Racial jokes, ethnic statements, hate speech

Hate speech is against the rules, and is a bannable offense – it always has been. Defining what is and what is not hate speech is not always easy, and rather than ask our moderators to make these distinctions, I suggest some easier ways to handle this.

There has been a fair amount of discussion about what some people have been calling racist comments lately. I have decided to create this page in order to open up a dialogue about these issues in one specific place. Look for info on this page to change, not just in the comments, but also for any discussion about changes to site policies in regard to disparaging comments. At this very moment, on Jan 20, 2012 I am not making any changes to the site policies or moderating procedures. I think our etiquette rules and terms of service already encompass what is needed, but I am open to discussing any lines that need to be redrawn.

It is my hope that having this discussion will do at least two things, first off make people more aware that some of their comments may affect people in ways that are unintended, for example a joke that may bring about really hurtful feelings in another. The second thing I hope we accomplish here is for people who find comments from others that are hurtful, to realize that not everyone who makes a joke or comment about a specific race, culture or sexual orientation, etc, is actually intending to cause emotional distress on all of those people who are affected.

Since we have had many comments already made around the blog section of the site (many recently and some from a while back) – I am going to post some excerpts here on this page – if you feel that your comments are taken out of context or you’d prefer your entire comment to be displayed instead, then send me a note and we can go from there. I had thought about just moving the comments to this page – but there are issues with doing that.

It is very difficult to draw lines between what is a joke without serious intent, and what is serious insult trying to hide behind an LOL. There are some matters that are easy to put on one side or another – but with many comments, it comes down to a matter or taste, or which side of which fence you sit on. It is very difficult for anyone to make judgements as to what is a joke and what is hate speech – it is a position that I wish our moderators were never put in, and I would ask that those of you who choose to make jokes that could disparage any race, religion, sexual orientation, culture, etc – please don’t. I also ask those of you who may find yourselves hurt by insensitive people posting comments that you may consider outrageous, that you find our magic block / iggy button and use it.

We will never stop all jokes that may be hurtful to some people, however you have the ability to stop others from filling your screen with things that you do not agree with but using block / iggy. With that in mind, perhaps we will have a page here that we can send people to so that they can consider how their speech is being interpreted by others, and consider changing the way they communicate in the open rooms and be a bit more sensitive to how others may feel about comments they are making.

Before I start excerpting others’ comments I want to point out a few things from my personal experiences.

Over the years I too have been exposed to racist jokes, ethnic generalities, hate speech, and racism. I have witnessed varying degrees of these things in person from other people directed at me, and directed at others. I have seen a fair share of these things in many media formats including movies, music, television, and on the internet. I really try avoid this kind of thing, and as to where I am an advocate for complete free speech, I also take action by not supporting the people who make fun or profit at the expense of subsets of people most of the time.

In my personal life, for some years I experienced people who would make jokes and statements about thin or skinny people, I even had close friends who would say things like “Hey slim”. After having discussions with these people about how that made me feel on the inside, they were blown away – they had not considered it to be a disparaging remark, in fact they were overweight and consciously thought what they were saying loudly was actually a compliment. Now that may be true, but I also think that sub-consciously they were making a statement to make me look less than perfect in other people’s eyes in order to make themselves feel better. I don’t have any proof of that – it’s just what I feel. After having the discussion with them, and explaining my own insecurities and issues, and how their statements made me feel even more so, and then showing them that it would be the same as me saying “hay fatty” would be inappropriate and perhaps hurtful to them, they took some time to think about it – and the”jokes” surrounding my skinnyness dropped off considerably – it did not eliminate it completely, as some habits are hard to break for people – but at least I was able to make it known, and I had some friends that were mature enough to listen to my issues completely, and consider how I felt – whether they thought it was warranted or not.

Now if you are gonna try to get other people you are not friends with on the internet to listen to you in this same way, I would say good luck, but really I would need to say I seriously doubt it – but who knows, maybe we will get a few people to reconsider how they are perceived and that will make things better. Just like the infamous challenge to the regs, some people will go along with it and some people will actually try to push the limits the other way even further just to rebel. That is why it is not my hope to change all the people who make tasteless jokes, but more my intention to change the reactions of those who feel jokes are made in a racist, intentionally hurtful manner.

