You can almost see his brain saying EJECT EJECT EJECT!!!!
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Because I might be an ignorant moron, if someone had asked me where I had learned that phrase, I would have probably said “Looney Tunes” and up until now, I would not have put 2 and 2 together and linked it to racism.
Yeah, you can indeed see Lou doing the “eject eject eject”, but my fear is I would have continued in ignorance so at least he was learned enough to understand the path his mouth was leading him on.
Wait, hold up a second…. Condi Rice says America has a fundamental “birth defect.”
So………..she agrees with Jeremiah Wright?
Why does Condi hate America?
Hm.
I’m in the same boat as Jerry. Personally, I find it amusing that this is the first time I’ve ever heard anybody use the phrase outside of a Looney Toon.
What makes me laugh about this, even though it isn’t really funny is that Dobbs proves his own point wrong. When you think of how many other phrases and expressions we use commonly have some root in slavery or racism, it’s obvious that what Rice said, and what Wright said and what Obama said is all true. We still have race issues in this country and regardless, someone like Lou Dobbs will never have the ability to legitimately claim otherwise. His own mistake proves that he has also been tainted by this “defect” and isn’t even aware of it until it practically falls out of his mouth.
The way CNN features Dobbs has become extremely weird. I don’t watch very often, but it’s almost like having your cranky, conservative father-in-law in the room watching the news with you.
Blitzer or one of the anchors will report something, then they defer to Dobbs to fulminate for a minute or two. Then they go right on with the news.
“What makes me laugh about this, even though it isn’t really funny is that Dobbs proves his own point wrong.”
Exactly. In the middle of lambasting those who would presume to police his speech, he almost blurts out a phrase that, in the context, would definitely have had racial and racist overtones. Is Lou Dobbs a racist? Who knows. Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and say, probably not. But his near slip is a classic example of how deeply embedded racism is in our language and our subconscious. What’s interesting is that Dobbs censored himself here because he knew, as it was coming out of his mouth, that it was an inappropriate phrase in the context, but it was what his off-the-cuff, subconscious brain handed to him.
Everyone gets instantly defensive if it’s suggested that they might be racially insensitive in some way or another, but the fact of the matter is that racism operates on and in all of us as Americans, because it is so deeply embedded in our culture. Point this out and you risk an aggressive, defensive backlash witnessed most obviously among the hard-right whites who took Obama’s call for an open dialogue about race as an invitation to vocalize directly the racial epithets and racist attitudes that they’ve been otherwise expressing through euphemisms and veiled reference.
What would be far more constructive and positive if everyone paused to reflect on the ways that racism might shape their thinking and attitudes, draw it to the surface, recognize it and address it. I don’t think there isn’t a single adult person of good will, of any race, in this country who wouldn’t come out of the process more self-aware, more sensitive and more committed to constructive change.
Dobbs was in full-blown defensive mode when his own subconscious fucked him up. If Dobbs were smart, he’d reflect on the near gaffe, talk openly and honestly with some of the very people he was attacking about what he found and do a report on the process.
I won’t hold me breath.
…if someone had asked me where I had learned that phrase, I would have probably said “Looney Tunes” and up until now, I would not have put 2 and 2 together and linked it to racism.
Not that you’re an ignorant moron, Jerry, but this is another example of the point I make above. You first heard the phrase in a cartoon, probably as a child, and so naturally assumed it was innocent and innocuous. Our popular perception of the medium in which you first heard it — the animated cartoon — probably had as much to do with that assumption as anything else. What, after all, could be more innocent than a Looney Tunes cartoon?
As reflections of the popular culture and consciousness of their time, however, Hollywood cartoons were often far from innocent by today’s standards:
http://looney.goldenagecartoons.com/ltcuts/ltcuts11.html
The list of cartoons at the link are obviously some of the most egregious examples of Hollywood racist caricature, in part, because their racism is visualized in the images and present in the narratives themselves. While those 11 cartoons would be inappropriate to show today on a Saturday morning kids show (which is not to say they wouldn’t still be totally appropriate a proper educational setting where context can be provided) other cartoons, with less explicit imagery and scenarios, but which use phrases and language with racist roots appear on TV all the time because the original meaning of the phrases has receded from contemporary, pop culture memory. Receded, but not disappeared. All it takes is the right context and suddenly that innocent gag from your favorite childhood cartoon suddenly reveals itself as something much more sinister.
