If that's how your posts are going to be you can swiftly exit then

Because words don't exist in a vacuum. They inhabit a historical context. And that informs people on the intent of their usage.

No offense, but this is cut and dry Language 101.

this is so true! the crybabies would cry if they hear my str8 friends calling me a ***, when they don't have any homophobic context behind saying such word. I'm not triggered by a stupid word. I would be more offended by someone saying "gay people are disgusting" than "you're such a ***" *laughs*

Well I wouldn't say never touched again, but I think the flag is trashy and was glad when they were getting taken down in mass actually.

I just thought about that RuPaul photo in itself was him trying to make crass humor.

I deleted that post because I'm not looking to start a fight in the middle of an Atheist/Agnostic thread about religious nuts and how they conduct/oppress themselves.

I'd rather have this thread flip back to common sense, science-based, logical conversations that don't involve the discussion of the lowest common denominators of humankind. But until then, nope, I am not entertaining this idea of a fight.

The meanings of words do not vary from person to person, they vary from sentence to sentence according to the context in which they are spoken. Just tell me this. Which would you say is racist. ******* Jim is one of the greatest fictional characters in literature (I did not actually write the word just used stars so it doesn't send someone on a rampage) vs African Americans are criminals that should be jailed.

This thread is open to anyone, and to any discussion. If you have something you want to talk about, just start the topic.

I'm not sure why this is so hard to understand.

You look at the US. You look at a Michigan suburb.
You see a Muslim woman making her way to work.
People call her names on the train - "Brown bitch", "Terrorist", "Sand *****", "Paki", "Dirty Arab", etc. She may not even be from the Middle East. She could be an American born Indonesian woman. But these are insults she may face daily. Someone on the train to work tugs on her hijab and calls her a bitch and tells her to take it off. She's harassed for being who she is.

So of course she could feel empowered to wear something that means something to her that she is being punished for wearing and oppressed for wearing.

In this case, the hijab is empowering.

Then, I don't know, go to ****ing Qatar or any Islamist country.
You have a young Muslim woman who wants to learn to read or drive and she can't. She's oppressed and she has to wear the hijab. That is then not okay.

In this situation, the hijab is oppressive, obviously.

The realities of Qatar don't change the realities of the US, or the reverse.
So the idea that the hijab is inherently sexist and cannot be reclaimed - and that Muslim women wearing it in the West and facing racialized, oppressive hate for it cannot feel empowered to it - is wrong and close-minded. Just as then the woman in Qatar should be allowed to reject it and is being oppressed by not being allowed to.

Feminism should aim to help both women, uplift both women, and liberate both women as to how they define liberation and empowerment for themselves.

I get I'm off topic, but how can black people use the N word then ?

At least half of us are clearly above this he-said, she-said game of useless bickering about oppressed and oppressive religious people. Let's talk about things that matter.

'Science teachers are afraid to talk about evolution: we must listen to the reasons why'

n word with an a is not the same as n word with an er is the basis, it's a cultural word shift .

I have to ask. Is this creationism mess a USA only thing? I mean I live in a backwards, 3rd world orthodox country and I was taught evolution in class and whether or not it challenged the bible was never brought up. My school literally has a church next to it where the religious study teacher made us go down to and pray and light candles and this was still somehow not an issue. Sometimes US just amazes me

anyways, I'm going to sleep now. I'm just gonna leave you at this again.

Good night. Start being reasonable and logical for once, ATRL.

I had no idea ! That makes sense then.

This makes me think of my best friend. We've been best friend since we were 7 and we're 21 now. I know she was religious (she's orthodox) but obviously since I'm not we never really talked about religion. But like last year we were at a café and I don't remember how the conversation shifted to religion, and suddenly I go "yeah makes me thinks of those people who don't believe in evolution" or something like that and she goes "I'm one of them."

I was SHOOK. Like literally I had no word. So like I asked her to elaborate on what was her theory. And she had the AUDACITY to claim that evolution was absurd. She said there's no way we were "monkeys", and like she doesn't believe that dinosaurs existed and stuff. And so I said but we're finding fossiles of them, and she had 0 answers.

Well to add to my story, I was in the same school as my best friend until High School and we were always taught about evolution, and the bible was never brought up and still...

Words possess a denotative meaning, the dictionary definition, and a connotative meaning, the culturally informed definition.

@Ecstasy, the second one is racist. The first one is just a reference to an established work. But the word itself coming out of a white person's mouth given the historical context of its usage among white people, it will probably be taken the wrong way. That's culture. Whereas Jay-Z can rap it up and down and no one will care because the usage of the term in a black historical context is much different.

Yea but this is not even a subject of discussion. 80% of our literature is patriotic propaganda. Because of centuries of religious oppression we went uber christian. idk maybe the religious clerics in here are too stupid to even know what evolution is.

Good point

Ok but what if somebody is from UK. The United Kingdom didn't have the deep south where the words negative connotation comes from.