I personally am not a big fan of comedy – I just find that much of it is not that great, and much of it makes laughs at the expense of subsets of people that is really not right. Not being a fan comedy is one thing, but being a proponent of free speech personally and professionally I need to defend the rights of comics to spew whatever speech they want – I may not like it, I may find it offensive, sexist, whatever, they have the right to scream whatever they want. I can of course choose not to listen and not to support them.

When we are moderating the sex chat rooms, it is really not our job to moderate taste, and what is bad humor and what is good humor. We already have enough work to do, and you as an individual user, and the groups of people in the various rooms all have the power to block / iggy people that you find offensive.

With that being said, if someone was to come into the room and start spewing out hate speech, and then logout, change names and come back to do more of the same – then they would be breaking other rules, and we would take action on that. So I am not saying that people have the ability to just start mouthing off about hate speech and we are okay with that. We already have rules about harassment, hate speech and many others.

The question becomes where are the lines for hate speech, what is seriously racially offensive, and such. I really do not want our moderators to have to get into this, as I do not think it is a simple thing to discern. Technically you could say that anyone saying something like “black guys have big dicks” is a racist statement. Hey, I agree, but remember this is a sex chat room, it’s not a “you must be politically correct talker in order stay in our church group” room. In order to have an open place where people can talk about things of a sexual nature, we need to be as open as possible, even if some of the discussions turn our stomachs.  I am sure that each and every one of us would like to talk about some sexual topic that others in the world would find offensive – in order to keep the place open for sharing sexual fantasies we need to realize that not everyone in the world would agree that our discussion is proper, so it is not up to us to start telling everyone else what is proper and what is not.

I have been offended by not just individual people and comedians, but also by TV series and entire music albums. There is media and speech out there that I would not want my kids listening to. I do not watch the Damon Wayans show in TV because I saw them portray a young black girl making a joke about hillbillies and a light bulb – I found it not only offensive and racial, but a serious offense to the intended audience who for so long have had grievances about racism. I will not watch that show again.

I have been offended by shows like sex in the city and the Seinfeld show, and found south park episodes to be particularly offensive on many occasions.  I do still watch those shows, but I do so telling myself that they are strictly for entertainment, and that the target audience for those shows are supposed to be adults that are mature enough to know that they are watching a show that is going to have controversial subjects presented in a one sided way for entertainment. The mature adults watching those shows should know that there will be some objectionable content, and that they are not portraying themselves as a fair and balanced news production, nor presenting scientific facts.

Another thing that I think we all need to consider is that some subsets of people are going to be much more sensitive to certain things, and be hurt more easily than others depending upon their race, culture, sex and age among other factors.

A black person growing up in America in the early 1900s is probably much more sensitive to certain words than someone who is black and turned 18 in 2011. I think it may be fair to say that a white person growing up in America these days does not find the words honkey or cracker to be a super-emotionally charged hate exchange of words, although I am guessing that someone who beat someone to death and used that words during or before the beating may fall under the hate crime statutes.

The definitions that I have read from wikipedia and the established definitions of racism according the UN are not what I see as being accurate in my local or from my time and experiences growing up. It may be technically correct by these established definitions to say that someone who makes a joke about an India person is speaking in a racist way. I do not think that claiming racism to these people is going to get a real dialogue going however, as I think many people consider racism to be something that they consider much more serious. Whatever the word, and the word may ‘ethnicism’, – it’s not really right or politically correct none-the-less, I only mention this so that people who genuinely want to have a conversation about this issue will find other terms to be better understood.

For those who find serious disgust with some of the jokes, let me assure you that most of these people do not know that they are being as hurtful as they are. Trust me on this, they really do not know. For those of you who are making simple jokes about Indian people or Tamils or the like, trust me when I tell you that you really do not know how hurtful and how serious these people are taking it. Just like many people do not know how hurtful they are being when they someone is too skinny, and how much that person may be feeling insecure and hurt and angry inside when such statements are made.