That’s essentially what seems to have happened to Dobbs.
It still amazes me that anyone who denies the existence of that “birth defect” is taken seriously. It’s something a C student in middle school American history knows. The framers of the Constitution debated for months about slavery–and couldn’t figure out what to do.
The compromise that permitted the formation of the Union was the first step toward our Civil War. And anybody who thinks that has been settled hasn’t been to the South at any time, ever.
But I also feel terrible that I wrote: “ignorant moron” missing the opportunity to write “maroon.”
So at what point does something, like “cotton-picking” move from being a racist comment to just another common idiom?
Do I occasionally say “Now wait just a cotton-pickin minute” because racism is so ingrained in me that I don’t know when I’m expressing it? Or, having learned it from Foghorn Leghorn who’s stereotype origin was completely unknown to me as a 5-year-old watching Saturday cartoons, does it hold no more meaning, overt or subliminal, than muttering “rassin’ frassin’ mumbley mumble” which I picked up from Snidely Whiplash’s dog and the Wacky Racers?
Hom many generations must pass before inviting someone to “chow down” no longer has any racial overtone? Before schmoozing with someone isn’t taken to mean you think Jews are tricky businessmen?
Poetic justice.
“So at what point does something, like ‘cotton-picking’ move from being a racist comment to just another common idiom?”
I don’t think they ever lose the potential to be inflammatory. The latent meaning is always there. It just depends on the contemporary context in which they are used to bring it out. The case of Dobb’s being a classic example.
Understanding that is the first step to seeing just how invidious racism is in our culture. Your example of learning the phrase as a child speaks to it: You learned a potentially loaded expression without even knowing it.
Confession time: I learned the phrase “blow job” from watching animal house on Cinemax. I was way, way too young to be watching it but I had snuck out of bed to check out this new thing called “cable” that my parents had just got. I had no clue at the time that “blow job” had sexual connotations. In the film, it’s coughed by the Delta guys during the court room scene to heckle the dean.
I quickly found out that it had an inappropriate meaning — from my rather pissed off dad — when i blurted it out at the dinner table. That was the end of my late night cable fix.
The point being is that kids learn all kinds of words and phrases without the slightest clue as to their full meaning or connotations. Why, however, when it comes to racist language we pick up, are we all so quick to get defensive? You learned, it’s in your head. As you got older, maybe some experience linked it to slavery, maybe not. Maybe the Dobb’s thing is the experience that finally completed the circuit. That doesn’t mean that the phrase wasn’t racially charged when you learned it as a kid. It was. You just had no clue.
“Before schmoozing with someone isn’t taken to mean you think Jews are tricky businessmen?”
And, um, “schmooze” comes from Yiddish. if you think it has anti-semitic connotations, I don’t know where you got that from but I have in inkling.
I grew in Orange County, California around constant racially charged talk about illegal Mexican immigrants. My dad, god love him, is a long time racist. What can you do? The point being that it grew up literally thinking that Mexican was a term of derision, instead of a nationality.
I recently saw a re-run of The Office about racial sensitivity training in which Michael makes a comment to Oscar, about Mexican being derogatory, or something along similar lines. I can’t remember the line, but i remember thinking, shit, the writer must have grown up in So Cal too.
Obviously, Mexican isn’t a derogatory term but some people have twisted to be that given the context in which they use it. I don’t use it that way but I’d be lying if I said that shit wasn’t in my head, consciously or unconsciously, every time i hear it, because that was the kind of home I was brought up in. is it ever going to lose that subtext for me? I’d like to hope so, but I doubt it. unfortunately, that kind of ugly shit sticks.
A final comment:
It’s ridiculous for guys like Lou Dobbs, or anyone for that matter, to scream “Why I don’t have a racist bone in my body!” Of course he does. We all do. We’re freaking Americans. That’s our tragic legacy and being born after the Civil War or the end of segregation or after the Cosby Show debuted is no excuse. That’s just more defensive bullshit.
