She's Back

[Lord Jim]

To call someone else "Pocahantas" because she is of American Indian descent is racist.

I absolutely agree with you on that point, but that is of course, not what Trump has been doing with this...

He has not been mocking her for being of "American Indian descent"...

He has been mocking her for having identified herself as being "American Indian", when she is (at best; her claim remains unverified) 1/32nd American Indian, and 31/32nd white European...

To try and put that in the same category as the stuff he has said about Mexicans being "killers" and "rapists" or his call to ban all Muslims from the country, or his talk about there being "fine people" in the White Supremacist movement, just seems like a really tortured stretch...

It's really more analogous to his calling Marco Rubio "Little Marco" or calling Bob Corker "Liddle Bob Corker"...

When Trump has used those juvenile nick names, was he trying to whip up hatred against short people?

Again, I really have to doubt that there would be so much huffing and puffing about this, if it was a conservative Republican rather than a left-wing Democrat involved...

(Back during the primary campaign, when Trump was mocking Ted Cruz for being born in Canada, I don't recall a lot of outrage about Donald trying to inflame anti-Canadian sentiment...)

There are so many solid, rock solid examples of racist pandering on Trump's part to rightfully assail and condemn him for (just yesterday, I started a thread about the latest one) there is really no need to try and construct one with misrepresentations and rhetorical back-flips...

[Scooter]

If someone had mocked, say, Barack Obama's self-identification as African-American by calling him an oreo, because he had a caucasian mother or because his upbringing was removed from the typical African-American experience or because, as Dave used to claim, he was not descended from slaves, would that have been racist?

No difference here except a matter of degree.

[Sue U]

To call someone else "Pocahantas" because she is of American Indian descent is racist.

I absolutely agree with you on that point, but that is of course, not what Trump has been doing with this...

He has not been mocking her for being of "American Indian descent"...

He has been mocking her for having identified herself as being "American Indian", when she is (at best; her claim remains unverified) 1/32nd American Indian, and 31/32nd white European...

What exactly is wrong with saying that you are of American Indian descent if your great-great-great-grandmother was a Cherokee? Is it somehow wrong for me to say that I'm of Semitic descent, even though my ancestors were exiled from the Levant nearly two thousand years ago? And what proof do I have that they were ever there to begin with?

The fact is, the only people who have made an issue of Warren's ethnic background were Scott Brown and Donald Trump, because mockery and racial epithets is their stock in trade and what motivates their base, rather than any actual governmental policy.

[Sue U]

(Back during the primary campaign, when Trump was mocking Ted Cruz for being born in Canada, I don't recall a lot of outrage about Donald trying to inflame anti-Canadian sentiment...)

Actually, that was Rubio's gig (from Jan. 2016):

This has to be the most hilarious thing ever, from a super-PAC supporting Marco Rubio. Ostensibly about tax policy, the entire ad is designed to promote the idea that "Canadian-born Canadian Ted Cruz is a Canadian, from Canada" (thx, Wonkette!), and therefore too Canadian to be presidenting U.S. America which is NOT Canada, so maybe he should go to Canada where they love Canadian socialism and the maple leaf (of Canada):





And by the way also too, Ronald Reagan hates Ted Cruz, just like everyone else does.

Donald Trump approves this message.

[Joe Guy]

If I claimed to be 1/32nd Italian and someone who thought it was a silly thing for me to do, and started referring to me as 'Leonardo Da Vinci', would that be a slur against Italians?

[Scooter]

It would be an ethnically-motivated slur, as this was a racially-motivated slur.

[Lord Jim]

If I claimed to be 1/32nd Italian

That would be fine with me, Giuseppe...

[Scooter]

Let's not forget that in the not-too-distant past, someone having 1/32 African ancestry would have been seen in the law of many U.S. states as 100% n-gg-r.

[Joe Guy]

If I claimed to be 1/32nd Italian

That would be fine with me, Giuseppe...

Hey, I think you insulted me! Somebody tell me. Did Jim just insult me? I don't know how to respond.

Should I want to have him whacked? Somebody help me out here....

[Joe Guy]

Let's not forget that in the not-too-distant past, someone having 1/32 African ancestry would have been seen in the law of many U.S. states as 100% n-gg-r.

And 100% stupid n-gg-r for telling anybody....

[Scooter]

So if one can "pass" - as white, as straight, as cisgender, as Christian, etc. - then one is "stupid" if choosing to be honest subjects them to bigotry and discrimination.