I have been quite surprised to learn just how offensive many people in India take things, I was fortunate enough to have one Indian person contact me through email and explain some things about the use of the flag of India – and some other issues, I had to really step back and try to understand this to learn about it – as I come from a where where if you wanted to pee on a flag and call it art, well, that’s free speech in America. You may not like what some idiot is saying, or some artist, or some smart professor or preacher or politician, but you shrug off the offense, that’s free speech which is American. So I have been really trying to understand the mindset of others, and I know that I really won’t be able to fully 100% understand the immense pride and sensitivity that people in India have when it comes to certain things, but I do feel that I have come to understand more, and I am open to learning and adapting some things.

Please understand that the information on this page DOES NOT REPRESENT SITE POLICY. The comments and statements that I am making here are just some discussion points, ideas, thoughts and feelings that I (Nash) have. My comments on this page are not meant to represent the site, or the people who run or use this site. The comments made here are not complete, just some random thoughts put together to have a mature discussion. Nothing on this page should be considered indicative of the site admins or policy in any way. The comments I make on this page are personal, not my professional opinion.

Enough about me, I have several more personal things I would like to bring up here, but I have been accused of rambling too long many times. So maybe I will add some more in the comments below. There is so much to write and say on these subjects, that I am not sure I can even keep my thoughts in a proper order on one page. I am going to paste some comments on this discussion now.

snowhite™ says:

January 17, 2012 at 3:00 pm

Hey nash, just wanted to draw your attention to the ever increasing racist tamil comments in the room. The situation was as precarious in the past, as i have witnessed many instances where such comments were being made against indians in general, resulting in more provocation and more racist arguments as they tried to defend themselves. The situations prevails today, the only difference being that earlier those comments were being made about indians now its about the tamil. My point is, how far superior than them are we? *smh*

Sex Chat Admin says:

January 18, 2012 at 7:04 am

snowhite – I am sorry that some users are coming off as hateful or hurtful. I imagine that those who were engaging in that kind of discussion were not aware of the hurt that could be caused by others. I hope that’s not the case anyway.

I have been searching comments for the past hour trying to find where another user had posted that it wasn’t so much racism as ethnic-ism or something like that. I really wish I could find that comment and get that word that he used! Must find that word!

Searching through the comments for similar words I have come across several bits of discussion about this issue and similar issues. I am considering making a single blog page about this issue, or perhaps a forum threaded comment section in the forums may be better. The blog pages seem to be easier or faster or more comfortable for the users, so perhaps a blog page about racism, hurtfull comments, hate speech, etc.

There are some fine lines with all of these issues, and things can quickly turn from being jokes to being hate speech, and even if jokes do not cross a line into hate speech, they can still be hurtful. I see all kinds of comedy in mass media that is quite offensive to certain sub sets of people, including my self, and others.

Now I was not in the room or to see the exact comments that were made, and I would not want anyone to have to start to judge what is acceptable jokes and what things go too far.

I do think that we should have a discussion area and way to educate other users about sensitive issues if they begin to become hurtfull to people then we could send them to another page to learn how some may find their comments particularly hurtful or offensive.

without knowing what was said (although I have been getting various notes from people about this particular exchange, via comments here, emails, and discussion in the mods only discussion area) – I can not make any judgments myself.

I would also like to quickly note, that when I hear (and I am guessing a lot of other people in this country perhaps?), the word racism or racist it brings a while different thing to mind, so we need to really perhaps discuss this as hate speech or hateful, or grrr what was that ethnic-ism word.

I want to finish this, but having an issue here in Vegas, gotta run and don’t want to erase and re-write – more later.

Tom™ says:

January 19, 2012 at 3:19 am

I have a hard time with the term “hate speech.” Especially when everyone deserves respect.

Therefore, attention to people or groups based on their race, language, or sexual orientation is irrelevant to the matter. Prejudicial comments for any reason is wrong and should be dealt with fairly.

Probably one of the best examples comes from a clip I found in South Park of all places. I actually used it in a blog post once for an assignment. I post it here from South Park Studios:

http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/151849/the-free-eric-cartman-now-committee

I know that often many of the users on this site do not come from similar backgrounds and make easy targets. Right away from their grammar and sentence structure they are judged. That is ok. Any interactions with others is free will on both sides.

Other cultures is something that should be enjoyed. However, the problem with interacting with any culture or dissenting opinion is that you have to be humble on both sides. Not too overbearing in what is hurtful and not hurting others.