What matters is the extent to which you are aware of it, the extent to which you act on it, the extent to which you are sensitive to its conscious and unconscious operations and, I’m sorry, but answering all those points is a lifelong process. That’s what i think Obama was talking about in his speech.
Unfortunately, rather than actually engage in the kind of honest, soul searching dialogue that Obama suggested, idiots like Dobbs responded like knee-jerk idiots always do, only in this case, Dobb’s lizard brain fucked him over.
I got a confession to make. I had no idea “cotton pickin’ so-and-so” had racial connotations until today.
duros62: I got a confession to make. I had no idea “cotton pickin’ so-and-so” had racial connotations until today.
Neither had I. I mean, if I stopped to think about it, to break down what I hear as a single sound into it’s component words, I’m sure I would have been able to guess that it related to plantations and all the connotations that go with them. But until just today, that awareness had just never intruded on brain.
Which I don’t think is an indication of any racism of which I’m unaware. To me, quite honestly, the phrase just never carried any racial connotation at all. As socially charged a phrase as “dang nabbit”. I won’t deny that there are undercurrents of racism in much that we take for granted, but I don’t think for many people that this particular phrase does.
fafaroo: That doesn’t mean that the phrase wasn’t racially charged when you learned it as a kid. It was. You just had no clue.
Very well stated comments, fafaroo. But part of my point is that, to me, it isn’t. I realize it may be to some, and my ignorance of its original meaning doesn’t make it any less bothersome to those. But by a similar token their awareness of it doesn’t make it any more significant to me. That the speaker had no clue is relevant.
I think some are quick to take offense where none is intended. And while the fake disingenuousness of those who insist on using Obama’s middle name (for example) doesn’t really mask their true intent of making a slur, I think many do use some potentially racially charged phrase with no real intent to offend or awareness that they could have possible done so.
To clarify: “But part of my point is that, to me, it isn’t.” –> “But part of my point is that, to me, it isn’t racially charged.”
“But by a similar token their awareness of it doesn’t make it any more significant to me…I think some are quick to take offense where none is intended.”
There’s a point at which the “lack of significance” to you is what becomes offensive to others regardless of what your intentions are.
the reason that can be the case is because it is racial privilege that can allow someone not to care what connotations a phrase carries or for the phrase to have “no significance” to them. What is a lack of significance to some people, is itself a sign of racial privilege at work to others.
wahahaha . . . he’s like . . . “cotton-p-yoink”
His whole body language is so funny to watch. He always starts leaning in like he’s some kind of molester in the park … and then he gets mad … and then he ends in a sort of disgusted “isn’t this a crazy world” sneer face.
I would really like to see him make a worse gaffe. If anybody needs to have a “Mel Gibson moment” and accompanying apology, it’s Dobbs.
There’s a point at which the “lack of significance” to you is what becomes offensive to others regardless of what your intentions are.
Which is a point, to me, at which someone is being overly sensitive. I know offense can be given where none was intended. But where offense is taken “regardless” then the offendee is being as insensitive to the offender.
it is racial privilege that can allow someone not to care what connotations a phrase carries or for the phrase to have “no significance” to them.
And should I be offended that you claim I have suffer from “racial privilege”? It isn’t that I don’t care. It’s that I truly wouldn’t realize that it was possible the phrase would offend. (Mind you, we’re not talking about a phrase that one SHOULD realize could offend, but a rather innocuous one not used (as I would use it) in an otherwise innocuous phrase.) And if it was pointed out to me that I had offended someone, I’d apologize. With the expectation they would realize no harm was meant and would therefore not be overly offended. I’d expect they’d be bringing my faux-pas to my attention to point out something I wasn’t aware of (it could be taken the wrong way) rather than to chastise me for it.
“And should I be offended that you claim I have suffer from “racial privilege”?”
I think if you read the comment again you’ll see that it’s deliberately addressed to the third person, not you specifically.
It isn’t that I don’t care. It’s that I truly wouldn’t realize that it was possible the phrase would offend.
