This message was self-deleted by its author

[BainsBane]

4. If it bothers you to avoid using bigoted speech

Don't sign up for a website with terms of service that prohibits it. If you feel the need to insult people based on gender, race, or sexuality, ask yourself why you see the subaltern as so inferior to the privileged. DU isn't a Hollywood movie. It's a political site organized around support for the Democratic Party, the majority of which is comprised of women. I take this PSA about some movie as a pretext because I seriously doubt you think anyone cares about some random movie and that your post instead is aimed at people who seek to uphold respect in use of language about and to women.

Language is important because it signals meaning. This is not the UK or Australia. This is the US, and it is a website that is supposed to be frequented by people who respect members of the population regardless of race, gender, or sexuality. The only way we know one another is through our words, and using bigoted language signals clear meaning. If language is incidental, so are your posts and those of every other member of this site.

I submit that repeating and justifying such language perpetuates bigotry. It is not acceptable among any civilized people or anyone who has even a modicum of respect for their fellow citizens. If, however, people have nothing to say but merely wish to express hatred, those are the go to terms. That is in fact their purpose. I myself have a pretty foul mouth in real life, but I know when I can use certain words and when I can't. Even so, that particular word isn't part of my repertoire. In fact, none of the foul words I use are about race, gender, or sexuality. There are so many other options, that one only turns to those words when the point is to demean someone for a mere accident of birth. Since I don't wish to convey such meaning, I choose different words. To pretend there is something odd about being offended by words that are in fact INTENDED to offend is ridiculous.

During a time when we have debate about whether the Democratic party is to serve the interests of the white middle class or of the mosaic that makes up America, justifying the use of such language makes clear where people stand on that issue. It contributes to an exclusionary politics, of the few and by the few.

I also find it wholly offensive that people are blaming and targeting women by repeating and justifying bigotry rather than taking their complaints to the administrators. It once again reaffirms my view that too many favor a society that promotes their own interests to the exclusion of the majority, a majority they feel fit to demean with bigoted language. Political views are not separate from language, and we see in this case they mirror each other precisely.

I find it unfortunate that some have used NYCSkp's banning to target the subaltern. Like so many other events that have transpired on this site, women and feminists in particular are again scapegoated, even though it was a man who banned NYCSkp. Thus we see the banning is merely pretext for the far more pernicious performance of privilege.

We live in a world where the population on this site is the minority, everywhere but on this little corner of the internet. In no place is America is the population so white, so elderly, and so affluent. What we witness here is angst about the changing demographics in American society and the fact that people now have to compete on a more equal playing field. So we have on one hand men telling women what their political concerns should be and who best represents their interests, and we have a similar demonstration by whites over people of color. We have post after post recalling the halcyon days of the Democratic party, of FDR and JFK, a party that served the interests of the white middle class to the exclusion of the majority. No matter how many times people have it pointed out that the party also supported Jim Crow in those years and that the majority of Americans were denied basic rights and lived in crippling poverty, a few continue to hearken back to a period when their own group prospered at the expense of the majority. Now we see that same determination to regain lost privilege through language. It is become crystal clear to me that I am witnessing a politics of exclusion posing as liberalism/leftism. The promotion and defense of bigoted language conforms with that exclusionary politics.