There really is no way of solving these problems. Otherwise you have to sit here and come up with a list of vocab the offensive. There has to be a trust in a relationship for jokes. Jokes can push into harassment, for any reason, harassment should not be tolerated.

snowhite™ says:

January 19, 2012 at 7:22 am

Dear nash, ty for taking out time to leave a reply. You may term it as hate speech, racist or hurtful comments – I only have the smooth running of the chat in mind. I used the ‘superior’ word earlier because I don’t think its nice to be making hurtful comments like that or to be demeaning someone. Or we wouldn’t be called civilized. I know this issue has preoccupied a few others as well. It is true that those people are the ones that flood the hell out of the lobby most of the time. But well, we have our iggy button which works wonders!

I know some people who have had to be warned 2-3 times by the mods and have been asked to stop making such kind of comments(I do not want to state names here, they know who they are). Despite that, the tamil jokes (notoriously known as “tamil virgin joke” amongst others) still continue in the room and believe me, its not funny.

For instance, when I was in the room on Monday, “Pongal” a festival being celebrated in South India that day was being mentioned in the lobby. I believe they had a public holiday on that day. However, as may be expected, there were some users in the room who did not know what “Pongal” was all about. Then a little later, there was someone trying to explain that it was a festival celebrated by (I quote) “you know who” ,i.e, the tamil people. Not sure if you find such comments acceptable. I personally think it was referred to with contempt.

Too bad I don’t have the saved chat sessions where such offensive comments were being hurled at people or you would have it in your inbox by now.

Last but not least, I think your idea of having a blog page concerning this particular issue and the like rocks.

Thank you once again 🙂

wolverine7512 says:

January 19, 2012 at 8:33 am

i completely agree with snowhite. One must warn these kind of people. Rather ill say, throw them away from this site completely

Caliope says:

January 19, 2012 at 2:06 am (Edit)

‘My point is, how far superior than them are we? *smh*’

Hmm… clear as mud.

Who are ‘them’ and who are ‘we’…?

And isn’t this whole issue CAUSED because of ideas of ethnic (NOT racial) ‘superiority’…?

And the words that might be fitting, Nashi are ‘xenophobic’: fear of anything foreign… or ‘ethnicism’, which is prejudice based on ethnic origin…

And THANK-YOU for making the distinction with the issue of race.

<stuffs her mouth with dick and hushes….

xxx

Yumster 25 says:

January 20, 2012 at 4:49 am

Ok..

Adding my loud mouth to this discussion..

This segregation of them and us is worse than the whole new reg old reg thing…

For starters, this whole thing is brought up because of the recent flooding of “regs” making the comments “I’m a Tamil virgin”…

Ok, so yes… they have started it.. not every reg does it.. but it’s a joke.. NOT laughing at any race or ethnicity.. Making light of the fact that at certain times, there is a flood of the same request in the lobby..

Do Americans get mad when people make jokes about trailer park trash….? Is this where we start cutting down on what people say all together… Like can people not say to me “G’day mate” or “you beauty” (insert weird Aussie accent the Americans come up with) or worse “Crikey”….

This is beginning to become censorship at its worst..

Like, controlling almost everything that a person says in a free room.. This is just making a mods’ work soooo much harder.

Sorry… but to me, this comes back to, if you don’t like the words coming from one person, filter… and BLOCK. Problem solved..

You can chose what shit you read on your screen.. Seriously..

Do we really need another person (a mod) controlling what we read…? if it offends you, block it..

Now.. I would like to point out, I am not talking racist/hate speech.. that shit is fucked up.. I am talking simple jokes..

I mean, ffs.. I often refer to myself as bogan.. Some Aussies take offence to that..

Point being, this is getting out of hand…

We are relying on a mod to control what we see, when we can fix it ourselves!!! If the jokers are getting racist, then the mod can kick, because they are breaking the rules..

I have to say, if this shit keeps going, I am following Cali’s lead and removing my arse from the shit.. and I fear a lot more of the regs will do the same.

Probably lost my point amongst all my dribble… but shit happens..

Basically… “I am responsible for what I say…. NOT what you hear” You take what I say and do with it what you wish, but only I know what I really mean. If you choose to get offended by my comments, suck it up and deal with it, or block me..