I think this is the crux of it here. What I’m trying to get at it is just how invisible racial privilege can be in this country if you’re white. Someone who is white doesn’t have to care and would have no reason to care that “cottin’ pickin’” might be racially charged, in a part, because it isn’t a phrase with a serious history of being aimed at them in a derogatory way. Other people don’t have the same freedom to not know what the derogatory connotation is because it’s a phrase used to denigrate them, or people who looked like them.
The same might be said about the n-word. For all intents and purposes it’s the same thing except that we all KNOW it’s offensive. And the only reason why whites have to care about that is not to give offense. They do not have to care about it as something that might be directed at them. Indeed, I can’t think of a single word that could be directed at any white person which would carry the same racial offense. That’s a privilege of being white. It may not seem like a privilege that has any bearing on your life, but it’s there nonetheless, never really having to worry that someone isn’t whispering the word behind your back, or thinking it in their head while talking so pleasantly to you.
Think of it this way. If you’re worth millions, you don’t really have to worry about the price of milk. You don’t have to think about it. That’s a privilege of being wealthy. But if you’re worth millions, at least there’s a chance that you earned it through hard, smart work. In the case of race, the privilege of being white is simply something you’re born into. We are more likely to resent those who are born to wealth and flaunt their freedom to spend without care. Similarly, some people might be more likely to resent the casual attitude that whites take with language they don’t have to find significant. In either case is the resentment justified? Not entirely. But it isn’t helpful or constructive to accuse the other person of being overly-sensitive, especially when talking about race because people can earn wealth. You can’t “earn” white privilege if you’re not white.
Maybe Im not being entirely clear here but there’s a lot more at work than simple hyper sensitivity. If an individual really meant no offense, the phrase itself can be shrugged off and the individual forgiven or whatever. But the behind the individual’s casual use of the phrase without awareness, however, is a much larger reality that speaks to a rarely acknowledged system of social, cultural and, yes, economic privilege that extends well beyond any one individual, but which white individuals, nevertheless, benefit from in ways they have no awareness of.
It’s like fish swimming in the ocean. They don’t notice that they’re wet. Or something like that.
And just to be clear, im not suggesting that all whites have it easy or easier in this country just because of their race. Obviously many whites are just as bad off economically as many blacks. But if you pull back from the micro to the macro, racial privilege is definitely a force in this country, still, and it’s largely unacknowledged and invisible to the white community.
I think that one of the root causes of racism is a need to establish some kind of “inherent” racial hierarchy where social, cultural and economic hierarchies don’t exist or else to reinforce and keep in place social, cultural and economic hierarchies by giving people at the bottom something else to focus their anxieties and frustration on. It’s a bottom up/top down kind of thing working together.
I don’t think there’s any question that this process has been driven entirely by whites for much of this country’s history — and still is today in different ways.
Nice points all around.
Obviously, for this case, Dobbs realizes the potential behind the phrase or else he wouldn’t have stopped saying it in the first place.
I think its good that he stopped, but if he hadn’t then he could have played oblivious to the meaning. Regardless, this wouldn’t make it hurt any less for those who get offended by it in the first place, because that would mean here’s a high-profile guy who hasn’t paid attention to them at all.
Instead, now we all know that although Dobbs knew the potential behind the saying, he said it out of habit anyway. THAT’S real proof of embedded racism.
So basically I agree with fafaroo’s first comment, without condemning the objections.
my parents used the term cotton pickin all of the time. they werent’ in the klan
“they werent’ in the klan”
That isn’t remotely close to anything i was trying to say.
Also, just FYI, I’m not white. (I’m not black, either.)
I will say that I’m more curious than ever about such similar phrases as “rassum frassum.”
I know offense can be given where none was intended.
Unless of course it is predicated with the term “No offense, but…” or “With all due respect..”
CNN’s attempt to “prove they’re not liberal” by employing Dobbs and Glenn Beck is disgusting. They use the same talking points as neo nazi sites like stormfront
Is there some kind of rulebook or printed publication that has a list of phrases or words that have long been considered harmless but are now considered racially sensitive? I’ve long heard people say or read “Now wait just a cotton picking minute!” and never knew until I read this entry that it was a racist thing to say.
