Well if he's hispanic, then I don't know why it's a news story.

Oh wait, it's because he shot a kid and got away with it.

It became a news story after the 911 recordings were released, and it was revealed the dispatcher told him not to follow the kid; once journalists (presumably liberal) looked into it, they discovered that the police didn't canvass the neighborhood or collect Zimmerman's clothing, or really investigate at all. Zimmerman shot a kid, said "He attacked me first," and the police thought that sounded legit, so they sent him home.

OJ sure as fuck got charged with murder. Wanna try again? Or are you just listing all the black people you can think of?

Also, Zimmerman didn't get charged with a hate crime, so nobody knows what the fuck you're talking about.

I understand all the factual information you pointed out, I just disagree that black people getting to say "nigger" while white people can't is racist, or important for anything other than historical reasons.

The point I was trying to make is, when you're dealing with a racial slur, the most important thing is the intent of the speaker. I don't think a black person *is* universally OK with being called a "nigger" by another black person. I think if they are friends, or if they share cultural markers that suggest the word isn't being used in a hateful way, it's more likely to be OK. There are, however, black people who are brutally racist toward young black men, and when they say "nigger," I'd bet it comes off the same as if an old white guy had said it.

I don't think "gay" parallels "nigger" at all; it's more like "black," where it can sting in the right context, but it's a generally descriptive word. I'd say "faggot" is the word you're looking for. While it's true that the specific orientation of the speaker doesn't matter a lot, in my experience, gay people are a lot less tolerant of angrily being called "faggot" by an older, conservative religious person than they are of gay allies playfully calling them "faggots." Because perceived intent matters.

I'm not saying this is the way things should be (frankly, I'd be happy for slurs like this to never be spoken again, except in history books), but this is generally the way things are. I certainly understand being frustrated that what appears to be the same behavior is unacceptable for white people, but often OK for black people. What I'm saying is, it's different. The legacy of slavery and segregation and racism in the US is such that the word "nigger" carries different meaning when spoken by a random white person than when spoken by a random black person. The word is designed to carry the weight of centuries of oppression, and it carries it whether you want to or not, regardless of the fact that you aren't racist and haven't done anything to perpetuate that system.

So why do you want to say "nigger?"

Abraham Lincoln, a white man, set them free.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3ZG1-o9KWc

Did you notice that you're attacking the dictionary definition of a word, and not what people mean when they talk about putting the concept behind that word into practice?

Williams' controversial statement was made in October 2010, only 9 entire years after 9/11, which was a terrorist act committed by a bunch of guys not wearing "Muslim garb."

The problem I see with Williams' comments is that it's advocating irrational prejudice. If you watch the whole segment, he essentially said, "When I see Muslims in Muslim (sic) garb on my plane, I get nervous just like everyone else, and there's nothing wrong with that." He is defending his prejudiced reaction. It's irrational because, you know, none of the Muslim terrorists who have attacked planes (or attacked other things with planes) have been dressed like that (and he's not talking about Muslim clothing as much as Arab Muslim).

We do. That's why NPR fired Williams. They were doing something about it.

You guys, he had STATISTICS. You'll be sorry you got him fired.

I doubt he'll have trouble finding a new job. He's a conservative, so he can always find work at one of the other money-losing conservative magazines. (We liberals call it wingnut welfare.)

You're a fuckface, but you remind me of something interesting I read in National Geographic a couple years ago. The basic idea was that sub-Saharan Africa is oriented North-South, while Eurasia is largely East-West. Since a crop from one area can generally be adapted to grow in another area, the possible range of a given plant is a latitudinal strip. Without agriculture, it's difficult to have a city. This reality made it more difficult to urbanize in Africa, and urbanization leads to specialization and real economic development, so, yeah, LAND MASSES can actually have a very big impact on overall levels of economic development.

Of course, centuries of slavery and legal inequality can also have a small effect on a population.

Unless their parents are graduates of the same college, then they don't have to do any work at all to get in! Entirely coincidentally, college graduates with college-age children are overwhelmingly white.

Make sure to tell those poor white kids that if they make it to college, nobody will assume, based on looking at them, that they are dumber than everyone else there.

Well, that settles it. Racism is OK, this guy posted a video.

Why do you want to say nigger?

I'm being a little facetious here, but it's not a good word. The idea that it communicates has connotations of sub-humanity, other-ness, trying illegitimately to rise above one's place. At least, it connotes those things when it's used by a white person. "I may be a shitty-ass worthless sack of meat, but I'm white, so at least I'm not a nigger. No matter how bad I have it, I'm still better than a nigger." When a black person says it to another black person, it takes on a tongue-in-cheek aspect, and it dilutes the power that the idea used to have. At least I think so, I'm just a white guy, and someone might call me a racist, because I don't have any intelligent, well-socialized black friends to deflect accusations.

Is there a specific situation you need it for, or does it just bother you that it's taboo?

Derb pointed out that a lot of "scientists" think there is such a thing as some inherent (unchangeable through education), one-dimensional quantity intelligence, that intelligence can be well-measured by a written test which shows differences between populations that can only be explained by racial group membership (even though most black people have numerous white ancestors, and many white people have some black ancestors). These "scientists" also think the effects of being completely dispossessed, cut off from your history and forced into uncompensated labor with no legal rights for hundreds of years should be gone by now, since the parents of today's black youth could vote as adults, and their parents and grandparents were not literally slaves (even though they lived under a constant threat of terrorist violence and were denied permission to attempt to join high status jobs to bring themselves out of poverty and couldn't live outside the black neighborhood, where much of the property was nonetheless owned by white people).

Yeah, the truth is racist. Derb wants to perpetuate the status quo; some of us think it's shitty and want to change it.

No, there isn't. There is a world of difference between "Straight white men have been victims of violence" and "There is a history of violence against straight white men."

There are not "special laws" protecting certain groups. There is a list of classifications which, if a crime is committed against someone based on actual or perceived status within those classifications, can result in hate crime charges. The law covers violence based on race, so they would protect a white person being attacked because he is white.

Maybe find out what you're talking about it before starting a stupid argument on the internet. You literally don't know the first thing about this subject.

I think the key is "against their will."