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 Argive wrote:

nfe wrote:

 Argive wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

nfe wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:

IMHO, but take that with extra salt. I’m a middle aged straight white male. Being non-Christian is the only thing that keeps me from checking all the privilege boxes.

If you are paying attention you will realise Christian is not a privilege category in the current age.

Depends on where you are. If you're in any historically majority Christian nation, it absolutely is. Even if you remove everything else, cultural touchstones, social convention, calendars, holidays etc are all built around Christian cultural motifs and observations. For a timely one, no one schedules meetings on Christmas day, but I had people organise large (compulsory) meetings on Yom Kippur and in the evening of the last day of Ramadan this year.

But would this situation have not been reversed if you worked in a country which majority observe Ramadan and not Christmas ?

Well, none of my Israeli, Turkish, or Iraqi colleagues have ever done it, and we have met regularly online for years, so I think so, but I do specifically preface my response with the bolded bit.

My point was if you change the "Christian" bit to any other religion/culture you would get the same result.. For example, if im in a country that is 99% catholic/christian all national holidays will revolve around that.
Just like if you were in a 99% Muslim country your holidays will revolve around that and not the 1%. I don't really see an issue. It is what it is and that's how countries operate and have always been operating. Every country will base its doings on what the majority of people do or have been doing

I'm not sure you are quite responding to my position, here? I don't say it's a bizarre thing, or even a bad thing, that territories naturally privilege dominant cultural habits, only that they do. Orlanth states Christian is not a privileged category today. I'm only saying that it is in majority Christian countries, precisely because that's the cultural background most familiar to the majority.

We can probably leave it there? It's a bit of a digression, though I do think idiosyncratic cultural framings of particular motifs are relevabt to the question!

 Argive wrote:

nfe wrote:

 Argive wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

nfe wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:

IMHO, but take that with extra salt. I’m a middle aged straight white male. Being non-Christian is the only thing that keeps me from checking all the privilege boxes.

If you are paying attention you will realise Christian is not a privilege category in the current age.

Depends on where you are. If you're in any historically majority Christian nation, it absolutely is. Even if you remove everything else, cultural touchstones, social convention, calendars, holidays etc are all built around Christian cultural motifs and observations. For a timely one, no one schedules meetings on Christmas day, but I had people organise large (compulsory) meetings on Yom Kippur and in the evening of the last day of Ramadan this year.

But would this situation have not been reversed if you worked in a country which majority observe Ramadan and not Christmas ?

Well, none of my Israeli, Turkish, or Iraqi colleagues have ever done it, and we have met regularly online for years, so I think so, but I do specifically preface my response with the bolded bit.

My point was if you change the "Christian" bit to any other religion/culture you would get the same result.. For example, if im in a country that is 99% catholic/christian all national holidays will revolve around that.
Just like if you were in a 99% Muslim country your holidays will revolve around that and not the 1%. I don't really see an issue. It is what it is and that's how countries operate and have always been operating. Every country will base its doings on what the majority of people do or have been doing

Anyone that's ever wanted quick shipping out of China will feel the pain when it overlaps with Chinese New Year, so yes, it definitely happens.

nfe wrote:
Orlanth states Christian is not a privileged category today. I'm only saying that it is in majority Christian countries, precisely because that's the cultural background most familiar to the majority.
We can probably leave it there? It's a bit of a digression, though I do think idiosyncratic cultural framings of particular motifs are relevant to the question!

I do not care about public holidays too much, but essential liberties. Such as the right to non-participation and the right to voice complaint which are both increasingly reserved for non-Christians.
And yes a Jew should be able to book Yom Kippur off mandatory meeting or not. In fact in the UK there is provision for that.

However blatant anti-Christian discrimination is very much a thing in the UK, and is a noted factor in many other western countries. It has now gone so far that quoting the Bible in public is no longer a defended activity, you can be arrested for that, but quoting the Koran is.

 Orlanth wrote:

nfe wrote:
Orlanth states Christian is not a privileged category today. I'm only saying that it is in majority Christian countries, precisely because that's the cultural background most familiar to the majority.
We can probably leave it there? It's a bit of a digression, though I do think idiosyncratic cultural framings of particular motifs are relevant to the question!

I do not care about public holidays too much, but essential liberties. Such as the right to non-participation and the right to voice complaint which are both increasingly reserved for non-Christians.
And yes a Jew should be able to book Yom Kippur off mandatory meeting or not. In fact in the UK there is provision for that.

However blatant anti-Christian discrimination is very much a thing in the UK, and is a noted factor in many other western countries. It has now gone so far that quoting the Bible in public is no longer a defended activity, you can be arrested for that, but quoting the Koran is.

Certainly, if you strictly limit what you mean by 'privileged' then it's easy to construct an argument for why particulat demographics are or are not privileged. Being the cultural default is always a privileged position, though.

The rest of the post requires a lot of substantiation to debate and, alas, is a guaranteed thread lock.

 cuda1179 wrote:
Also, I'm not really wrapping my head around anti Scot racism. That's like me hating Texans. I guess prejudice is a generation phenomenon that takes time and effort to stamp out.

predominantly "protestant" country. Minority underground catholics. Irish imigration. Diffrent economic set-up, long standing prolonged state of warfare between the earlier iterations of said nations within a nation nowadays.
If you do the math that means a lot of bad blood.

It wasn't much and isn't much diffrent here, albeit with a higher % of catholic swiss and by extentsion not nearly as bullyable as in germany or scotland. And still it wasn't until recently 2001 that catholics regained full religious freedom.
Jews otoh still can't practice kosher butchering locally, because federal law prohibits it being put in place by "protestant-liberals" in the 19th century. Problem is there were about +30% catholics in this country in the rural regions that couldn't give anymore feths about a law that comes from a state that discriminates them so why should they get bothered by federal law. Also import wasn't prohibitable so of course that law doesn't work.
(unless you want to force the swiss jews to eat lower quality import meat i guess though to be fair if there is demand there's someone that will produce)


To this day the resentiments between protestant-liberal Kantons and Catholic-Conservatives are there. Sometimes that boils over in politics, when certain Kantons do and claim certain things, or when people from certain Kantons show up on a off day due to faith, or commit mass tourism for weekend skiing and block the more or less only road i got to get out of my valley and completely fill up my trains... .

And with that come a lot of slurs, stereotypes and of course "fights". Otoh nowadays that has mostly cooled off to the occaisional joke at the other group and has become a bit of a hobby in swiss humor to stereotype one another.

