Words without words.
May I please announce that this post is about words, and words only. Do not ascribe my use of ugly words to anything other than that.
Ann Coulter recently got into trouble for saying the word "faggot." (Poor Annie. Couldn't resist the deer-in-the-headlights pic, though.) When I first heard about this on television, they reported that she said "the F word." Of course, I thought "fuck." This is why referring to words by their first letter is bad reporting. Oh yeah, and really stupid too. I've said many times before that if we're going to talk about what somebody said, we have to use the words they said. (Hence this post.)
However, an article on CNN.com uses the word "faggot," spelling it correctly. If she had said "nigger" or "fuck," I'm sure they would have said "the N word" or "f___."
So we now find out that some words are so pernicious that we can't say them even when we're discussing them. But "faggot," evidently, is not one of these words. Finally, at long last, here is my point:
CNN thinks that Blacks are worthy of protecting from their harmful epithet, but they do not offer the same protection to Gays. Which, to me, is a form of discrimination.
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4 comments:
Once again, dad brings up an excellent point that, regardless of whether or not it is correct, would still get him shot were he walking through Harlem.
Whoa...is that what pernicious means. I bet over half the Magic: The Gathering player base doesn't know it means that, even though they play the card (Pernicious Deed).
(I guess they didn't explain it well enough in the flavor text).
In the end, speech is that strange beast whereby you may choose words by your standard, but you are judged by societies.
And this society has decided that it still can't quite work out how to treat homosexuality, driven primarily by strict religious thinking.
Funny co-incidence: I read this post after watching the latest South Park - the Wheel of Fortune "nagger" episode.
In the spirit of word censorship, you know, all I can think about when faced with Ann Coulter is how she should be penned up so that none of us feel enticed to say the C-word. Because, seriously, she's bringing it back.
I really think she's secretly working for the GOP to make the rest of them seem really centrist and progressive. It isn't working on me.
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