Steve, this is a crucial insight: I’m saying that it’s very difficult to offend somebody over a trait they’re proud of.
Perhaps a slightly more accurate framing is to say it is very difficult to offend someone over something that they are not sensitive about. Because I think many AA/Blacks do have genuine pride in the skin grouping (I …
Steve, this is a crucial insight: I’m saying that it’s very difficult to offend somebody over a trait they’re proud of.
Perhaps a slightly more accurate framing is to say it is very difficult to offend someone over something that they are not sensitive about. Because I think many AA/Blacks do have genuine pride in the skin grouping (I know you have pride, but not in that grouping) but I see many who genuinely do, but at the same time they are also very sensitive and defensive regarding it. They are defensive because they (correctly) feel it is attacked.
A more confident person would not be rattled. So I think it is correct to say such a person is not confident, but the still could have pride about their membership... they just know that others to not share that positive association, so they lack confidence.
thus I might edit your statement to say it is very difficult to offend someone over an attribute which they feel positive and confident about. Still this is a perceptive comment!
"They are defensive because they (correctly) feel it is attacked."
Yeah exactly. There's a degree to which it's always reasonable to get defensive if you're being attacked. Even if you're not insecure about the thing you're being attacked *for*. To degree, the mere existence of the attack justifies defensiveness, right? But it's the level and nature of the defensiveness that's the issue.
If somebody continually tries to make fun of my height, say, I'll eventually get annoyed about it, even though I'm over 6 feet. But not because I'm not confident about my height, because it's annoying to have somebody try to attack you over anything.
The issue with the n-word is the disproportionate level of upset it causes. About a trait that should never be a negative in the mind of the person hearing it. If somebody calls me a n****er, depending on my mood that day, I might be offended that they're trying to attack me. But my offence isn't caused by the *way* they're trying to attack me. If anything, the fact that I immediately think so little of anybody who would use that word as na attack would make whatever they had to say easier to ignore.
I want to mostly second Steve's response, in my own take.
Try: "It's hard to accidentally offend somebody by referencing a word relating to an attribute they are proud of."
You can use any words in a nasty or insulting way for disparagement, and people often react to actual disparagement, with or without a slur word (unless as you say, they have great confidence) - but intentional insults are not the issue here.
If the word is just pronounced as a reference, or read aloud from Huck Finn, and just hearing the syllables offends somebody - do you still think *that* kind of hyper-sensitivity is compatible with pride (just lack of confidence)? I think Steve has a point.
I am a little lost in the nuance of all of this.. To a first approximation I think we are all agreeing with each other. But I think it is possible to have strong identity/pride in a thing and ALSO have insecurity/sensitivity about the same thing. I think the person that sees Blackness as core to their identity will have alot of pride and identification with that label. If they also know that many view Blackness in a negative light, then the could become quite sensitive and insecure about that same label. So in this narrow sense I think I might be diverging from your thinking. e.g. it seems strong identification with a spurrned identity could yield a combination of pride and insecurity.
Steve, this is a crucial insight: I’m saying that it’s very difficult to offend somebody over a trait they’re proud of.
Perhaps a slightly more accurate framing is to say it is very difficult to offend someone over something that they are not sensitive about. Because I think many AA/Blacks do have genuine pride in the skin grouping (I know you have pride, but not in that grouping) but I see many who genuinely do, but at the same time they are also very sensitive and defensive regarding it. They are defensive because they (correctly) feel it is attacked.
A more confident person would not be rattled. So I think it is correct to say such a person is not confident, but the still could have pride about their membership... they just know that others to not share that positive association, so they lack confidence.
thus I might edit your statement to say it is very difficult to offend someone over an attribute which they feel positive and confident about. Still this is a perceptive comment!
"They are defensive because they (correctly) feel it is attacked."
Yeah exactly. There's a degree to which it's always reasonable to get defensive if you're being attacked. Even if you're not insecure about the thing you're being attacked *for*. To degree, the mere existence of the attack justifies defensiveness, right? But it's the level and nature of the defensiveness that's the issue.
If somebody continually tries to make fun of my height, say, I'll eventually get annoyed about it, even though I'm over 6 feet. But not because I'm not confident about my height, because it's annoying to have somebody try to attack you over anything.
The issue with the n-word is the disproportionate level of upset it causes. About a trait that should never be a negative in the mind of the person hearing it. If somebody calls me a n****er, depending on my mood that day, I might be offended that they're trying to attack me. But my offence isn't caused by the *way* they're trying to attack me. If anything, the fact that I immediately think so little of anybody who would use that word as na attack would make whatever they had to say easier to ignore.
I want to mostly second Steve's response, in my own take.
Try: "It's hard to accidentally offend somebody by referencing a word relating to an attribute they are proud of."
You can use any words in a nasty or insulting way for disparagement, and people often react to actual disparagement, with or without a slur word (unless as you say, they have great confidence) - but intentional insults are not the issue here.
If the word is just pronounced as a reference, or read aloud from Huck Finn, and just hearing the syllables offends somebody - do you still think *that* kind of hyper-sensitivity is compatible with pride (just lack of confidence)? I think Steve has a point.
I am a little lost in the nuance of all of this.. To a first approximation I think we are all agreeing with each other. But I think it is possible to have strong identity/pride in a thing and ALSO have insecurity/sensitivity about the same thing. I think the person that sees Blackness as core to their identity will have alot of pride and identification with that label. If they also know that many view Blackness in a negative light, then the could become quite sensitive and insecure about that same label. So in this narrow sense I think I might be diverging from your thinking. e.g. it seems strong identification with a spurrned identity could yield a combination of pride and insecurity.