I didn’t know it was offensive- but Lou Dobbs evidently did, which is why he shifted into reverse when he said it. Of course, what can we expect from someone who spends 45 minutes of every hour each night telling us how bad undocumented workers are and how they are taking all of our jobs.
He might not be a racist, but he is wayyyyy to comfortable using racism to get viewers.
There probably is, somewhere, Jay.
You know what I shudder over? Knowing that in elementary school we used to play a game called “Smear the Queer,” and this is before I’d ever even heard of the existence of heterosexuality, much less homosexuality.
Is there some kind of rulebook or printed publication that has a list of phrases or words that have long been considered harmless but are now considered racially sensitive?
No, there isn’t.
To learn these things, you have to actually think about what you say and how your words affect other people.
I’ve spent my entire life in the
South and have certainly heard my share of offensive race related language. It’s never occurred to me that “cotton pickin’…” was racist. But if someone finds a term offensive, then I don’t use it. I knew from an early age what words were insulting to my Black, Italian, and Irish friends, but was well into my teens before I realized that the acceptable term for persons from Poland was Pole or Polish.
Spider, we played “Throwback Smear.” But the ultimate insult in junior high was to call someone a “homo.” I imagine 90% of those who did so had no idea what it meant. Sorry if this offends, but someone has pointed out that you have to smile a little at the fact that calling someone a “person of color” is perfectly acceptable, but calling them a “colored person” will get you smacked.
“…but someone has pointed out that you have to smile a little at the fact that calling someone a “person of color” is perfectly acceptable, but calling them a “colored person” will get you smacked.”
let me ask you this, what do you think is the distinction between the two?
That “person of color” is a self-chosen term and “colored person” isn’t.
E.C. Bobbitt: Instead, now we all know that although Dobbs knew the potential behind the saying, he said it out of habit anyway. THAT’S real proof of embedded racism.
I find it interesting that all of the posts I’ve seen on other sites take Dobbs to task for starting to say (presumably) “cotton picking”. Yet he did stop himself and none of the sites make much note of that.
So, if his starting to say it is “real proof” of embedded racism, what is his catching himself and not completing it? Real proof of his trying to overcome the embedding?
And isn’t that a GOOD thing? That he recognized he was about to offend, and tried not to?
fafaroo: let me ask you this, what do you think is the distinction between the two?
Initially, I don’t see a great deal of difference, but I do realize my viewpoint is (ahem) colored by my embedded racial attitudes. (Digression here for a moment. I haven’t taken anything posted in this thread personally, nor intended anything personally. I do find it easier to write with a personal pronoun and say “I” than to try to be general and generic sometimes and always write “someone”. Partly because “I” just makes sentence construction easier and partly because I’m hesitant to speak for others in generalities when I’m really talking about my personal view.)
I suppose the difference between the two is one (”a person of color”) recognizes race as an inherent aspect of the individual and the other (”a colored person”) makes it sound like something done to them (like a picture that was colored in).
Ehhhh, in absence of other evidence perhaps. However, this is Lou Dobbs we’re talking about, who has a history of using divisive race/nationality issues in his program. Though your premise may be correct, his background doesn’t lend me to give him the benefit of the doubt. I think a little of “private Lou” slipped out and “TV Lou” tried to stuff it back in.
To learn these things, you have to actually think about what you say and how your words affect other people.
The problem with that theory is, what offends people these days is way too subjective. What offends one person, may not offend another.
Remember the episode on Seinfeld called ‘The Outing’? It was perfect. Because it has somehow become insulting to gay people for a person accused of being gay to react with any kind of shock. As such any time somebody in the show said, “I’m not gay.” it was immediately followed by, “Not that there’s anything wrong with that!”
There was another one where Jerry wouldn’t say “scalper” or “reservation” in front of a Native-American date.
When does this kind of nonsense end? I mean people do realize that we have much more serious problems in life than to be worried about whether some person who believed he was using an innocuous phrase was really allow his latent bigotry to shine forth?