 Vulcan wrote:

Avoiding cancel culture is easy. Avoid the cesspool social media sites where they lurk. I'm not on facebook, twitter, or anything else not DIRECTLY hobby or work related. I maintain professional decorum in work-related communication of all sorts. And hobby sites are not high-profile enough to attract the attention of the cancel culture vultures, so by and large we're safe to discuss our toy soldiers in peace.

That might work if you do nothing important in your life, don't have any responsibilities and don't have anything worth taking.
If on the other hand you do, you might come into contact with equity movements who demand privileged access, and if you deny that then a target is placed upon you.
Also silence is at best a short term solution in a culture of changing goalposts and narratives.
Compliance is not safety either, the woke is a monster that can and will devour its own.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

nfe wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

nfe wrote:
Orlanth states Christian is not a privileged category today. I'm only saying that it is in majority Christian countries, precisely because that's the cultural background most familiar to the majority.
We can probably leave it there? It's a bit of a digression, though I do think idiosyncratic cultural framings of particular motifs are relevant to the question!

I do not care about public holidays too much, but essential liberties. Such as the right to non-participation and the right to voice complaint which are both increasingly reserved for non-Christians.
And yes a Jew should be able to book Yom Kippur off mandatory meeting or not. In fact in the UK there is provision for that.

However blatant anti-Christian discrimination is very much a thing in the UK, and is a noted factor in many other western countries. It has now gone so far that quoting the Bible in public is no longer a defended activity, you can be arrested for that, but quoting the Koran is.

Certainly, if you strictly limit what you mean by 'privileged' then it's easy to construct an argument for why particulat demographics are or are not privileged. Being the cultural default is always a privileged position, though.

The rest of the post requires a lot of substantiation to debate and, alas, is a guaranteed thread lock.

No I am unstrictly limiting privilege to actual privilege.
I am constructing nothing.

The cultural default is not necessarily a privileged position, if you think otherwise you are not paying attention. the equity movement is real and discriminatory and the characteristics of your purported privilege and the defacto characteristics of equity based oppression.

Meanwhile you make out the vacuous tokens such as the specific dates of public holidays matter in the face of demonstratable and real state and society backed discrimination.

What does it matter if you can celebrate St Georges day, not that is is a public holiday anyhow, when if you apply for a job at the BBC you can be openly declined due to the colour of your skin.
English might be the majority in England, but it is NOT the privileged characteristic, as state institutions can and will discriminate against you.

Christians are in the same category, except that there isn't even any veneer of a political majority for Christianity and has not been such for a considerable time. The sole consideration towards Christianity in the UK is that shops are closed on Easter Sunday, the last vestige of Sunday trading laws. Christmas is excluded as at a national level it is a secular and commercial rather than a religious holiday. However there are many things Christians cannot do in the UK which other religions can.

This is better discussed on ETC at this point I think.

And to Mad Dog Grotsnik's comments.

There is a lot that Grotsnik has written here that is indicative of not only changing culture but changing levels of tolerance/intolerance and expectations of others. What Grotsnik writes is obviously well intended and from his point of view rational but displays the increasing irrationality of the current milieu. I mean him no harm.

What he says though is very disheartening as it is an example of a core rot in the relationship between England and Scotland, and a wider example of the damage of the new culture, that goes beyond the current political issues, though I believe it may well be connected.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

In my own peculiar way, as a Scot living in England I’m a minority. Granted it’s the sort of minority nobody can tell unless I open my gob.
And there are slurs about Scots, many of which I’ve been on the receiving end of.
Context is King here. If it’s a fellow Scot or a close friend? I’m fine with it. That to me is just banter.
Anyone else uses those terms? And I’ll be calling them out on it. One doesn’t have to intend offence for offence to be caused.

Here we have the rational disconnect of whether one needs to be of a certain people group in order to make comment or raise fun on certain matters.
As a background note on UK interactions, the peoples of the British Isles have long had a lot to say about other subcultures on the islands. And for many generations that was fair banter. You make comments about Scots as an Englishmen, the Scots make comments about you. No one got triggered. The same applied to the Welsh and to a much more limited extent to the Irish, though with active bloodshed until only very recently the latter could not normally be assumed.

It is important to note here that the reason why the English, Welsh and Scots were able to bond despite having a long troubled history and with the very strong cultural dynamics of all three nations was because of the ability to make banter. This was never a characteristic between the various subcultures of Irish society. Consequently while there is as much bad blood between England and Scotland as there was between the British and the Irish the former was able to fade. The latter never had.
The only part of mainland Great Britain where the common culture never bonded was Glasgow, where attitudes from darker times proliferated into the current age and are still here today. In Glasgow the main two factions cannot joke at each others expense and never have. the result is a blood history of deep divide.
My warning to Mad Doc Grotsnik, is why would he desire to take such an enormous cultural leap backward?.

Now, and really only in the last few years has this no longer been so. To make Scots jokes while not being a Scot. Hatecrime! Apologise now!
Again we have a society divided by woke expectations.

If the sentiments highlighted above are to proliferate it will not result in a society of mutual respect. We had that. Instead it will result in a society of mutual hostility, which is what we are getting.

It is telling that a culture of only Scots can banter about Scots is occurring at the same time as a heatening up of actual anti English racism in Scotland.
As a Scot outside Scotland Mad Doc Grotsnik might encounter some racism, there are and always were idiots, I am genuinely sorry for that, no Scot should be unwelcome in England, and I am myself offended to hear if this is not so.
I know plenty of Scots in England and English in Scotland, for the former not much has changed that I know about, but as we see from the quote the expectations of some have changed.

I see Mad Doc Grotsniks upset at hearing Englishmen trying to join in with Scottish banter as their and your forefathers did and are now being excluded from; and match that against the vitriolic and open hatred of the English people suffered by English people in Scotland.
You don't even have to be in Scotland, being English and having an internet connection is enough to get exposed to the vitriol. Remember I am not talking about shared banter, stuff you might find funny if mentioned by someone from an approved ethnicity, but hatred and racial blame openly and angrily applied to current topics with tacit approval of national leadership.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Consider the apology vs the non-apology.
Actual apology? I’m sorry I offended you.
Non-apology? I’m sorry if you took offence.
.

The non apology is frankly the correct outcome. When a century old culture of banter between subgroups in the UK has been replaced by a culture of accusation and expectation of servile soft-treading nothing good can come from it.
I would far rather double down and say and believe I am sorry someone took offence.
What I am most sorry about is the terminal decline in national group relations within the cultures of the British Isles.

