Typical Racist White Conservative

When he learned it, it was not a racist term. A Caucasian-Mexican illegally entering the US from Mexico in 1951 would have been a wetback. Same for an African-Mexican or an Iraqi-Mexican. Surely its meaning has devolved over 60 or so years.

You posted an article. You used a provocative headline and you left out part of the article-- particularly his sincere apology. Seems kind of deliberately slanted to me.

How many GOP Congressmen or Senators have been tainted by this kind of faux pas?

 

So you struggle with hard evidence, huh?

Not sure why you think that anyone will just let you get away with saying whatever you want about them and/or what they said.

What I said was clearly and plainly and recently autobiographical.... yet you see me casting about for something to make up out of whole cloth.

Now that is laughable. I don't think you even read what I write....

 

So black people, and liberals who complain of racism aren't making an educated guess?

Only you are capable of making the educated guess.

The point is that you possibly experienced some ageism (you left race out of it in a thread about race). At least in your eyes you experienced some.

Yet if anyone else in their own eyes complains about racism then it's all of a sudden people whining about something that doesn't happen.

You're a hypocrite, and you don't know what it's like to be in the shoes of black people who experience racism, or latinos who are called by the racist term 'wetback'.

Those folks are all making it up, and aren't able to make the educated guess like you can.

 

No. I never said or implied any such thing.

Of course I am but your charge was that I was just guessing... as if out of thin air. I corrected that mis-perception on your part.

You are the one who brought age into it by ranting about old, white guys having their run of the world. I simply disproved your thesis with a personal anecdote.

When and where did I ever imply that? Quit putting words in my mouth, please.

To be a hypocrite, I'd have to be going around using those terms wouldn't I? All I seek is a less venomous response to the faux pas of an 80 YO man. He didn't spit in the face of anyone uttering the term in anger. He used it to describe working conditions on farms when he was a boy. As far as we know, he only said it once in a public forum yet you, and others, want to string him up. He didn't shout it to an angry mob. He didn't use the term to try and rouse anyone.

You are selectively heartless, I guess.

Is that what you think or are you trying to say that that is what I think?

Why do you insist on putting words in my mouth and espousing views that are not mine?

 

giddy, this is what you said.

So again it's you claiming that others aren't really experiencing or witnessing discrimination while you made an educated guess that you had. I was only going by your own words. Other people use the terms too lightly but you are able to make educated guesses about it.

I don't know whether the old guy is a racist or not. But wetback is a racist term. It has been. I understand you want everyone to be good, and have to find a way to rationalize the term to make people not bad. The point is that even good people do bad things. The guy may be a great family man who's led a productive life. But he used a racist term. Stop trying to rationalize that.

Because someone said a racist thing, that doesn't necessarily make them all bad. Smart people make dumb decisions, and say dumb things from time to time. Good people do bad things on occasion as well. Everyone makes mistakes. The man may not have meant anything by the remark he said. That doesn't mean the term isn't a racist one.

 

pinche gringo

 

I defended Young from an assault on his character. He said a regrettable thing and you guys rushed in to label him a racist. I don't see evidence of that. No pattern. No vitriol-- just a clumsy childhood recollection.

My comments about Barkley and Chappelle were further indictments against the racism charges. Racism is oppressive. Being oppressed is not a factor in their lives as I can see.

I only made an educated guess about what happened in my own life. I did so because I had impressions from looks, written replies and phone conversations about my situation. Dozens.

Did he use it with a racist motivation? No. It was a familiar childhood utterance that he slipped into. He acknowledge the mistake. Time to move on.

Now there is your moving goalpost. That's why the furor about this is over the top.

 

I don't think Rep. Don Young is a racist. I think wetbacks is a pejorative term but I do think he should be given some benefit of the doubt. It's entirely possible that in his day this term was just what they called Mexican migrant workers.

I don't think he is racist, but I do think he is very disconnected from minorities and this demonstrates how out-of-touch many people are to the pain and suffering of minorities in this country. And that's what is unfortunate here.

I hope he educates himself.

 

I don't know if he is racist or not since I don't know him personally but what he said is definitely racist.
I agree that this is how migrant workers were called at that time. It was a derogatory word used to demean
Mexican migrant workers and it showed arrogance and contempt by the people who used it! Unfortunately
it is still used by many ignorant people today.

The question is when did he learn that these words were disrespectful? Was it during the
civil rights movement during the 1960's or after he was recorded saying them and then condemned
by House Speaker John Boehner?
...........
...........
...........