Cheers 😀

cuey87(PC’s_(M)unchkin says:

January 20, 2012 at 2:52 pm

I completely agree with what YM just said. Every last word. I’d type more but i’d just end up repeating YM’s post. 😛

American Honey says:

January 19, 2012 at 9:12 am

I just have to say that I find it very very offensive for anyone to be permitted to rant and rave and verbally abuse others in the lobby for no reason at all.

I know this has happened before but when particularly the Mods are abused and verbally attacked, I believe they should have some recourse to take actions against such people.

I also highly advocate using the BLOCK BUTTON or just plain ignoring them and not fueling the fire and I will continue anyone else who engages in such discussions to either use the BLOCK BUTTON or ignore them and not to fuel the fire.

If someone comes in and continually is kicked for being abusive and uses other ip addresses to continue to engage in such activity, I believe it is at that point that action should definitely be taken to permanently ban them. There has to be a point at which such verbal abuse should not be tolerated and action should be taken. I know everyone has the right to free speech but I must say that the whole tone of the lobby is changed and it is not a pleasant environment. I do not condone others getting into arguments with an ignorant abusive person. It only drags them down to that person’s level and doesn’t portray them in a good light.

I do not believe that someone should be permanently banned for a few off-color comments but when it goes on for days and days at no end, I do believe at that point something really should be done about it.

Thanks for listening to me!!! Have a great day!!!

HuggingMikey says:

January 19, 2012 at 6:37 pm

Hi all,

Once again having to find myself posting something, despite being wary to, this post may upset people and it is my personal feelings and not necessaries the sites. So here goes.

I hate hate talk of all kinds whether racism, anti-gay, sexism, no matter what, I think it is wrong. Full STOP.

So on to the racism Whether people think the Tamil girl thing is a joke or NOT, I find it to be racist, this morning I 24 hr kicked on person for extreme racial hate talk when I warned him against it and he thought he would be smart and still continue he is lucky not to be perma banned. Nash details are in the mods page and I have the full chat log.

The chat rules I find to be clear “Hate speech, religious topics, and political conversations are not permitted in the public rooms. If you want to discuss such topics you may create another room. Examples: Government Leaders. Current wars. Racism. Attacking any Faith

Promoting any religion” Nash I think we should also add no attacking any sexual preference too

As a few people have said “Can we make statements on users” for example ladylikes name and people asking her if she is a guy, of course I am not implying people can’t but after a few statements it does cross a line, this Tamil joke has gone on for a few weeks therefore it has crossed a line in my opinion also in the site policy as stated it is making fun of them, also had one user this morning state “it is not racism if it is true”I find that to be totally wrong and ill thought out. Why do I think that, well first of all I believe in free speech it is important I also believe you can’t defend ideas you have in just a short sentence and sweeping statement like that.

Part 2 follows I wanted to break it up.

HuggingMikey says:

January 19, 2012 at 6:40 pm

1)the most important thing is to recognize each other’s humanity, not to degrade and stereotype entire groups of people based on the behavior of a few.

2)People should not be judge on skin color. ethic background etc.

3) A person is a person no matter where their come from in the world, no matter where we all have the same needs we all need food and drink to survive.

4)In history inventions and great ideas have come from all over the globe just think on that for a second please where would we be without them.

5)I bet if people reading this think of their circle of friends that some come from different cultures.

6)just think your 10 best friends from chat, what part of the world their come from, how you would feel if someone was attacking them, just for where their came from.

7) to quote Martin Luther King”I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation

where they will not be judged by the color of their skin,

but by the content of their character.”

– Martin Luther King, I Have a Dream Quote

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Have_a_Dream

Some people may be reading this and thinking it’s just a sex site, I think that we should all have standards treat people the way we want ourselves and friends to be treated

I am glad people are talking about this issue I do think that helps, like Snowy I think a blog about this would rock.

Just my thoughts on the matter.

Hugs & high 5′s.

Mikey.

 

Another couple of comments to consider:

Buffalo Lawyer

Submitted on 2009/12/26 at 1:11 am

These rules, while seemingly benevolent, often allow for abuses by those enforcing them and the individuals they are also pertaining to.