Allowing for what is at stake. Either a culture of mutual respect by actual tolerance, or a sectarian future where to say the wrong thing to the wrong person causes a triggered response.

One of the reasons behind the general good relations in the past between the English and Scots, is because the banter would proliferate both ways with no offence taken. There is a lot of blood in the history between these two nations, and the correct solution, long practiced, was to celebrate the mutual history together. Here we had strength of diversity by matching our history and culture both together and in separation. It worked well enough to survive two World Wars and conquer a third of the planet.
Any Englishmen worth his salt, with a personality unblemished by avocados and soy, will take well comments of Robert the Bruce and jokes about English mannerisms with good cheer and will respond in kind if they know enough about British history. A worthy Scot will in turn not get triggered. This would occur no matter who started the particular round of banter.
I like the Scots and love Scotland, I hate what wokeness has done to them and us.

In some case where woke has not soiled our culture this is still not only acceptable but expected. A good example of these holdouts is the military, whether healthy banter is long part of the shared culture. If a Scots Guardman meets a Coldstream Guardsman, and does NOT within a reasonable time period accuse the latter of being a 'sheepshagger' then the Coldstreamer will quickly question whether the person they are talking to is an imposter.
Note to those who serve. I am not a soldier, but come from a service family. If you serve in HM Armed Forces and think my comments untrue, call me out on them.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

If you’ve caused offence? Especially if it was innocently done? Just apologise and try to learn from it. Don’t try to share the blame by claiming “they’re being over sensitive”. Don’t make comparisons to something someone else once said to you or someone you know. Your words. Your foul. Your harm. Just….apologise, learn and move on.

This is quite sad really. I see from the above quote someone who is deeply impacted by the new culture and wants to help people adjust to not causing offence. I take that at face value and respect Grotsnik more than this post might appear.

The problem is the wording of apologise and retract is part of the woke milieu and the above sentiments are more normally wielded as a weapon and not a tool of cultural education.

Wokeness is a power structure, with distinct stages.

1. First there is a generated right to take offence.
- In this case a right to no longer accept Scottish jokes from non Scottish persons, a dissolution of the common unifying culture of the British peoples that we considered ourselves part of a unifying whole celebrating our differing national characteristics.

2. Which is linked to a forced degeneration of the national characteristic.
- Being a Scot was not and frankly should never be a touchy subject. Scots are not snowflakes. Scots are tough folk that can take a joke and have your back. The English should be expected to be no different, sadly woke has damaged my people too.

3. It makes social interactions more difficult by intent.
- I cannot add a specific here example as I have no been long enough exposed to this particular issue.

4. To which a solution is presented of a new rising caste of cultural zampolits who can tell us all how to live.
- This Grotsniks is doing subconsciously and gently, and I believe with good intent based on what he was fed. But there is very little essential difference between needing to be told by those in the know not to offend a Scot than there is a a need to hire Anita Sarkeesian in order to know how not to offend minorities in video games development.
Grotsnik is making a 'helpful' social comment based on the new culture he has been poisoned with. Others spread the poison and expect to manufacture a powerbase out of it.
I gave one defunct example of the latter, there are far worse examples out there.

Wokeness is poison. It enters through the school and university system under the cloak of the worthy goal increased understanding and respect in equality.
- It brings anything but equality.
- It claims tolerance while empowering the right to take offence.
- It magnified any offence taken and remedy demanded taken out of all proportion to any perceived wrong.
- It brings intolerance where there previously was little or none and breaks down pre-existing societal bridges.
- It thins any barriers to perceived wrongs to the extent that is can be come difficult not to breach them in daily life.
- It generates a new false intelligensia to tell the non woke how to behave correctly in the new milieu. Many of these new enlightened teachers are well meaning and frankly deluded individuals who never see through the original mantra of wokeness and are genuine believers in equality and tolerance. Others are hardened opportunists, bigots and grifters who abuse the concepts of equality to bring accusation and division and grow powerful on the back of their power to censure and condemn.

Nothing good comes from wokeness. It turns a multitude of nice people into intolerant dogmatists, without them knowing what they have become. It empowers a few deeply evil people into demagogues of woke who take advantage of the former category and will callously use and discard them.

Wokeness is an existential threat to western society.

Sorry for the blunt message. This is tough love for decent people overtaken by 2+2=5.

I guarantee you offence has always been taken. But it’s not always been acceptable to call it out.

Just go back a few years in terms of telly, and what was shown on screen. Casual racism, sexism and homophobia.

Oh, and thank you so, so much for telling me, an Actual Scot On Account I Was Born In Scotland what a Scot actually is.

Do you not see how that is inherently insulting? That because I object to my nationality being the butt of a joke or denigrated, I’m somehow Not Actually Scottish Because Scots Are Tough? Particularly when I took pains to ensure my comments, frames of references and experiences solely apply to me? That at no point have I said “therefore no Scot should simply laugh it off” etc?

In fact, if you’d care to read what I said, not what you think I said, I’ve been clear and consistent that what might be insulting or upsetting to one person, doesn’t beholden the next to follow suit? And that just because the next isn’t fussed, it doesn’t mean the first was being overly sensitive?

First I am not triggered by fair reply, so please carry on.
A healthy disagreement with my commentary is to be expected.

Oh and I clarified a lot of what I wrote and place indicators that might not be there when you first read the thread.

I think the stakes are a lot higher than whether you feel upset by people making Scots jokes.

Now to specifics.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I guarantee you offence has always been taken. But it’s not always been acceptable to call it out.

I am not and never have been talking about genuine racism against Scots. You are not expected to tolerate that. I am talking about the example you gave, of banter. Banter which in your eyes you would not be offended by if the speaker was Scottish.

Here you betray a dynamic where offence is taken because of the ethnicity of the speaker, not because of the words that come out of their mouths.

Think on that.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Just go back a few years in terms of telly, and what was shown on screen. Casual racism, sexism and homophobia.

Newspeak. Casual <noun> is just part of the learned response of decreasing cultural tolerances made from woke.
Comedy from the 1970's was not offensive in the 1970's. Cultures do shift over time, but it is historically inaccurate and politically suspect to impose current dogmas on prior cultures.

You have been taught to apply a cultural trend of today and imposing it on prior generations that had thicker skins and healthier societal attitudes.

It is a false cultural appropriation to generate a narrative of offence and to create discord where there was not any of note.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Oh, and thank you so, so much for telling me, an Actual Scot On Account I Was Born In Scotland what a Scot actually is.