“I suppose the difference between the two is one (”a person of color”) recognizes race as an inherent aspect of the individual and the other (”a colored person”) makes it sound like something done to them (like a picture that was colored in).”
I think that’s a sharp observation and you can find more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colored
The point being is that while it might be easy for someone to smile about what seems like a distinction without a difference, there’s a lot more to the history and experience of the two phrases than a simple “common sense” joke can make sense of. I would go on to say that the seemingly “common sense” humor of the originally quoted observation does more to mask the history and meaning of these two phrases than it reveals — even though it lays claim to some kind of wisdom. Again, that speaks to just how subtle racial privilege and racial attitudes operate. An observation that appeals to “common sense” actually serves to mask a deeper meaning and history that can be felt in the real lives of real people.
“And isn’t that a GOOD thing? That he recognized he was about to offend, and tried not to?”
yeah, of course it is. But it goes back to dr4lom’s original comment above: In correcting his own speech in the middle of saying it, Dobbs exposed the knee-jerk, unreflective nature of his initial premise.
“That ‘person of color’ is a self-chosen term and ”colored person’ isn’t.”
So why would one person choose one term over the other, or what significance is of even being able to make that choice? The reasoning behind choosing one over the other can speak volumes about one’s experience of race and racism, as I think that wikipedia article reveals.
After looking into the issues and history that lay behind the terms, you may still feel it’s a distinction without a difference, much ado about nothing, and so smile bemusedly over it but even then you have to ask yourself what you personally have at stake in the terms and if that has any impact on your amusement.
“you may still feel it’s a distinction without a difference, much ado about nothing, and so smile bemusedly over it….”
I may, but I don’t.
Or maybe I do. As I said before, I won’t use a term if the people it applies to find it offensive. I realize it’s not a distinction without a difference, and it’s not much ado about nothing. But yeah, I am a little bemused.
I’m not suggesting that someone couldn’t be bemused by it, either, BTW, folly of man and all … but i’m wondering how you came to self-identify yourself as a “hick.” Reclaiming a pejorative for your own personal empowerment, perhaps? Color me bemused.
“Reclaiming a pejorative for your own personal empowerment, perhaps? Color me bemused.”
Touche. In a way, yes. It’s from Willie Stark’s “I’m a Hick” speech in All the King’s Men (the Broderick Crawford version).
Great movie!
fafaroo: An observation that appeals to “common sense” actually serves to mask a deeper meaning and history that can be felt in the real lives of real people.
And yet, it still appeals to common sense. Which suggests something about what relative weight should be granted to the deeper masked meaning vs common sense.
fafaroo: In correcting his own speech in the middle of saying it, Dobbs exposed the knee-jerk, unreflective nature of his initial premise.
Or, exposed the honest attempt overcome that nature. A point that is getting overlooked. I’m not familiar with Lou Dobbs much beyond recognizing his name, so I can’t speak to the history Enlightened Liberal mentions. But it seems to me that, in this particular case, the comments being made are really only looking at half of what happened. If one is going to get on his case for having started to say it, then they should equally acknowledge that he tried to correct it.
Beyond this specific case, I do think we’re becoming an overly-sensitive “politically correct” society. Should someone continue to use a phrase which they know others find offensive? Basic manners says no. But should those who would be offended get their umbrage up everytime the phrase is used? Also no.
If I said “wait a cotton-pickin’ minute” I wouldn’t have any problem with someone pointing out to me that some might take offense. I’d still be hard-pressed to see what I always viewed as an offhand idiom as offensive and, never having thought about the phrase in detail before, would again find etymology interesting. But I would acknowledge their point and tend to not use the phrase again without some consideration.
But, OTOH, if they reacted with a “You’re offending me!” response, despite my obvious not planning to, I’d believe they have a large chip on their shoulder and were looking for offense where none was intended.
Might my ignorance of the origins of the phrase be based on deep-seated, embedded racial history? Did I not realize the origins of the phrase because my only exposure to it was from an oversized chicken in a Saturday morning cartoon, and that was because my race led me to have a particular kind of upbringing? Sure. But how long do we harp on the minor, embedded differences there will be between any two people?