Take “Hate Speech” for example (which is not allowed). The brief definition of this term is: is speech perceived to disparage a person or group of people based on their social or ethnic group,[1] such as race, gender, age, ethnicity, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, language ability, ideology, social class, occupation, appearance (height, weight, skin color, etc.), mental capacity, and any other distinction that might be considered by some as a liability.

I am a Buffalo. On many occasions, my client’s gender identity (which is difficult to determine) has been attacked on several occasions. This is mainly because my client is a Buffalo as well. Additionally, my client’s language ability and mental capacity have been subjected to blatant verbal assaults.

Despite the obvious–and almost unanimous–hatred for the Buffalo, it is almost an unwritten rule that those who disparage the Buffalo are immune from punishment. In contrast, a Buffalo doing the same (usually in self-defense) is either immediately warned or banned. XX_(m), a moderator, has proven such instances to be true.

There many other instances of this double standard, but I cannot divulge into them at the moment. I will say that the inconsistency to regulate these etiquette rules and TOS not only undermine their existence, but is subversive to the very ideals the moderators attempt to enforce.

It’s time for change. It’s time for hope.

It’s time for Buffalo equal rights.

A while back I had gotten an email from someone who saved a chat transcript and complained about a particular user who was making comments that another one of our users felt was hurtful and racist. After reading the chat log I could instantly see that I did not think the comments were hateful, or even being that mean so I crafted a draft to reply with,

Thank you for taking the time to write about your concerns.

I agree that there are many times that users say things in the chat rooms that are quite offensive. I have seen people say some really absurd things, and the prejudice and racial things are about the most rude and ignorant things that are talked about.

I can certainly see how the comments in the text you sent me can be considered hurtful and ignorant.

I have seen plenty of racism here in the United States over the decades and it comes in varying degrees.

After reading the comments you sent in, at least it appears that the racial comments made in this situation are more bout annoyances than hatred. This is not to say that comments such as these are not harmful, and that comments such as these could spiral into more people jumping onto a bandwagon thinking it’s okay to bash groups of people and things could get uglier. So it is something that we should address and try to minimize.

I am also glad that you see and understand how other users could feel that most annoying flooders are mostly from in or around India – I am not sure that is 100% accurate, but over the years I can certainly see that we get many more users from countries that do not have English as the primary language who seem to do a lot of annoying issues in the room such as repeating the same letter many timessssssss and repeating the same thing over and over again.

( I need a girl, talk to meeeeee

I need a girl, talk to meeeeee

I need a girl, talk to meeeeee

)

I have been working on some things to minimize this, and there is much more work to be done, however I think it is going to take a concerted effort on the part of not just the site admins and moderators, but also on the users who are from different parts of the world to educate their neighbors on how they are not only being perceived as being annoying but also making their other neighbors look bad – in fact many of the flooders in the India (And other parts of the Asian areas) – are getting entire ranges of IP banned that stop the flooders, along with many of their neighbors who may not be flooders from using our services. I also think it is going to take a concerted effort of our regular users to try to engage these people with a bit of patience and try to educate rather than chastise entire groups of people. This is one reason I wrote the challenge to the regs – which has helped.

Even though I think we are doing much better at handling each individual user who needs educating, of course there is room to improve – but really I can only make firm changes with how the admins of the site behave, I can suggest and try to educate the regular users – but I can not control them – I have tried to make it easy for everyone to block and ignore people with whom they disagree with, and I suggest you may want to use that fucntion with people who tend to come off as being racially biased.

This is not to say that we condone hate speech – and I can see how those certain comments could come off as that – but let me assure you, that having experience seeing hate speech and racial slurs here in the US and reading the comments made in the text that was sent, there is actually quite a gap there – the comments from XX may have been overly broad, but they were opinions, and they may have been hurtful to those who took issue with them, but I did not see the kind of hate speech in them that we would perhaps see from some of the extremist KKK kind of people who just blanket spew hate about black people or whatever they do – there is actually a pretty big gap between what XX was saying about how it seems all flooders come from India – and someone who would say all should die or not be allowed to breathe the same chat room air or something.

Sorry this is kind of jumbled responses in different areas and may not be complete thoughts, and certainly not complete resolutions – unfortunately each situation is going to be different, and as soon as I try to say “well this one thread with gar talking may not be appropriate, and may be in bad taste, but does not break a firm rule of the site” – does not mean that that person will not be back and take things further, or incite others to take things further and then cause a disruption that does lead to people breaking a firm rule – so it is something that we need to keep a closer eye on, and discuss.