Your welcome.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Do you not see how that is inherently insulting?

It isn't.

You have decided that to benefit your feefees you wish to undo a social bond between two ancient nations both with good cause to be proud of their histories and return to the fore hair trigger sensibilities that wiser generations have left buried in the past.

We had a system, it worked. He had unity via good cheer and mutual respect based on a healthy banter.

Do you recognise the price you are expecting to be paid to cater to your sensitivities.

Orlanth, there is a difference between friendly banter and what mad doc described in his phone call exemple.

I take from a flatlander only so much "thick ignorant mountainpeasant" often coupled with supposed ammounts of xenophobia just because i happen to be more conservative before i will voice my discontent, espcially since there are some bills still open.

Now it is another thing if it is in person and i can see mimic and gestures so as to get the context required to qualify it as banter or actual insult, but on phone or written form and by an unknown person which then is doubling down after mad doc pointing it out ?

Thing is though, there is a massive grey area, in which such criticism has, despite the insulting nature, justifyable critical meaning and value at a societal level, and that is where i agree with your point, people nowadays get far too easily insulted and can far to easily use that to shut down a conversation.

But again context matters.

 Orlanth wrote:

Any Englishmen worth his salt, with a personality unblemished by avocados and soy,

What an example of No True Scotsman (sic!) Made me smile

Not Online!!! wrote:
Orlanth, there is a difference between friendly banter and what mad doc described in his phone call exemple.

I don't know anything about Mad Doc Grotsnik's phone call messages. I am replying to a specific quote to which an expected reply and commitment to take offence was signalled in addition to an expected outcome from the person who spoke.

As referenced here:

And there are slurs about Scots, many of which I’ve been on the receiving end of.
Context is King here. If it’s a fellow Scot or a close friend? I’m fine with it. That to me is just banter.
Anyone else uses those terms?...

I must reiterate here that Mad Doc Grotsnik was saying was a well meaning comment intended to help prevent offending him and people in his peer circle.

I think we can highlight the issue if we recognise here that the word slur and banter are used interchangeably for the same activity based on race of the person whose lips are moving.

To which is added a protocol of expected action and examples of wrong action.

If you’ve caused offence? Especially if it was innocently done? Just apologise and try to learn from it. Don’t try to share the blame by claiming “they’re being over sensitive”. Don’t make comparisons to something someone else once said to you or someone you know. Your words. Your foul. Your harm. Just….apologise, learn and move on.

Please note that the apology and moving on, may and likely is a single event, to be politely forgot by a decent and honourable man.

However this generates sinister echoes. Essentially the correct response to finding out you are the wrong race while saying something that would be perfectly acceptable if you were a different race is to humbly apologise and recognise the deep wrong you are doing.

We have come across this particular pattern of doctrine before. The Bourgoisie/Kulaks/non-BAME/White Privileged/Jews must reflect on the distress caused by their presence and must revaluate their position in respectful homage to their 'victims'.

Even if it is so there is now a cultural dynamic of two imposed roles of educator and person who needed correcting. There is an consequential power shift in the social dynamic, this person needed correcting of their wrong think, so the educator is now in a morally superior position and is by extension more righteous. While this is not normally a dynamic of honest social correction, it is an inevitable dynamic when in terms of social correction based on politically imposed doctrine as is the case here.

That would be bad enough as a subconsciously perpetuated power dynamic. The person who happened to be the wrong race while saying a joke that would be acceptable if they were of the right race will remember that they required correction long after the punchline has faded.
More often the re-education is on ongoing process and the educator finds something else to correct. With the ever moving goalposts of wokeness this dynamic is easy to generate. In fact it is proving all but inevitable.

This is an example not of any moral failing on Mad Doc Grotsmnik's part, but on the subconscious power dynamics of woke itself. It samples and unintended caricature of the mental process behind re-education camps, and totalitarian indoctrination in general. While those particular horrors are not on the horizon in western society the power structures behind them are in place and growing and an essential component within the devisive philopsophy of woke that emerges even in well meaning cases.

If this is in any way unclear let me very brefly give a part veiled example from recent social history. If you were to you ask yourself which 'Lives Matter', and if you consider that the answer is anyone or everyones, because that seems the most ethical and logical answer; then ask why such a reply can and has been openly toted as a hate crime.

Not Online!!! wrote:

Now it is another thing if it is in person and i can see mimic and gestures so as to get the context required to qualify it as banter or actual insult, but on phone or written form and by an unknown person which then is doubling down after mad doc pointing it out ?

I know nothing about that either.

Whatever is or was spoken, if it was not offensive if the speaker happened to be Scottish, then it should not rationally be offensive if the speaker happened to be not-Scottish.

Not Online!!! wrote:

But again context matters.

Oh yes it does.

This principle applies regardless of the combo of commentator and purportedly approved race.
I would get particularly vocal in opposing received teaching that it was unacceptable for non-English people to make comments on or jokes about English people. Because as an person who opposes woke indoctrination I must oppose an imposed cultural narrative of behaviour inflicted upon the people group to which I do belong.
Be careful in dissecting what I am saying here. I do not say that only English people should attribute said characteristics, wokeness is to be opposed at every turn. Instead I have a vested interest in opposing woke poison on my native culture as it is to cultures with which we have an established cultural bond of interaction.
It is not my place to apply that elsewhere.

As it so happens this particular set of affairs is unlikely to happen because the woke narrative towards English is that as a purportedly 'dominant' culture it is fair game for ridicule. Scots (in this example) are enabled to be intolerant by wokeness as the resulting devisiveness is supporting woke agenda*. There is no benefit to the woke of bolstering English pride, so the English of themselves are not a protected group in this way.

Outside the UK you can apply similar patterns where a purportedly dominant culture is being excluded from expectation to take offence and does not have the social enablement to do so. While this applies at a cultural level the protected and non protected people groups clearly follow lines of which people groups wokeists want to empower and which they want to disenfranchise.

Wokeness is at its core several dynamics working simultaneously. A macro scale power structure shift with aim to benefit specific political clans, a regional scale tier hierarchy based on racial or social characteristics with a deliberately uneven access to rights and benefits based on group characteristics, and on a local level a cultural isolation process carried out at an individual basis by a forced regression of the protocols of human interaction.


*Forgive me if I am unable to quantify what the characteristics are of the political group behind woke as the would cross the boundary into territory forbidden by forum rules. You will have to work that out yourself.

Rather than going around the houses about whether emic and etic uses of terms can be justifiably read totally differently (which they obviously can) could we just jump to 'is it ok for white people to use the N word?' and get it out the way?

