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Originally Posted by charleski
It's irrelevant that it was a typo.
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No, it is not irrelevant.
If you and I are stuffed onto an overcrowded subway car and I accidentally elbow you, it's just that: an accident. Happens all the time. If, on the other hand, I walk up to you and deliberately elbow you because I don't like how you part your hair, that's assault and battery. It is extremely relevant whether it was in fact a deliberate act to cause offense, an ignorant act by someone who didn't think it would cause offense, or a freaking typo that probably no human being even looked at before the books went to press. And it was #3.
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Anyone who thinks a recipe that calls for grinding up and eating black people isn't offensive obviously thinks that singing 'Shoot the Boer' isn't offensive either and couldn't possibly cause any harm. What could be offensive about shooting goats?
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When someone says "If you think X, you obviously think Y" any hope of civil conversation has ended.
If it had been a recipe that called for grinding up and eating black people, yeah, it would have been offensive. But it wasn't. It was a recipe that called for grinding up and eating black PEPPER. Not people. Pepper. First, all issues of typos aside, "freshly-ground beef" would not make sense in that particular recipe either. Nor any other sort of meat. That right there should be enough to know that "people" was an error, and the recipe was
not meant to suggest that people of any color be eaten. Second, if it had been intentional, there are a
lot of words they could have used other than "people" to make sure they were as offensive as they wanted to be. Seriously, have you ever heard a racist say "black people"? They've got plenty of other words they prefer, most of which would get them punched in the mouth in polite society.
In short, if someone was trying to (for some strange reason) make that recipe offensive, they did a pretty poor job of it.
"Ayasab' amagwala" is not the result of a typo. It is a song written with the specific intent of conveying a specific message. It's intended to create animosity, and if taken literally, to encourage violence. That's not a reaction to what someone might possibly interpret it as -- it was written for that exact purpose. It's no more accidental than the "Horst Wessel Lied" is, and no less offensive. There is no comparison. Trying to equate the two -- deliberately inflammatory and provocative lyrics compared to a typo that was
ridiculous in context -- does not make the people who disagree with you look wrong.
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Some of the replies on this thread are mind-bogglingly naive. You lot seriously need to get out more and realise that taking offence to something isn't an act, it's a a reaction to the fact that words have consequences.
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"Words have consequences" ... today's replacement, apparently, for "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me."
Taking offense
is an act of volition. It took me a very, very long time, and a great deal of pain, to learn that. (note: it's a bad idea to assume any sort of default background for any random forum poster; you're likely to be wrong) It took me a long time, but eventually I learned that I, and I alone, am in charge of what goes on in my mind. If I let an enemy upset me, then I let him control me. And I choose to not give marionette strings to people I detested. My life has been a lot happier since I cut those strings.
The big problem with the idea that abject apologies must be made any time someone of any of a number of groups takes offense at anything, no matter how innocent the cause, is this: It builds the perception that anyone who appears to be a member of such a group is weak, fragile, and lesser in some way than "regular" people (that is, the person doing the perceiving) -- much like my acquaintance in college, who simultaneously acquired countless empty apologies and a reputation as a flake. When someone feels that they have to watch everything they say around someone identified with some group, or have to pre-emptively apologize for any slip-up, that reinforces the sense of "other". There's "us", the regular people who can just talk, and there's "them", who have to be treated specially. That's divisive. And aren't we divided enough already?