 

Chinaman and Jap were a-okay back in the day. Negro makes people uncomfortable when another race says it.

Using those words is like scratching an itch. Even if you heard it a lot as a kid, it still carries over because you're a big boy wearing big boy pants and you really really wanna say it. Why? Because despite all the fuss and bs, words will always carry a load of power. It's in our minds and influences how we think.

As far as I'm concerned, they're public servants. They get whatever they deserve.

 

You were defending him after he was attacked for making a racist remark. That's fine, but the remark he made was racist. Is Young a racist? We don't know. But he made a racist remark, and there is nothing wrong with pointing out that it was a racist remark. I'm glad he apologized.

As for your educated guess stop being so arrogant as to think that only you make educated guesses when it comes to discrimination. Many of the people who make claims about racism are making educated guesses just like you are. If someone uses a racist term like 'wetback' then it might be an educated guess that the guy is racist. It isn't necessarily the case, but it is an educated guess.

Other charges of racism are often based on looks, speech, hiring patterns, promotion patterns etc. To tell other people that they are using charges of discrimination too freely when it's based on the exact type of evidence that you used to make your discrimination claim is what fits under to definition of hypocrisy.

I wasn't there with you. You know how it felt to you and the way it seems to you as far as your discrimination charge. I'm not going to seriously begrudge you for feeling that way. I made a joke about it because you get up in arms when other people feel they've been discriminated against and speak out about it. Yet you weren't there, you don't know what caused them to feel the way they do. So why don't you give people speaking out against racism, the same consideration you're asking for?

 

obvious racism is obvious.

 

As it was imprinted on his mind as a little boy, it was not the racist remark that we see it now as. This is just a gray area... much like Chapelle et al using the "N" word.

A man can be named "Dick" and a boy has a "dick." I am more concerned about the context of that utterance than the actuality of it when it is uttered by my 13-YO daughter.

Good golly... for the umpteenth time I only made an educated guess about my own life. You charged me with just guessing about what had happened to me and I countered with the facts that I spoke with people, saw their faces, read their emails as evidence of my "educated" guess. That is all I said about that.

Making a judgment based on one comment is not "educated" it's "knee-jerk!"

My charge was against you and your other friends in this thread of being too glib about condemning someone as a racist based on one incident.

Who have I gotten up in arms about their feeling discriminated? I recall making no comment about anyone with regards to that. My comments have been aimed at the Liberal Cavalry who come in at a moment's notice shouting "Racist Scoundrel" at the tops of their lungs at any feeble, regrettable slip of the tongue.

As I've said, racism is a pattern of beliefs and behaviors. This man Young has demonstrated none of that.

 

Obviously a politician should not be using these words. Look, politicians say stupid things and get in trouble on both sides. I doubt he knew what he was saying was controversial when he said it, most of these guys don't. Some words are obvious - like the n-word. Politicians don't say that in public or being recorded because they definitely know better. So why did he say wetbacks? Because he's a racist and he's expressing himself? Or because he didn't realize he was offending people?

What he said should be condemned. But at the same time, it's an opportunity for someone to learn more about other cultures and expand their awareness and sensitivity. In this case, from what I can tell, this guy is genuinely sorry to have offended anyone and it doesn't seem it was his intent to be hurtful.

Just like on this board, just because someone says one thing we don't label them a racist, just call out what they say. Unless they show a pattern that definitively demonstrates a hostile bias against one group as is the case with an ATW or bigtexxx.

There's a lot of ignorance out there.

 

Sorry that you cannot keep up. Things do change... without a doubt. Do you really think in 1954 the Federal Government would officially name an operation with a racially-charged name?

Me neither. It was a term that referred to a method of illegal entry into the US, not a race... and by the way aren't there more than one race of Mexicans?

So you are fascinated that I follow the Logical Trail? Interesting. :grin:

 

I'm sorry that Young didn't know that even when he was a kid wetback was a racial slur. It was back then, and it is today. Young's ignorance of that doesn't change the fact that it was a racial slur.

 

A Scandinavian Mexican whether legal or illegal is never going to be called a wetback.


Quite trying to act like the term was ever anything but a derogatory racist term.

It was a term that was a put down based on someone's race. It was that way in 1954. The origin of the term comes from the idea that people from Mexico would illegally swim into the U.S. That doesn't mean it's just shorthand for a way to get the U.S.

You've gone off into fantasy land again where racist terms aren't really racist terms, so there is no point in discussing this with you anymore. I'm sorry you won't accept reality.