 Orlanth wrote:


Wokeness is an existential threat to western society.

Sorry for the blunt message. This is tough love for decent people overtaken by 2+2=5.

I wasn't going to do any more replies to this thread because I don't agree with a lot of it but, that's took the piss quite frankly. I'm not saying this with any vehemence because who has the time and energy. I could write a long reply to a lot of the things in this thread, particular about what MDG and Cuda brought up about the UK and our society. But I'll keep this brief.

Here's an equally blunt message, anyone who harps on about wokeness is an idiot. Wokeness isn't a thing, it's used by an absurd whinging commentariat who rely on controversy to make their money. People who fall for it are idiots. Every single thing you wrote there Orlanth makes it clear you have fallen hook line and sinker for it. And you won't like the fact I've said that because people don't like the fact that they have been duped. The whole point of this thread is about cultural systems put in place that pit people against one another.

You know what the genuine difference is now?

People have been insulting, racist, homophobic, sexist in the past and gotten away with it because they had absolute power and no consequences for their actions. Those people still largely control the media and governments in the West.

Now people on the receiving end have the opportunity to call out the offensive things that people say. These things have always been hurtful and offensive and the people saying it know that. The problem is now they are receiving some well deserved reprimand. They try to pretend that the people rightly complaining are weak, unpatriotic, easily offended. But nobody pisses their pants quite like these people. Nothing is unpatriotic quite like inciting hatred on their fellow country folk.

This is about balancing the scales and people with power and money don't like that. So they've spent a long time making it seem that the people responding with criticism are wrong.

If I were you in the spirit of the holidays, do some reading outside your norm. I'm not here to tell you what you should and shouldn't do but I'd advise it for the betterment of yourself. Happy holidays.

nfe wrote:
Rather than going around the houses about whether emic and etic uses of terms can be justifiably read totally differently (which they obviously can) could we just jump to 'is it ok for white people to use the N word?' and get it out the way?

I started with that on my first post on this thread.

That issue was a clear highlight of the coming societal destruction of the United States, which now two decades later is actually happening as predicted and why.

Please note that I do NOT blame the African American community of said destruction, this is a clearly visible symptom, not the cause.

 Orlanth wrote:

nfe wrote:
Rather than going around the houses about whether emic and etic uses of terms can be justifiably read totally differently (which they obviously can) could we just jump to 'is it ok for white people to use the N word?' and get it out the way?

I started with that on my first post on this thread.

That issue was a clear highlight of the coming societal destruction of the United States, which now two decades later is actually happening as predicted and why.

Please note that I do NOT blame the African American community of said destruction, this is a clearly visible symptom, not the cause.

You wrote a bunch of words about it in your second post, but don't address the above question insofar as I see. You do say that you wouldn't ask for or expect a change in usage, but do you think people who are not black should be able to use the n word and it be read the same as when black people do? You seem to rail against the premise that emic and etic uses are different.

 Olthannon wrote:


Here's an equally blunt message, anyone who harps on about wokeness is an idiot. Wokeness isn't a thing, it's used by an absurd whinging commentariat who rely on controversy to make their money. People who fall for it are idiots. Every single thing you wrote there Orlanth makes it clear you have fallen hook line and sinker for it. And you won't like the fact I've said that because people don't like the fact that they have been duped. The whole point of this thread is about cultural systems put in place that pit people against one another.

Thank you for your input.

Please note that I have avoided calling anyone here on this thread an idiot for holding an opinion contrary to my own.
But you think you must be better than me.
Fair enough, that says a lot, but not about me.

Wokeness most definitely is a thing.

If you think it isn't you need to take a good long look at society. Your bio indicates that you are a UK poster, so i will give you limited UK based examples of serious woke. I will have to talk around the issues in respect to the no politics rule.

1. The saddest example first. Imagine you were a girl you were sexually assaulted and found that you got no access to justice because it was not politically correct to prosecute your abuser due to their racial characteristics.

2. You want to have a career in state owned media, and your career progress is delayed by approximately two to three years because you cannot enter the apprenticeships which access you to the promotions track or give you skills in broadcasting. You are not eligible for equal employment access despite multiple equality laws due to your colour of skin. You will have to establish your career by slower more uncertain means regardless of merit. As the career track has a queue you will be de facto behind people of equal or lower ability who do not share the same racial characteristics and entered state media employment at the same time.

Both these policies are state level and enacted due to wokeness. The former quietly, covered up for an extended period and is only now being resolved. The latter openly and in full view of public scrutiny.

 Orlanth wrote:

 Olthannon wrote:


Here's an equally blunt message, anyone who harps on about wokeness is an idiot. Wokeness isn't a thing, it's used by an absurd whinging commentariat who rely on controversy to make their money. People who fall for it are idiots. Every single thing you wrote there Orlanth makes it clear you have fallen hook line and sinker for it. And you won't like the fact I've said that because people don't like the fact that they have been duped. The whole point of this thread is about cultural systems put in place that pit people against one another.

Thank you for your input.

Please note that I have avoided calling anyone here on this thread an idiot for holding an opinion contrary to my own.
But you think you must be better than me.
Fair enough, that says a lot, but not about me.

That's a canny laugh man. I like that you go straight for that as if the implicit part of your post isn't exactly what you've just decried me for.

As to the rest of your post, that's all GB news pass the parcel gak.

I don't think I'm better than anyone, but I pity you for the stuff you've said in this thread, because you're angry at stuff that is pushing you backwards. And I see it all the time and it's just sad. I hope you realise at some point that you've made a mistake but I'm not the one to change your mind.

 Orlanth wrote:

2. You want to have a career in state owned media, and your career progress is delayed by approximately two to three years because you cannot enter the apprenticeships which access you to the promotions track or give you skills in broadcasting. You are not eligible for equal employment access despite multiple equality laws due to your colour of skin. You will have to establish your career by slower more uncertain means regardless of merit. As the career track has a queue you will be de facto behind people of equal or lower ability who do not share the same racial characteristics and entered state media employment at the same time.

Both these policies are state level and enacted due to wokeness. The former quietly, covered up for an extended period and is only now being resolved. The latter openly and in full view of public scrutiny.

Can you elaborate on the specific BBC mechanisms that you are thinking of. There are definitely many structure that funnel specific people to the top of it, but most of those funnelled people are the rich children of other journalists, public intellectuals, and very often ex-presidents of university conservative societies.

