>Has Charles ever used racist terms to refer to himself?
I don't believe so
>I consider your
>background/'identity'/etc irrelevant to this discussion.
Well, certainly agree that it should not be used to claim, "i'm right" just because of who I am. Just as a queer isn't right just because she self-identifies as a queer. If that's what you mean... but is that what you mean?
I guess I was surprised, after everything I've written on the topic, that you'd prefer to accuse me of harboring stereotypical attitudes about "rednecks". It would have been one thing had you said, "Kell, I know that you've written about these issues and I know you don't think the things that your use of the term redneck implies, but ...."
I'm sure there are people who thought it was wrong for Jeff Foxworthy to do his, "You know you're a redneck if....", stand up comedy routine, but I don't know any of them. It's certainly not troubling to the guy who fixed my plumbing last month who stated, "I'm a redneck." He wasn't calling himself something bad, he was identifying with something he'd overheard me say on the phone about police treatment of certain kinds of white people around these here parts. And he was saying it to someone who he couldn't necessarily be sure was _also_ a redneck. In fact, my experience 'round heeyah is that if you "talk no'then" then you'll automatically be assumed to be "not one of us."
As Charles pointed out, the use of the racist terms to self-identify is a topic of debate among blacks. Where I lived for the past 5 years, every black person I knew called other blacks and, sometimes, themselves terms that _I_ would never say unless I was repeating what someone said, like on this list when I've reported people using the term in a derogatory fashion and my disgust that it's happening at all in 2003 let alone 1983. I'm sorry, btw, Charles if you thought that was wrong. We should have a separate conversation about that because I'm interested in learning more about how you feel about it.
(NB: of course, when blacks around here use the term, they say "nig" or "nigga" which is reappropriating the term, changing it's pronunciation ever so slightly, and throwing the word back out there so it loses some of its power as a term of derision.)
That said, I call myself lezbean all the time. I use chick, babe, broad, bitch, cunt. There's a feminist magazine called, "Bitch." I use homo, queer, fag -- regularly on this list -- in the same way those terms have been reappropriated and thrown back in the faces of those who used to use those words against them. Not everyone in the Queer Community (sorry Joe!) thought that was the right thing to do or think it is now--or even think there is such a thing as a Queer Community.
At 06:33 PM 2/27/2004, you wrote:
>>I AM a redneck. I was calling myself a redneck.
>
>You did not refer to yourself as a redneck but rather you typed "i'm from
>upstate redneck new york". I might have thought you would have covered
>basic composition before graduate school.
I'm afeared yo gonna have to lick your calf over. I _intended_ to write that for reasons I gave you'n.
(Of course, creative snipping on your part was far preferable wasn't it? That way, you could simply insult me rather than deal with what I wrote.)
What's more interesting, to me, is that it didn't occur to three of you that I might BE a redneck. If I'd been talking about "the ghetto" and had said, "I'm from the ghetto" in order to justify my use of ghetto language, would you necessarily think that I'm disparaging people from the ghetto? Or would you think I'm _identifying_ (even if ambivalently) with people from "the ghetto"?
>>You might want to know, too, that in Florida people proudly call
>>themselves cracker.
>
>You might want to know that an African American roommate of mine called
>himself n-word. You must believe that it is only racist for me to say that
>word and not for him.
You just did. I don't think your use of it is racist, though just like me and everyone in this country, we're racist. Now Charles has indicated he's troubled by the use of it at all, even if it's reporting what someone else has said.
Is my use of the term class racism? I'm not sure it is, since it didn't come along with any stereotyped attitudes about an entire group of people, and is, in fact, used by me in the same way my plumber used it (not as a term of pride, but matter of fact recognition of the dynamics of race and class in this part of the nation).
While Dawson is correct that some folks wouldn't have appreciated my messing around with language, I was pointing out that I wasn't necessarily mocking that language since I can speak it if I so choose.
After all is said and done, you may choose to think I'm a classist and racist for using the term. We disagree. But more important, I think the impetus behind the thread is wrongheaded. I'll quote Angela who said it far better than I: "what would it hurt other than my leftist pride if someone said i was being racist? i'll ask for evidence and i will most likely debate it, but it doesn't destroy my sense of self. why should it? what do i stand to lose other than my fantasy of being outside ideology?"
More wisdom from Angela, whom I wholeheartedly agree with:
those who are often most keen to dispense their judgements on others are absolutely unwilling to countenance such implications in regard to themselves, thus flying in the face of what they simultaneously assert about the ubiquity of racism and sexism. and it's this initial judgement that i would say yes, is indeed about enjoyment: that is, the enjoyment of distinction, superiority, the fantasy of being outside fantasy... a fantasy held onto at all cost, including a refusal to deal at all with what they claim they are most concerned with: racism, sexism, etc.
i happen to think there is always space for that discussion and debate, and i would much prefer it if it was banalised by a recognition that racism and sexism permeates what we do here than to shift it into the realm of rhetorical insult (as if it is some kind of wilful malevolence), which is largely and unfortunately where it remains now. and, it's as insult that it becomes enjoyment and the basis for identification, both for those who do the calling and those who are called. that is, there should always be a debate and discussion on whether or not some comment or perspective is racist. what happens more often than not however is that discussion is halted, usually at the line of 'if a woman says x is sexist then it is true'; this is all too troubling so we should stop now; 'you are being racist when you say x'; 'you are/you aren't'; etc...
Kelley