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Harrison remark, Intentional?

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MililaniBuckeye said:
There are a [Mark May]-ton of Italian Americans in Youngstown, and I was raised that "wap" and "dago" were derogatory. In fact, when I told this joke in front of my parents in the late '60s (I think I was 11 or 12 at the time, and actually heard it from a black kid in school), I got grounded:

"You can tell if your tires are made in Italy, because dago through mud, dago through snow, and when dago flat dago go wap, wap, wap"...
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Times have changed apparently.
 
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Laughing my azz off here Mili! [QUOTE="MililaniBuckeye, post: "You can tell if your tires are made in Italy, because dago through mud, dago through snow, and when dago flat dago go wap, wap, wap"...[/QUOTE]
 
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Here is a fun wikipedia listing of racial terms which have been "reappropriated" by various ethnic groups:

Race and ethnicity[edit]
To a lesser extent, and more controversially among the groups referred to, many racial, ethnic, and class terms have been reappropriated:
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I'm just having trouble buying the argument that any of these ever carried as much historical/cultural weight as the "N-word" (or that any others have been "reappropriated" for the sake of provocation/confrontation in quite the same way). "Queer" is an interesting case study as a comparison, but somehow I don't think the "n-word" is going to show up in the titles of any academic departments in our lifetimes.
 
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The only term I've ever seen protest about and days of media coverage and cries of dismissal from teams and organizations are Indian references and the N word. I've never heard anyone use an Indian reference badly.
I've never seen threats issued except for the N word. I repeat, if "they " want the use of the word stopped they have to stop using it them selves. I've seen in here that Blacks don't use the word in a bad way between them selves, well thats BS. Ive heard it used by a very Black to a lighter skinned Black in a derogaratory manner. Yes there is racism between Blacks. One other thin how about when they call each other whitey, or white bread? is that ok too?
 
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BayBuck said:
Here is a fun wikipedia listing of racial terms which have been "reappropriated" by various ethnic groups:



I'm just having trouble buying the argument that any of these ever carried as much weight as the "N-word" (or that any others have been "reappropriated" for the sake of provocation/confrontation in quite the same way). "Queer" is an interesting case study as a comparison, but somehow I don't think the "n-word" is going to show up in the titles of any academic departments in our lifetimes.
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Should scope or magnitude have any relevance to a group's privilege to reclaim a pejorative used against them? If anything, I think it only strengthens any possible claim to it as well as any assertion that its usage remain exclusive to that particular group.
 
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BayBuck said:
I'm just having trouble buying the argument that any of these ever carried as much historical/cultural weight as the "N-word" (or that any others have been "reappropriated" for the sake of provocation/confrontation in quite the same way). "Queer" is an interesting case study as a comparison, but somehow I don't think the "n-word" is going to show up in the titles of any academic departments in our lifetimes.
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None of those terms even come close. Also, although I've seen the term "redneck" go from insult to something embraced by southern/country folk, I've never seen anyone refer to themselves as "white trash".
 
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Best Buckeye said:
The only term I've ever seen protest about and days of media coverage and cries of dismissal from teams and organizations are Indian references and the N word. I've never heard anyone use an Indian reference badly.
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Perhaps we don't run into as many casual examples with Native Americans because their populations and cultures were systematically dismantled, assmilated, and very nearly eradicated.
 
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jlb1705 said:
Should scope or magnitude have any relevance to a group's privilege to reclaim a pejorative used against them? If anything, I think it only strengthens any possible claim to it as well as any assertion that its usage remain exclusive to that particular group.
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Actually, I think the true goal of "reappropriation" is to redefine these terms so that they are used in an empowering way, and not to remain exclusive to that particular group (see "queer", "hoosier", "redneck", "guido"). Racial exclusivity is what first gave those words their power, and to justify its reappropriation as tit-for-tat is simply childish -- which is of course how the "n-word" is currently used, by the immature and the hypocritical. IMO this is not a goal that is realistically attainable for the "n-word".
 
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