Not to mention implying that racial categories being protected from legal repercussions is apparently due to "woke", completely ignoring centuries where black people and other people of colour had no recourse to the law, able to be assaulted, murdered, raped at will, because they were considered subhuman.

1. The saddest example first. Imagine you were a girl you were sexually assaulted and found that you got no access to justice because it was not politically correct to prosecute your abuser due to their racial characteristics.

Many people of colour, even in living memory, do not need to imagine this. They lived it. Hell, just last year we had a spotlight shone on this with the mass graves of indigenous children at residential schools. The perpetrators of those crimes will never face justice, and they were allowed to commit those acts in the first place due to the privilege of their race compared to that of their victims.

EDIT: misremembered the year that the story broke

Citation needed for those claims.

I believe you’re referring to the Rotherham Abuse Scandal in the first claim.

That happened some time ago. Before right wing pundits, suddenly upset that freedom of speech didn’t come with freedom from consequence or reprimand, invented the term Woke.

I see you’ve also failed to include Jimmy Saville and the others on Saville Row following Operation Yewtree. People protected by not just the media, but even the Government and Royal Family. What about Theresa May “whoops a daisy I’ve lost all those dossiers about abuse scandals every last document I don’t know what happened to them”.

It’s not that long ago Regional Accents were banned from BBC Broadcasting. And they still cause upset to this day (‘member folk moaning about a BBC presenter’s accent during the Olympics? Saying she shouldn’t be allowed that job?) amongst the tiny minded.

Positive Discrimination is a sticky one, sure. But you seem to be neatly ignoring the decades of prejudicial hiring practices, where people with The Wrong Sort Of Name lost out on jobs. Not just media jobs. Jobs in general.

And that is a frankly bizarre, unsubstantiated claim that Positive Discrimination only leads to, and I quote…

Orlanth wrote: As the career track has a queue you will be de facto behind people of equal or lower ability who do not share the same racial characteristics and entered state media employment at the same time.

Equal or lower ability getting pushed ahead of whitey, just because that person isn’t black? Citation. Very. Much. Needed. No the Daily Mail is not a viable citation. Nor is any Clarksonesque drivel. Clear, verifiable evidence that the sole reason for career advancement is not ability, but melanin, and that therefore any minority advancing their career isn’t deserving on merit.


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nfe wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

2. You want to have a career in state owned media, and your career progress is delayed by approximately two to three years because you cannot enter the apprenticeships which access you to the promotions track or give you skills in broadcasting. You are not eligible for equal employment access despite multiple equality laws due to your colour of skin. You will have to establish your career by slower more uncertain means regardless of merit. As the career track has a queue you will be de facto behind people of equal or lower ability who do not share the same racial characteristics and entered state media employment at the same time.

Both these policies are state level and enacted due to wokeness. The former quietly, covered up for an extended period and is only now being resolved. The latter openly and in full view of public scrutiny.

Can you elaborate on the specific BBC mechanisms that you are thinking of. There are definitely many structure that funnel specific people to the top of it, but most of those funnelled people are the rich children of other journalists, public intellectuals, and very often ex-presidents of university conservative societies.

Ref Jack Whitehall. The least funny “comedian” I’ve ever seen - who’s Mummy and Daddy just happen to work in the industry.

Where’s Orlanth’s stand against the Old Boy Network? That absolutely promotes folk well beyond their ability. Ref Boris “Making Daddy’s Money Work Hard” Johnson and his spectacular failings boosting him to the top job.

nfe wrote:
Rather than going around the houses about whether emic and etic uses of terms can be justifiably read totally differently (which they obviously can) could we just jump to 'is it ok for white people to use the N word?' and get it out the way?

I started with that on my first post on this thread.

That issue was a clear highlight of the coming societal destruction of the United States, which now two decades later is actually happening as predicted and why.

Please note that I do NOT blame the African American community of said destruction, this is a clearly visible symptom, not the cause.

Personally, although I do not see it happening any time soon, I'd like a colorblind society, so anyone can use the N-word. Does that mark me as a racist, because I think white people should be allowed to use it?

Also, I've known white people who say it around black people. (Dividing people by race, even in text here, bothers me.) Because they say it in a friendly way. Did you know that people of different races could get along? And share slang? Because I know they can.

 Orlanth wrote:

Fair enough. You want clarity, though the 'bunch of words' had relevant meaning.

Were I to discuss this issue as a point of philosophy face to face, or on camera. I would hope I had the courage not to use the phrase N-word. I hope I would have the courage to use the actual word on media.
I cannot here, mostly because it would not be processed and it is likely the context would be entirely ignored.

However if we cannot resolve or highlight and issue by its actual name as a philosophical commentary, and it is likely we cannot if not black, then it highlights the societal disconnect

It is one thing for language to divide us, it is another tier of disconnect if a topic cannot be properly discussed on a philosophic level, i.e. at the level of rational social dialogue as a point of discussion.

Let me give you another example.

A woman meets two men, both talk about the same thing to her.
The first receives a large cheque for his services
The second is arrested by the police and charged with lewd behaviour and faces jail time.

How is this so? A: The first is her gynacologist.
Now the interesting part here is that a) race has no factor on all three persons, b) the second person could also by a medical professional in a similar or same field to the first.

the first man gets pass because he was talking in a professional manner.

So ask yourself this, could a philosopher talk about the dynamics of the N-Word by name, in a philosophical setting, while white?

To ask the other simpler part of your question. It is otherwise a very bad idea for a non black person to ever use the N-word unless enabled to by a professional or vocational context. You will have to judge for yourself is said context can easily exist in this society. It most certainly can and has, a good example is in movie scripts while playing a role of a racist. Kenneth Brannagh played such a role in Wild Wild West, and certainly within the social timeframe of when it was no longer acceptable for a non-black person to use that word.

Those are interesting examples, because they really underscore that the speaker and context matters a great deal, which you seem to be trying to reject otherwise? In one case the relationship between the speaker and the woman determines the appropriateness of the dialogue, and in the other a term is put in someone's mouth specifically to characterise them negatively, as someone not appropriately positioned to use it.

I don't think you really answered the core part of the question though - is it inappropriate to read words differently depending on the speaker? Is it wrong for us to read the n-word differently? Is it not safe to assume it's usage is in some eay revealing of the speaker's perspectives?

 Olthannon wrote:


That's a canny laugh man.

I am not laughing.

 Olthannon wrote:

As to the rest of your post, that's all GB news pass the parcel gak.

No it is not.
First I have been talking about this topic on Dakka for twenty odd years. We called it PC then. I think for myself.

