Desert Vista High School students spell out racial slur on t-shirts

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Today on Gaf I've learned that at 14 you're old enough to be responsible for luring men in for sex but not old enough at 17 to be racist.

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Are there posters who actually have shown the cognitive dissonance and made both arguments in that oft-quoted joke or something?
 
These are the same people that go to college and become teachers and we wonder why there seems to be a bias against black students.

They will become productive members of the system then we act shocked when the system seems to have this racial bias we all know is there but tend to never directly observe...

I mean, I've been
banned for stuff like this. So I'm not going to make a big deal about this.

But can't we just say that this was just some idiots who did a stupid thing? Why draw the line between white people and everyone else? Isn't that overall harmful for race relations?

Read a history book.
 
At this very moment I can hear my roommate and his friend (both white) drunkenly yelling nigga this and nigga that while playing fifa with each other. Are they racists? No, they would describe themselves as very liberal/progressive people. Are they being racially insensitive? Probably. But is it really racially insensitive if no black people are there to offend? That's a more murky question. I think branding the use of the word nigga as racist should be more about the intent behind the word or if it's directly aimed at someone as an insult.

The ubiquity of the word in popular culture is definitely a problem in determining who the actual, malicious racists are. For example, if you were to play every song on my ipod and identify every time the word nigga was used, I would seriously not be surprised if the number was as high as 500. Will I (white) rap the word along to the song if I'm alone in my car? Absolutely. Is this racist behavior? I don't think so because racist thoughts aren't going through my head when I say the word.

Are these girls racists? I have no idea. They all very well could be the most hateful, scummy racists on the planet. And the fact that they took a picture of this whole stupid stunt definitely hints at that being the case. The kids definitely need some reeducation and serious punishment in some form. But as others have said, internet mob justice, doxxing, and miserable lives should ideally be saved for those who use the word publicly with racist intention.

But it's pretty hard to have any sympathy when they took a fucking picture of this behavior AT SCHOOL.
 
At this very moment I can hear my roommate and his friend (both white) drunkenly yelling nigga this and nigga that while playing fifa with each other. Are they racists? No, they would describe themselves as very liberal/progressive people. Are they being racially insensitive? Probably. But is it really racially insensitive if no black people are there to offend? That's a more murky question. I think branding the use of the word nigga as racist should be more about the intent behind the word or if it's directly aimed at someone as an insult.

The ubiquity of the word in popular culture is definitely a problem in determining who the actual, malicious racists are. For example, if you were to play every song on my ipod and identify every time the word nigga was used, I would seriously not be surprised if the number was as high as 500. Will I (white) rap the word along to the song if I'm alone in my car? Absolutely. Is this racist behavior? I don't think so because racist thoughts aren't going through my head when I say the word.

Are these girls racists? I have no idea. They all very well could be the most hateful, scummy racists on the planet. And the fact that they took a picture of this whole stupid stunt definitely hints at that being the case. The kids definitely need some reeducation and serious punishment in some form. But as others have said, internet mob justice, doxxing, and miserable lives should ideally be saved for those who use the word publicly with racist intention.

But it's pretty hard to have any sympathy when they took a fucking picture of this behavior AT SCHOOL.

I think calling them anything other than "racist" is being far too kind to these girls.
 
I think calling them anything other than "racist" is being far too kind to these girls.

You are probably right. But I think there should be a distinction between calling their behavior racist and describing them as racists without further context.

And now I've officially become one of those people that "waits for context".

Maybe I'm just too OCD over words and their definitions.
 
At this very moment I can hear my roommate and his friend (both white) drunkenly yelling nigga this and nigga that while playing fifa with each other. Are they racists? No, they would describe themselves as very liberal/progressive people. Are they being racially insensitive? Probably. But is it really racially insensitive if no black people are there to offend? That's a more murky question. I think branding the use of the word nigga as racist should be more about the intent behind the word or if it's directly aimed at someone as an insult.

The ubiquity of the word in popular culture is definitely a problem in determining who the actual, malicious racists are. For example, if you were to play every song on my ipod and identify every time the word nigga was used, I would seriously not be surprised if the number was as high as 500. Will I (white) rap the word along to the song if I'm alone in my car? Absolutely. Is this racist behavior? I don't think so because racist thoughts aren't going through my head when I say the word.

Are these girls racists? I have no idea. They all very well could be the most hateful, scummy racists on the planet. And the fact that they took a picture of this whole stupid stunt definitely hints at that being the case. The kids definitely need some reeducation and serious punishment in some form. But as others have said, internet mob justice, doxxing, and miserable lives should ideally be saved for those who use the word publicly with racist intention.

But it's pretty hard to have any sympathy when they took a fucking picture of this behavior AT SCHOOL.

If a racist is in the woods and yells "Nigger!" And no Black people are around he's still a racist piece of shit.


Cmon....
 
It's a fucking photo. I'm not going to let this photo define the character of the people involved in the same way I don't allow a photo of a black teen throwing a gang sign define them.
AYYYYYY

GODDAMN, I SAID DAMN. Wow, I'm getting out this thread before I say something that makes Bush hammer me.

