Posted by Squeaky at September 19, 2005 11:19 PM

Rove never needed proof for his smear machine, why should I.

a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race

A racist insult? Yes, if the quailfier is such that it meets the dictionary's definition. Otherwise it is just an insult.

Also to fuel your anger further, I am against hate speech codes.

You might want to claim the person making such an insult is a bigot:

a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices

Or you might want to say that the insult leads you to believe that he is a racist. But that is your belief, not something proved by the remark, as gross as it is.

Remember that last. You can condemn gross insults and get results without claiming that the person is a racist.

BTW - Did you consider Jackson's "Hymie Town" racist? Hint. I don't. It was just an insult.

According to a recent statement by Condoleeza Rice at a convention of black journalists that compared the war on Iraq to the civil rights movement in the United States, I am a racist. Why? Because I don't believe the war on the people of the middle east is about bringing democracy? Because I, along with most people in the rest of the world believe the US/UK war is about control of oil access and oil profits? Because I don't accept that the killing of thousands of Iraqis by US firepower is "the moral mission of our time", like Condoleeza Rice does? Or is it because I find the ethnic cleansing practices of the Sharon regime in Israel--practices which are supported by the Bush administration--to be morally repugnant? Perhaps it even simpler: because I believe that the war on the peoples of the Middle East is about colonialism, plain and simple.

Like the colonialism of past centuries, the drive for power and profit is cloaked in words of morality. The western powers used to go in and Christianize the natives, now we bring them western democracy--a concept that is a figment of someone's imagination, much like western civilization. Much like the conquerors of old killed the "natives" when they met up with indigenous peoples who didn't feel like being Christianized, the modern colonizers kill those who don't want to be "democratized." Of course, if they kill enough, thereby destroying the opposition, soon the colonizers can realize their dream of democracy.

but rap music is an expression of a culture's experiences.

Even if it was, why should its "artists" say terrible things about its women?

Why should its artists glorify killing a policeman, something that is almost 99.99% certain to get the man, usually a young man, executed or LWOP??

Why? Because of shock value, they can sell it to the young, both white and black, some of who think of themelves as "rebels" and will buy anything they think bothers their elders.

Undernews -

LOGICAL CONSEQUENCES: LIBERAL CENSORS NOW TARGET SHARPTON, JACKSON, TOP RAPPERS, BOTH CLINTONS AND PAUL MCCARTNEY

[If, that is, there was any logic to the Imus affair. But carefully concealed behind the liberal sanctimony and speech suppression is an unspoken rule: it's okay if our guys do it. A few examples follow]

http://mediamatters.org/items/200702010004

There also was the classic McNabb comment, as well as his "take the bone out of your nose and call me back" comment and the "haven't you noticed that all composite pictures of wanted criminals look like Jesse Jackson" comment.

I love the "presumably" and "as far as we know" qualifiers, and the fact that no one seems to actually have asked Limbaugh if he said it. If he did, shame on him because the insult was to an individual who didn't deserve it.

a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race
2 : racial prejudice or discrimination

And note two things. I didn't call it a joke. It wasn't.

Making up and using a word to describe someone's "Americanism" (for like of a better word) is no more racist that use of the word "Africian American," etc. (Hint. It isn't)

Personally I don't like such words because they put people into a "group" and that is a slipperly slope that can lead to trouble.

Some people claim that the use is handy as a way to describe someone. It is. Many wrong things are "handy."

Why not just refer to people as Americans?

That doesn't make sense.

And what is a "laugh test?" Is it some kind of test that says, "That word now means what I say it means?"

As to your inability to recognize that "White men can't jump" is about a race, well, what can I say?
It obviously is about race, and race includes both genders.

In the end, my belief is that you should reserve words like racist for people such as David Duke, not Imus. Failure to do so reduces true evil to the level of an insult, and before long you can't tell the difference.

You have white men and white women. They are members of the white race. I understand it was put out as a joke.... my point was that it was racist because it referred to a race... but I also noted I didn't consider it important...

By definition a racist comment must meet the definition of "racist." (See White Men Can't Jump.) A racist insult must also meet the same test.

I am not in the habit of correcting friends' comments, be they right or be they wrong, unless I think it just so important that I am willing to make a friend angry. That doesn't rise to that point.

I understand your point, I just am not going to accept it. As I pointed out "racist comment" has becoming a handy way of saying, that was a nasty mean comment about someone of the (fill in the blank) race.

Let's take race out of it and use the word correctly. When you don't you are either raising the charge against a person too high, or too low.
Plus, continual use of the charge removes its shock value, and we have no word to replace it.

What would you suggest for Hitler? Super racist?
And if you think Limbaugh is a racist, what do you suggest? Conservative Radio Talk Show Host Racist?
Chubby guy racist?

Remember the story about the boy who cried wolf.