You are applying an ad hominem here: the assumption that an opposed viewpoint is spoonfed to an unthinking fool by hostile media too stupid to think for themslves.

 Olthannon wrote:

I don't think I'm better than anyone, but I pity you for the stuff you've said in this thread, because you're angry at stuff that is pushing you backwards. And I see it all the time and it's just sad. I hope you realise at some point that you've made a mistake but I'm not the one to change your mind.

I dont require you pity, but thank you for the sentiment.

You are applying an ad hominem here: the asumption that an opposed viewpoint is written in a fit of rage, because anyone not overcome with anger or other negative emotions could not possibly voice such an opinion.

 Olthannon wrote:

I hope you realise at some point that you've made a mistake but I'm not the one to change your mind.

I am unlike to recognise what I wrote here as an error. My main reason for this is because again I predicted this, long before it happened.

I will say this. I do wish I was wrong. It would be better for all concerned if my long held beliefs on the processes and consequences of political correctness were just a delusion of mine, and would not lead to lasting trouble. It would be nicer if the systemic dismantling of the culture of the country I was born and deeply love in was not playing out as predicted.

I was not entirely right. I did not understand how the same dynamic could and would effect the USA. I believed at the time that the first amendment and the inherent vocal patriotism of the US would provide an adequate shield against wokeness. In reality while the UK had a ten year headstart on wokeness the US is unravelling faster.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Citation needed for those claims.

Citation not given for reasons given. Though this has been made moot.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

I believe you’re referring to the Rotherham Abuse Scandal in the first claim.
That happened some time ago. Before right wing pundits, suddenly upset that freedom of speech didn’t come with freedom from consequence or reprimand, invented the term Woke.

That will not catch me out.
Woke is current vernacular, and thus used in contemporary comments on past issues without limitation when covering historical events that fit with the terms description. trends can long preexist the cultural labels that later people use to define them.

If you need any clarity on this let me give you an unrelated example.
Do you believe that feudal society existed in Europe in the middle ages? Would you change your mind if I told you that the term 'feudalism' was coined by a 19th century German historian.

I like it that you are beginning to recognise it is a 'right wing' thing to use freedom of speech to criticise large scale rape covered up by the state. And that it is against right wing values to cover such outcries with negative consequences or reprimand.

You did guess well, but the issue goes far beyond Rotherham. If only it were not.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

I see you’ve also failed to include Jimmy Saville and the others on Saville Row following Operation Yewtree.

I haven't failed at all. I gave only limited samples of the existence of the consequences of woke policy. I am not going to list them all.

Also Jimmy Saville was not covered up because of woke. He was covered up because of personal connexions.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Positive Discrimination is a sticky one, sure. But you seem to be neatly ignoring the decades of prejudicial hiring practices, where people with The Wrong Sort Of Name lost out on jobs. Not just media jobs. Jobs in general.

Prejudicial hiring practices have not gone away, the dynamics have just changed. So there is no 'neatly ignoring' something that is alive and ongoing and to which the positive discrimination does not and is not intended to counter.

Positive discrimination is separate to this, it is racism by the front end, input by force majeur, in a society where there are strict but unevenly applied laws on equal opportunities and often based on a false narrative that there is an employment equality to begin with.

Also the idea that if a cultural group was discriminatory in the past, then they should be discriminated against now is included as a rationale. Then any semblance of positivity in the discrimination is removed. Because at that that stage Positive Discrimination is little other than revenge, because the target is a racial group to be disenfranchised, ignorance, because it doesnt attempt to target any actual 'oppressor' but someone who shares purported racial characteristics and hatred, because the ideology of 'they did it to others' is itself a hate sentiment.

It is interesting that while you require citations to everything you are happy to just throw in accusations of 'decades of prejudical hiring practices'. While current equal opportunity laws date from the Equlity act 2010 actual equal opportunity laws go back as far as the 1970's, and covers the career lengths of almost the entire workforce of the UK.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

And that is a frankly bizarre, unsubstantiated claim that Positive Discrimination only leads to, and I quote…

Orlanth wrote: As the career track has a queue you will be de facto behind people of equal or lower ability who do not share the same racial characteristics and entered state media employment at the same time.

How is it unsubstantiated? The consequences of restricted access to fast traxck employment to those of select racial characteristics should be obvious by logical progression.

Let us walk through this together with rational thought as our companion.
1. If person A and B both want to apply on the same day.
Person A gets a special apprenticeship only available to people of select racial criteria.
Person B is racially ineligible for this opportunity and can enter at the ground level without the apprenticeship.
2. Person B requires considerable ground floor work to gain eligibility to apply for the same opportunity they could have received day one if they were of a different race.
3. Person B's career is set back by this amount of time.
4. Now if seniority was equally applied within the same organisation, which is not a given, the apprenticeship opportunity, which is a fast track to career progression places person A higher on the promotion rung of the organisation.
5. State media follows the same career doctrine as the civil service, length of service at a particular level is a hard factor in promotional prospects. Person B will always be behind in promotion opportunity if they are of equal talent to person A.

I will stop there. My point remains and stands tall.
It was put to me that wokeness was a myth perpetuated by GB news and similar media.
That is not true and two non exhaustive, seperate and disparate examples were given, both of which involved woke policy at a governmental level.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Equal or lower ability getting pushed ahead of whitey, just because that person isn’t black? Citation. Very. Much. Needed. No the Daily Mail is not a viable citation. Nor is any Clarksonesque drivel. Clear, verifiable evidence that the sole reason for career advancement is not ability, but melanin, and that therefore any minority advancing their career isn’t deserving on merit.

Why do you insist its all a conspiracy despite multiple cases of open evidence.

First I will link the Daily Mail, because you didn't want that source.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9704235/BBC-sparks-discrimination-row-banning-white-people-applying-18-000-trainee-job.html
You can now explain, if you can, why a source should be discounted just because you don't like it. Were the Daily Mail actually lying, rather than saying things you do not like to read, they would be called out on it by credible sources.
For someone who demands citations you get very picky on acceptable sources of factual data. You cant rely on an assumption that if you don't see it covered in the Guardian it can't be true.

Here is some more:
https://metro.co.uk/2018/01/19/bbc-criticised-for-banning-white-job-applicants-for-trainee-role-7243601/
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/bbc-discrimination-row-advertising-job-ethnic-monorities-b941600.html
More newspapers going off script.