As I mentioned above, I think we need a concerted effort on the parts of everyone in the chat room to make things better, certainly this is part of the challenge to the regs, and it is also going to be part of the upcoming challenge to noobs when I get that video and page made up.

and after I wrote this draft I took another moment to reflect on the issue and to think about how this person could feel that these statements were hurtful or constituted hateful speech – I just did not see it that way. So I thought to myself more about the feelings of this user and try to really understand where they were coming from, and I now realize that maybe this person was really feeling some hurt, or pain, and not just for himself or his own pride or ego, but that it is somehow linked to a perceived attack on his tribe, his people. I am starting to get that now. However, as there are people who have asked me to consider these things, I would also ask of you to consider some things as well. Most of the time people making statements like that do not really think that “all India people are …..” – they are also not intending to be hurtful to all people from India.

Personally the way I see it, a lot of people who find their way to our chat room here from India are kind of like teenagers that I am familiar with here in the states. Not don’t take this the wrong way! I am not saying ALL and I am not saying teenager in the aspect of being immature or anything – what I am trying to point out, is that here in the US we frequently make statements about “kids today” – or those crazy teens, and stuff like that – “Kids today” easily encompasses young adults, and people who are upwards of 30 years old who tool around town bumping to some hardcore rap, or whatever is on popular radio these days. I say a lot of people from other countries who find themselves here are similar to how we bitch and complain about the younger generation in several ways – when a younger person first gets their hands on some porn they tend to act out about it differently then say I would if I got a hold of a playboy today. I can not muster the excitement that younger people feel when they get their first few experiences at a strip club, or on a sex site, or with some dirty music, nor can I muster the energy that they put into singing and dancing and all the crazy stuff the younger generation does with these coming of age things. We might call them crazy, or complain about the way they act, or their clothes, or the way they communicate.  Does that mean that we think all younger people are crazy – no. We know that there are plenty of smart and mature young people in the world today – it’s just that we are not pointing them out. I guess in some ways we may be a bit jealous that there are those who still get so excited at the prospect of talking to girls that it annoys us and makes us comment about it – oh I dunno, think I am breaking my earlier though about rambling. So, I did not complete that thought, hope I am not leaving it as offensive, we have a tornado warning here, going to have to log off for a bit. More on this later.

 

another thing – please read or re-read the challenge to the regs here. This offers more information about why I challenge users to use the block button to silence others they do not want to hear, and why I also challenge people to reconsider how their comments are perceived by others. This issue may actually be covered by the info posted there. We will also be working on a new challenge to the noobs which will have additional important information for everyone to consider.

 

2 thoughts on “Racial jokes, ethnic statements, hate speech”

  1. Hi Nash,

    I agree with most of what’s been said in the post. I have attended workshops on cross-cultural sensitivity as a part of my job. I understand things can be interpreted in a way that wasn’t the intention of the original speaker.

    But this particular Tamil joke started when several users began spamming asking for the same thing over and over. I have witnessed some of the comments during its first few days. I haven’t seen it being said in the sense that anyone else is better than all Tamil people.

    I still think this was perceived as racist rather than actually meant as one. By accusing people of racism or hate speech when there wasn’t any, we are alienating them. We also see Irish, Scottish or blonde jokes all around without people taking offense. IMO, this issue was blown out of proportion.

    I love comedies. I see sense of humor as a way of connecting with people. There’s so much drama in real life already, that when I want entertainment, I want something that makes me laugh. We probably need to lighten up a bit and be able to laugh at ourselves. It makes life so much easier.

    Rules are required to the extent that they help to maintain normalcy and not let the chat descend into utter chaos. But I’ve always felt that compelling someone to conform only makes them rebel more. My concern is that this might widen the gap that already exists.

    I wasn’t online during the Pongal talk that’s been referred to, so I’m not sure about what went on. But curiosity about unknown is only natural. I have asked friends about Easter and frankly I still don’t know what chocolate eggs have to do with anything.

    Either way, if it has created so much controversy, then it is probably good that the joke has stopped in the lobby. But sadly, I’m not sure how much has coming down on this helped Indians.

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