[Only a Problem in USA] Mass shooting in Jacksonville

#WhenUndoingEverythingTheN!ggerPresidentBeforeYouDidGoesWrong

 

*KenyanN!ggerPresident

 

All lives matter.

 

One of the few things Americans appear to agree on, absent a few extremists, is not using the "N" word. Both of you, who I ordinarily enjoy reading, are out of line, in my opinion. I would suggest editing those posts.

 

When I was a small kid I heard a friends father say the "N" word referring a to a black man on television. I had no idea of the connotation and sometime later repeated the word in front of my mother. I NEVER got in more trouble for anything I ever said growing up. I got a strong lesson on how we are all God's children. I could say almost anything in front of my sweet and extremely calm mother but I knew never to say the "N" word or to take the Lord's name in vain in front of her.

 

So you are saying it would eventually work? These things usually happen faster than we realize. Guns would skyrocket in value, making them difficult to obtain. They'd be gradually destroyed. The mass shootings probably would slow dramatically very quickly. It would be a lot longer before the gang violence, accidental shootings, domestic shootings, and suicides saw a significant decline. Most mass shooters weren't particularly wealthy or connected to black markets.

I'm not going to say ban all guns. It isn't going to happen. Handguns remain the biggest problem, but with how guns are loved, that just isn't going to happen.

I'd be happy with universal background checks & much better information sharing and reporting requirements among government agencies. The warning signs with several mass shooters were there in the hands of police, and they failed to act.

 

You know, Deckard...

...your point is taken. I respect you enough to consider what you say. And I'll tell you now before I go any further that you can feel free to report my posts that offend you...or ignore me outright...or just call me out whenever you see fit. I'll understand.

Might not stop me...but I'll understand.

...might I propose that, for the Americans that agree that the "N" word is a word that shouldn't be used...

...we (Negroes) should just give the word back to who it belongs to anyway?

That's what a lot of this business is about, you know. It's not "our" word in the first place. That might be why a "few" extremists are the only ones who use it anymore, and everybody else is confused as to when it should or shouldn't be used, or by whom or in what context. Those people who want their country back...who feel like people like me have taken it from them...

The word itself, and the general context it's used in, is older than the nation proper, incidentally. It's interesting that, aside from a few "extremists", there's an awful lot of deference shown to a fabricated history simply because some people chose to label it as their "heritage".

(Samuel L. Jackson, back when he was doing a promotional tour for his infamous slave role in Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained, had an interview with a British reporter...a young, blond haired, blue-eyed, salt-of-the-earth young man, who asked about the prolific use of the word in the film. Jackson tried incessantly—as only Samuel L. Jackson can—to get the young man to say the "n" word...he refused, and was very uncomfortable with the whole exchange. I thought it was hilarious, and so did Jackson.)

...and, for the record, there are more than a few Negroes who've taken it upon themselves, in something masquerading itself as academia...to etymologize the word...searching out its roots and whatnot (the word root is niger, goes part of the argument…as if that makes any difference at all in an American context)...trying to legitimize and sanitize it yet again...and in some ways, tragically, they aren't any better than those people who say it outright.

I have never personally cared for the illusion of decorum, Deckard. There are still far too many people in this country who think (and more maliciously, hide behind) not using the word directly meaning that somehow any actions committed on its behalf can be viewed separately.

That's the trap (or the type of trap) that gets laid out in these things. Make all of it "wrong", and then you get to decide who is "right"...

...and it's only "wrong" when the person who decided it's time to level the field decides the thing is wrong, is that it?

The only type of person concerned with resetting the paradigm (of discussion, of debate, or even of what's right or what's wrong) tends to be the type of person used to being in control of the discussion in the first place. I don't believe that's you at all, Deckard. From what I’ve read and know of you from this forum, the last thing you are is insincere in your feelings. And your own personal feelings should not feel threatened by anything some mutt Negro like me says here.

But anecdotal notes, scribbled in the margins of the overall national dissertation, aren't the point. And they’re in point of fact the reason the discussion doesn’t often move beyond them.

I don't care as much about what anything looks or sounds like as much as I care about what it is or what it does.

That word isn’t around still because people have “agreed” that it is offensive. It’s still around (in spirit as much as anything else) because people, willingly, often separate what they say or how they say it from what they actually do.

Some of those same people who don’t like saying or hearing “n!gger” didn’t have any problem with a presidential candidate saying he could shoot a baby in the middle of a busy street and not get in any trouble for it. Some of them betray their professed belief in their own god just to get behind the candor of telling it like it is. And some of those people have skin darker than mine (though not by much—I’m turning a lovely shade of purple right now, as a matter of fact…)…

The same people that say that abortion is wrong. Or all lives matter.

That’s why sometimes I feel sorry for those few “extremists” that actually act on all that silence they hear, and believe that their numbers aren’t really as small as the light of day shows them. I wonder, exactly: who’s sending them all those mixed messages?