Wow. Just, wow.

[rubato]

I briefly had a colleague whose father was one of the Tuskegee Airmen and who married a white woman. He, himself, could 'pass' for white in many circumstances but chose not to and, as it happened, married a white woman himself. He had some interesting insights into that situation but I didn't get to carpool with him long enough to get over my amazement with his dad's history and ask the good questions.

yrs,
rubato

[Joe Guy]

So if one can "pass" - as white, as straight, as cisgender, as Christian, etc. - then one is "stupid" if choosing to be honest subjects them to bigotry and discrimination.

Wow. Just, wow.

Are you saying that when slavery was legal it would have been smart for a white skinned person to claim to have "negro" blood?

Wow?

[rubato]

Are you saying that personal advantage trumps honesty and the interests of your own people? Asshole?


yrs,
rubato

[Sue U]

Let's not forget that in the not-too-distant past, someone having 1/32 African ancestry would have been seen in the law of many U.S. states as 100% n-gg-r.

And 100% stupid n-gg-r for telling anybody....

And if Barack Obama had chosen to identify as "white" would you criticize him for that? If Obama's children marry "whites" and their children marry "whites," would the offspring of that third generation be somehow wrong for claiming "black" heritage?

[Scooter]

I am saying that disparaging someone for having the courage to assert their identity in the face of persecution is the mark of a pathetic piece of dog shit who would be doing the world a favour if he swallowed his gun and pulled the trigger.

[MGMcAnick]

I'd bet they did; just as I'd bet they knew the Kimosabee kind of sounds like "quien no sabe", or the man who no one knows.

I suppose in the mind of an English speaking writer for the show "quien no sabe" might work for Kimosabe, but there is no mention of "man" in that phrase, and saber' (the to-know form of sabe) is ordinarily used as in the knowledge of a fact. If one "knows" an individual, the word used would be more likely to be reconocer' or reconoce. Think recognize. "Man no one knows" would be more likely to be "Hombre que nadie reconoce". Of course that doesn't work well for the Lone Ranger's nickname.

While we're at it, for bad translation fables, Nova in Spanish means the same as it does in English. As with many relatively new words, they borrow from English. A nova is star that gets bright and then dims.

No va, (two words, and pronounced no ba) on the other hand, means it doesn't go. There was no shortage of Chevy Novas in Mexico due to a linguistic slip up. It's one of those urban legends that got repeated enough to become true to too many people. Kind of like Drumpf and the birther movement.

[Big RR]

I didn't say it was good Spanish (it isn't and reconocer is a much better verb for know in this context), but I have often heard the word "sabee" (presumably derived from saber) used in westerns when a Spanish (or sometimes indian) person was being questions as "You sabee (him or what I'm saying or whatever)". I honestly don't know where the name was derived from, but that was something I heard a long time back.

[Joe Guy]

Are you saying that personal advantage trumps honesty and the interests of your own people? Asshole?

No.

And if Barack Obama had chosen to identify as "white" would you criticize him for that? If Obama's children marry "whites" and their children marry "whites," would the offspring of that third generation be somehow wrong for claiming "black" heritage?

Obama does identify himself as "black" & "white", doesn't he? And the answer to your second question is no.

I am saying that disparaging someone for having the courage to assert their identity in the face of persecution is the mark of a pathetic piece of dog shit who would be doing the world a favour if he swallowed his gun and pulled the trigger.

And I am saying that in the era when people were buying and selling and raping and beating black people it wouldn't be the smartest thing you ever did if you told people you were black.

Quit being such an emotional Canadian Guido.

[Burning Petard]

This topic makes many people seem to twist ordinary American English into strange knots. When Obama first entered the political ring MANY prominent people known for their activities in American civil rights announced Obama was not a real African-American precisely because his mother was a 'real' American and his father was a 'real' African. The term 'African-American' was supposed to be applied to some other group.

The USofA culture has the history of one-drop racism. These terms I see on government forms now ask about 'ethnicity' and/or 'race' as if they mean the same thing. I just filled out a Delaware form for jury duty that included categories of Hispanic and Mixed, among others. You had to check one and only one. These terms are rarely defined on the form. In other places where I have seen them defined, "Hispanic' NEVER means from Spain, and it usually does mean mixed, yet both terms were on that form.

IMNSHO, this topic has no room for calm, logical discussion.

snailgate.