, regardless of what social sciences riddled with post modernism like to claim.


And if race is a "social construct", then "racism" cannot actually exist, since racism is hatred, discrimination, dislike, or violence against a person, or group, based on the percieved characteristics of the victim's race.


And yes, there are biological differences between the races, mostly based on adaptation to environment of our primitive ancestors. However, the idea that such implies inferiority is utter nonsense. We're just different. No one race is superior to the other.

The problem is that the terms "racism" and "racist" get passed around like a ten dollar hooker in the ghetto. It gets bandied about by the left like cheap party favors in an attempt to attach race to some debates in order to shut them down, and enforce whatever sacred narrative en vogue at the time.

The term used by Orlanth would be correctly called an ethnic slur, not a racial slur. Certainly bigotry is bigotry in the minds of some, ethnic, racial or otherwise. But it's no excuse for the knee jerk reactions, baseless accusations of racism, and dog piling going on in this thread.


As for the subject of this thread, it's sad that we can't have nice things anymore. Even the destitute are not exempt from that sad, little fact of modern life.

Peace.

Orlanth wrote:Went to edit with 'travellers', which isn't quite accurate, but more likely to be acceptable. Noticed you had already edited, based on the unhealthy assumption that I used racist terms, which I had not. Please be careful with that, as you imply a moral state to the post being made, which is too assumptive.
Notable as you had no problem with the word 'chav'. Which makes the distinctions rather arbitrary.

Just a quick explanation here. Chavs are a social group, a voluntary culture, like our rednecks here in the States. People choose to be chavs, and can choose not to be.

To be clear, you originally used the word gypos. For those keeping score at home, this is a derogatory term for the Romansh people, stemming from the term "gypsies", which itself is a perversion of the work Egpytian (which they are not). That's an ethnic group, and there's no choosing to be part of it, or not be part of it.

There are some kinds of hate allowed on Dakka. You can, for example hate Tyranids (not because they hate us, but because they are incapable of good, honest human hatred). You can hate poor tactics, and try to help people out. What you can't hate are real life people, or groups of people.

Despite your backpedaling, your stance has been very clear, and you have completely derailed this thread due to it. I'm going to leave your comments in place, and lock the thread.

MDG, feel free to start this thread again, from scratch. This one is contaminated beyond recovery.

When your best defense is "it was an ethnic slur, not a racist one".... lol.

It’s jmportabt that you don’t get labeled the wrong kind of bigot though.