Couldn’t be a reverse-racist n!gger like me, could it? Those people aren’t asking …”who’s against me?” They’re asking “who’s with me?” I know they’re not exactly Rhodes Scholars, but still…

I was under the impression that words were just words. Sticks and stones and all that.

I like you, Deckard, like I said. I apologize if I say (or type) something you don’t like. Actually repairing any of these racial rifts is not going to be pleasant or easy. Especially for white people. I wish that wasn’t the case, but that’s the truth.

And the truth is what I’m going to have to stand behind. The whole truth. And nothing but.

…er…

…unless Clutch gets enough votes to boot me out of here (hint, hint)…

…gotta start the “Back to Africa” movement somewhere…

 

If only Papa John had given an excuse like that.....

 

Well, papa john isn't black.

 

I appreciate you taking the time to respond at length. That's rare around here. I often post something rather long (not as long as the one I'm responding to, though - usually), and get a sentence as a response, if that. I wanted to clear some things up. I'm older than many around here, possibly most, and growing up in Southeast Houston, I heard that word a lot. I heard it from relatives living up in East Texas, the part of the state most like the Deep South.

At home? My parents were FDR Democrats and my father a department chair at a major Houston university. He was one of two department chairs to hire the first Black professors on campus (likely as instructors at first - I honestly can't recall. It's been a long time and Dad has been dead for over 30 years). I know they became professors if they weren't initially, and it "broke the dam." He (and I think the other fellow) were told not to rock the boat and he hired the guy anyway, daring the administration to do something about it. They didn't. His Dean didn't say a word. Dad brought far too much money and equipment from corporations to the college, and was far more respected than he was on campus (you would have had to be there). Had I used that word at home, Dad would have reached for his belt, a rare thing for him. So I grew up not only knowing that that was a word we shouldn't use, but that civil rights had to be for all Americans, or else our country was a charlatan.

I noticed you took particular umbrage with my, "absent a few extremists" comment. Can't say that I blame you. I wish I had worded that differently. What I meant was that in a country of 325 million, a few million bigoted enough to use it (assuming it's that many, and it likely is) is "a few extremists," but I should have left out the word "few." I didn't mean that to imply that there aren't a much larger number of bigots. They typically just don't use that word. We have a few bigots here who would use it if they thought they could get away with it, in my opinion, and that may have entered my mind when I typed that. We have many more bigots, I'd wager, who simply don't post in D&D. They are still a small minority of the 44,000 members here, in my opinion, but that's all it is. My opinion. I have nothing to back that up, number wise.

I'll add that I'm very aware that the Black community views the word a bit differently. My understanding is that they use it at times among themselves, and I've experienced that in conversations with Black friends and acquaintances, but they would be infuriated if anyone else did, of any color. I respect that. I still think it shouldn't be posted here. There are ways to make it plain what word you intend without spelling it out, but I respect where you're coming from. I certainly won't report either one of you. I prefer dialogue. I hope we had a little here. Thanks again for the post.

 

GO on an shoot the K-Word/G Word/the F-Word/etc
Let's see how those go over

Rocket River

 

...no actually, Deckard...

...thank you.

Like I said, I don't have a problem with dialogue. And too often, everybody's busy washing their hands of things because they're afraid of somebody calling them dirty.

Two things:

1. have a friend (we'll call him Lamar) who's white...said the exact same thing to me about black people using the "n" word amongst themselves...and how somebody white couldn't say it without repercussions. Maybe later, I'll divulge where that conversation went (ultimately to a good place), but I don't want us to ruin this kumbaya moment...
2. my mother says lots (I know), but she said this to me once, about numbers: "Boy, men count numbers...but God make numbers count." I'd lay a fair wager that black people wouldn't worry about how many people are saying what, if they didn't see so many people get behind or get out of the way of something (like Donald Trump) happening, and make every other excuse for it except the one the Donald himself would make (and has made)...black people have seen this picture a time or three hundred in our history...afraid we pretty much know this script like the backs of our hands.

...an olive branch, going forward?

Pick one, and that's what I'll use:
n----r? n****r? n__________?

I think one size might fit all (so afflicted)...

 

...come on, man.

...be nice.

 

I appreciated reading this as well. I guess my question is why then use the exclamation point? sincere question.

 

...well, never let it be said that I'm a COMPLETE savage...consider it my loincloth...

...I might not have proper manners of my own, but that doesn't mean I can't borrow them from time to time...

 

No sense arguing with bobby because we he loses argues constantly he blocks people.

 

We're fine. I'm supposed to pick one? Heck, go with what you feel. I'm too indecisive.

 

Ah, that's where he went wrong.

 

If @Bobbythegreat was true to his word and is for preventing mentally from buying guns. Then he would be for elimination of loop holes in the current system. Private gun sales and gun show sales should have extensive background checks to make sure criminals and mentally ill do not have instant access to guns.

 

A few extremists?? Uhhhh