There are some who would rather pick continually on what someone said without malice, and ignore the progress that could be made by building on what they tried not to say.
BTW, everyone. REALLY enjoying the conversation here and the manner in which it’s being conducted. 50 responses so far and not a single “you’re an idiot” type comment among them.
If I said “wait a cotton-pickin’ minute” I wouldn’t have any problem with someone pointing out to me that some might take offense.
Yeah, but here’s where I get confused: What is the actual offense? Are you insulting minutes? Is a cotton-pickin’ minute of a similar length or duration to a New York Minute? If you were to refer to a person as a “cotton-pickin’ so-and-so” I could understand the offense, but I fail to see how offending a measurement of time, even in a pretty colloquial use, is reason for hurt feelings.
Oh, and Sean’s an idiot.
I kid! I kid!
50 responses so far and not a single “you’re an idiot” type comment among them.
You counted? Get a life, loser!
“And yet, it still appeals to common sense.”
Common sense is not somehow immune to political or ideological implications. Common sense, in fact, often reinforces the status quo by laying claim to “received wisdom.” The whole force of a “common sense” statement lies in its presumed claim to summarize established, consensus thought. Here’s what I mean when i refer to common sense:
http://www.units.muohio.edu/englishtech/eng49502/graydobt/Geertz’s Common Sense.htm
[Clifford Geertz] asserts that “common sense” may in fact be something of a misnomer. What we believe are simple and largely unrelated truths deriving from our own personal experiences are in fact “historically constructed and historically defined standards of judgment” (76). Geertz introduces the possibility that common sense is a cultural regime like any other, and consequently a product of historical and cultural specificities. “Common sense is not what the mind cleared of cant spontaneously apprehends,” he claims, but rather “what the mind filled with [historical and cultural] presuppositions�concludes”.
Or, exposed the honest attempt overcome that nature.
I don’t deny that. But Dobbs was attacking people he feels try to censor speech about race, but in his statements, he found it necessary to censor himself. Admirable correction, but it sort of undermines his point that we don’t need to be reminded from time to time what may or may not be offensive by those communities who are affected. Dobbs may not like the way some people go about reminding him and all of us of the need for sensitivity, but that doesn’t refute the need for it as we work out our racial issues as a country.
At the same time, the phrase “wait a cotton-pickin’ minute” is a whole lot different than “cottin-pickin politician” - especially when the politician is black. Like I’ve been saying, context is important.
As to how long we have to keep going over this stuff, catching ourselves, etc. etc., like I said, it’s a life-long process for every individual and so extends from generation to generation. We are never going to achieve, in my opinion, a post-racial utopia. It’s like the phrase “in order to form a more perfect union.” We’ll never form a “perfect union” all we can do, generation to generation is continue striving towards the ideal. Same with race issues in this country.
Well, that comes back to the original question, then–is “cotton-pickin’” on its own still a racist phrase (if it was indeed originally so), or only in the context that Dobbs caught himself using it?
He did, after all, use the term specifically to refer to blacks, which has obvious racial connotations.
And let me posit a devil’s hypothetical along these same lines…
When a man in a relationship is perceived to be dominated by his significant other, they are often referred to as “whipped.”
Can you say the same if the man is black?
Well, “whipped” in that context is usually a contraction, but I’m not sure.
But then it would be sexist. So you’re screwed either way.
Dobbs tripping over his own words is amusing.
But what’s more interesting than that is Dobbs railing against that angry Condi Rice for daring to talk such race-baiting trash.
“When a man in a relationship is perceived to be dominated by his significant other, they are often referred to as “whipped.” Can you say the same if the man is black?”
Wait, that’s what whipped means? I always thought that referred to the dessert topping.
SDM:50 responses so far…
QiaB: You counted? Get a life, loser
Uh, but it says so, right there at the top of the page: “59 Responses to “Lou Dobbs: Cotton Pickin’….”
Now I’m insulted.
I think it’s very hard for white people to understand what racism does to people because white people are just starting to feel some sort of discrimination.
Talk to me in about 400 years and you’ll understand our pain. The pain that we still feel from your fathers, uncles, aunts, mothers, and most people in the heartland of U.S.