BBC doubles down:
https://www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/article/1746837/bbc-defends-bame-only-internship

So its not like they deny the policy existed. Maybe the Daily Mail were a credible source for stories on this topic.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Where’s Orlanth’s stand against the Old Boy Network? That absolutely promotes folk well beyond their ability. Ref Boris “Making Daddy’s Money Work Hard” Johnson and his spectacular failings boosting him to the top job.

1. What has that got to do with proving the existence of woke.

2. Are you going to say with a straight face that this is an isolated issue only linked to one particular party, and that those on your preferred political spectrum are too honest and nice to do such things.


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 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Not to mention implying that racial categories being protected from legal repercussions is apparently due to "woke", completely ignoring centuries where black people and other people of colour had no recourse to the law, able to be assaulted, murdered, raped at will, because they were considered subhuman.

Name me a century even, which is generous, when the rights you describe above were not also denied to white people groups.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

Many people of colour, even in living memory, do not need to imagine this. They lived it.

So did anyone else. Suffering is not a exclusive racially defined feature, never was, never will be. Youi have been exposed to too much equity propaganda.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

Hell, just earlier this year we had a spotlight shone on this with the mass graves of indigenous children at residential schools. The perpetrators of those crimes will never face justice, and they were allowed to commit those acts in the first place due to the privilege of their race compared to that of their victims.

Where was this?
Second how does an example of suffering of an ethic people group in any way disavow the wrongs of wokeness, discredit claims of its existence, or justify current discrimination against unrelated persons.

You mention distress at the thought that abusers of children of a different racial group, were not punished for their transgressions.
I could share that sentiment with you easily without prior knowledge of which racial group suffered or was the accused. It would not take me long to find multiple examples of such an atrocity going in multiple directions historically. Adults of ethnicity x murdered children of ethnicity y is very likely to be of historical record for any two cultures with an extensive connected history.
At no point would it even excuse discrimination of unrelated citizens who identify as x or y, now.

Your position is that “woke” (a term invented and peddled by the hard right, for purposes of societal division) is the root of all societal ills.

Yet, I’ve offered clear examples of the same things you’ve claimed to be terribly concerned about as evidence which, by your own admission, have nothing to do with “woke”.

I’m sure you’d say things such as MeToo are “woke” - yet that movement was a sea change, as it meant Police now take such reports seriously. That the days of considering what the victim was wearing are over. Same with Believe Her, Black Lives Matter etc. All social projects aimed at challenging an unfair and discriminatory status quo.

The links you provided relate solely to hiring. Your bogus conclusion is two fold. One, that “they only got the job due to the colour of the skin. That is a bogus claim, as you’ve automatically discounted their relevant qualification and competence, because you’ve decided Positive Discrimination means such things aren’t considered. Two, that they’re getting career advancement as a result.

You claim that single job advert is A Great Evil. Yet….The Old Boy Network, which promotes utterly incompetent idiots to high position simply because they know the right people has existed for centuries, and continues to actively harm society to this day.

Which one is genuinely the problem? Which one is impacting lives up and down the Nation, day in, day out. Across the Political spectrum, but most pronounced in the Tories, thanks to Eton being a factory for the under capable but over privileged.

It really comes across that your sole beef here is people of colour. I accept that may simply be a result of limited references being given, but I think you need to go have a wee think about what you’re actually posting, and how it’s painting you.


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Who are the agents of change that brought about improvements in day to day life?

It’s rarely, but granted not never, Those Already Enjoying The Benefits Of Societal Prejudice.

Everything the Working Class now has, they have because “woke” causes were taken up, and the benefits wrested from the hands of the powerful.

Paid holidays. Weekends. Public Holidays. Minimum Wage. Suffrage in general, most recently Women’s Suffrage.State Pension. State Education. The NHS. Working Hours. All part of a “woke” movement of their day. Every. Last. One.

And what’s the price of modern day woke? Not getting away with using racist, sexist or otherwise bigoted language and actions based upon the same without critique and/or censure. Woe. Is. You. You poor, poor thing. Nobody has ever suffered as you have.

Other stuff to come back on when I have time, but for the record Mad Doc, woke is not a term invented by the right. It originates in African American antiracist critiques.

It has just been adopted as a pejorative by the right.

nfe wrote:

Those are interesting examples, because they really underscore that the speaker and context matters a great deal, which you seem to be trying to reject otherwise? In one case the relationship between the speaker and the woman determines the appropriateness of the dialogue, and in the other a term is put in someone's mouth specifically to characterise them negatively, as someone not appropriately positioned to use it.

Thank you for the interesting follow up questions.

First in normal speech some selected words, in particular the N-word carry connotations dependant on the ethnicity of the speaker in almost all circumstances. It is hard to find exceptions of acceptable public use, playing a character role is one, and even then the finished work may be edited locally for local consumption, or may be required to do so by law.

nfe wrote:

I don't think you really answered the core part of the question though - is it inappropriate to read words differently depending on the speaker? Is it wrong for us to read the n-word differently? Is it not safe to assume it's usage is in some eay revealing of the speaker's perspectives?

Society has decided that is is wrong for a non black person to use the N-word. In some jurisdictions doing so has been made a criminal offence, either literally, or indirectly by legislation that highlights and perceived hate speech as speech that can cause offence. This is the legal position in the UK
At which point you have to ask, can and would saying the N-word while not black be enough to cause offence. In the UK it would most clearly be so in all but a handful of circumstances, and those circumstances are based on perceived point of view of witnesses.
Under the same wording a black person using the N-word in the UK could face prosecution under the same law, but it would be less likely to occur because it is less likely that offence would be perceived, and it is unlikely an arrest would be followed through by processing a charge as there would be a higher burden of proof to claim offense caused as there is an existing culture of black people using the N-word when speaking to one another.
Consequently in the UK at least it would never be safe to use the N-word while non black, and not entirely safe if black, unless it is part of an agreed script.

So, basically No. In the UK at least there are no instances where it is safe to use the N-word without an prior agreement on context. So the decising factor is mutual premeditation. If you agree a priori that a white person calls a black person the N word because you are filming a dramatised event then it is safe. Otherwise I cannot see any circumstances where it would be safe to do so.

I would like to see an exception for topical discussion on the N-word itself and the cultural impact on society. But currently I do not see a way out of the perceived harm stipulation for the speech to be legally actionable.

Outside the UK local laws and customs apply, and I have nothing relevant to say on that.

However from the perspective I can speak on, the laws to which I am bound in the UK, all the nuanced sub questions you ask about different usage of the N-word would not be relevant under law.
So I have to conclude that mutual pre-meditation is the only safe exception.