"My uncle turned and looked right at me and started talking about "gooks." He was a Korean War veteran, and like many Vietnam veterans in those days that word got a lot of use."
Yeah, there are some layers here considering he's a war veteran, I guess. We've talked before about how people are taught to dehumanise the enemy. And terms like …
"My uncle turned and looked right at me and started talking about "gooks." He was a Korean War veteran, and like many Vietnam veterans in those days that word got a lot of use."
Yeah, there are some layers here considering he's a war veteran, I guess. We've talked before about how people are taught to dehumanise the enemy. And terms like these are certainly a part of that.
This is why I often say that words like these only really say something about the person using them. They speak to pain in that person's life. To a lack of thought about the views they hold. To fear. Honestly, that's all I hear when I hear words like that come out of somebody's mouth now.
That said, direct a word like that at somebody I love and I probably won't be so understanding.
"My uncle turned and looked right at me and started talking about "gooks." He was a Korean War veteran, and like many Vietnam veterans in those days that word got a lot of use."
Yeah, there are some layers here considering he's a war veteran, I guess. We've talked before about how people are taught to dehumanise the enemy. And terms like these are certainly a part of that.
This is why I often say that words like these only really say something about the person using them. They speak to pain in that person's life. To a lack of thought about the views they hold. To fear. Honestly, that's all I hear when I hear words like that come out of somebody's mouth now.
That said, direct a word like that at somebody I love and I probably won't be so understanding.
"That said, direct a word like that at somebody I love and I probably won't be so understanding."
That's the thing, it is easier to let that stuff pass aimed at me than when it is aimed at someone we love.
Yeah absolutely. Even then it's not so much the word as the intent to hurt someone I care about.