Actually, n-word is offensive if said by a white person; around here, riding the bus in the 'hood, n-word is basically a pronoun if said by an African American. It's not a terribly polite pronoun, but it's a pronoun. Example comments: "N-word said .... and Bitch did..."
That absolutely does NOT make it appropriate for Ralph to be using the term Uncle Tom. Could Ralph POSSIBLY have come up with something more offensive? I do not want to think about ... Yet another reason he can be permanent scold and not personally much more.
That said, a campaign to pay for health insurance for citizens before paying bonuses out of bailout funds COULD be sort of on-target. Or single-payer as a counterweight to people privatizing social security and twitching about Medicare solvency could be an interesting exercise--not one I want to take on, but....
DC
On Wed, Nov 5, 2008 at 5:31 PM, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> On Nov 5, 2008, at 8:23 PM, John Thornton wrote:
>
> James Heartfield wrote:
>>
>>> It wasn't that bad a choice of words, and a reasonable political point.
>>> Uncle Tom to the corporations that run the system, he said. It might sound
>>> like race-baiting, if you are of a mind to read it that way, but I don't
>>> think it was.
>>>
>>
>> Are you joking or clueless?
>> Perhaps as a Brit you don't realize that calling Obama an Uncle Tom is
>> hugely ugly?
>> Maybe it has different social baggage in the UK?
>> Not as bad a ni**er but not too far off either.
>>
>
> And it overshadows Ralph's bizarre contrast of Uncle Tom with Uncle Sam. I
> thought Uncle Sam was an imperialist. When did he become such a good guy?
>
> Doug
>
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