God damn.
 
These racists have literally spelled it out for us, and people can't stop themselves from defending them and assuming the best of them. No surprises here.

Don't worry, they don't need help. That behavior is already built in to the white response to white people being racist.
 
At this very moment I can hear my roommate and his friend (both white) drunkenly yelling nigga this and nigga that while playing fifa with each other. Are they racists? No, they would describe themselves as very liberal/progressive people. Are they being racially insensitive? Probably. But is it really racially insensitive if no black people are there to offend? That's a more murky question. I think branding the use of the word nigga as racist should be more about the intent behind the word or if it's directly aimed at someone as an insult.

The ubiquity of the word in popular culture is definitely a problem in determining who the actual, malicious racists are. For example, if you were to play every song on my ipod and identify every time the word nigga was used, I would seriously not be surprised if the number was as high as 500. Will I (white) rap the word along to the song if I'm alone in my car? Absolutely. Is this racist behavior? I don't think so because racist thoughts aren't going through my head when I say the word.

Are these girls racists? I have no idea. They all very well could be the most hateful, scummy racists on the planet. And the fact that they took a picture of this whole stupid stunt definitely hints at that being the case. The kids definitely need some reeducation and serious punishment in some form. But as others have said, internet mob justice, doxxing, and miserable lives should ideally be saved for those who use the word publicly with racist intention.

But it's pretty hard to have any sympathy when they took a fucking picture of this behavior AT SCHOOL.


The answer to every question you asked is yes.
 
At this very moment I can hear my roommate and his friend (both white) drunkenly yelling nigga this and nigga that while playing fifa with each other. Are they racists? No, they would describe themselves as very liberal/progressive people. Are they being racially insensitive? Probably. But is it really racially insensitive if no black people are there to offend? That's a more murky question. I think branding the use of the word nigga as racist should be more about the intent behind the word or if it's directly aimed at someone as an insult.

The ubiquity of the word in popular culture is definitely a problem in determining who the actual, malicious racists are. For example, if you were to play every song on my ipod and identify every time the word nigga was used, I would seriously not be surprised if the number was as high as 500. Will I (white) rap the word along to the song if I'm alone in my car? Absolutely. Is this racist behavior? I don't think so because racist thoughts aren't going through my head when I say the word.

Are these girls racists? I have no idea. They all very well could be the most hateful, scummy racists on the planet. And the fact that they took a picture of this whole stupid stunt definitely hints at that being the case. The kids definitely need some reeducation and serious punishment in some form. But as others have said, internet mob justice, doxxing, and miserable lives should ideally be saved for those who use the word publicly with racist intention.

But it's pretty hard to have any sympathy when they took a fucking picture of this behavior AT SCHOOL.

They may not identify that way but they're definitely racists.

No one cares about your intent.
 
You are probably right. But I think there should be a distinction between calling their behavior racist and describing them as racists without further context.

And now I've officially become one of those people that "waits for context".

Maybe I'm just too OCD over words and their definitions.

They posed with huge smiles for a picture. Yeah they be racist

It's racist to sing along to your favorite song when your'e alone? Come on now.

That's not what you described.

But I still wouldn't.
 
Well if he's already a racist in the woods than he is definitely a racist piece of shit...

But I see your point.

If you do shit like this you're racist. There's no nuance. If you intentionally spell out "Nigger" with shit eating grins you're a racist piece of shit.

What else is there really left to say? And I mean good for them. I just wish everyone that's a racist bigoted piece of shit would be honest about it. Wear it with pride. So I know exactly who to avoid. But it sucks when I have to wonder "Did I not get this job cause of bigotry?" Or did I not get that loan, etc.... It's really pesky when you know some people are absolutely racist pieces of shits and it will have an impact even if you're unaware of it when it actually happens.

...and that's something these girls will never have to worry about.
 
Why would you need to say the word that badly? Even when alone?

singing along with a song you like is "wanting to say the word badly"?

i sing along to NWA all the time, and it aint because i desperately need to say naughty words

i sing along cuz ive been really upset with the police lately, i belt the shit out
 
Why would you need to say the word that badly? Even when alone?

I don't need to say the word, I just don't really think to censor myself when singing my favorite song when I'm alone. If I'm passionately singing then it's not like I have the presence of mind to censor myself. Obviously singing the word around black people would be racially insensitive and socially ignorant. I've known people that do this and they make me want to slap them. I guess the poorly made point of my post was that I think there are shades of grey with that word now that it is used so commonly in pop culture.
 
I don't need to say the word, I just don't really think to censor myself when singing my favorite song when I'm alone. If I'm passionately singing then it's not like I have the presence of mind to censor myself. Obviously singing the word around black people would be racially insensitive and socially ignorant. I've known people that do this and they make me want to slap them. I guess the poorly made point of my post was that I think there are shades of grey with that word now that it is used so commonly in pop culture.
Make the argument for "nigga" if you wish.

There are no shades of grey in spelling "nigger", though. No one is using that one in pop culture.
 
At this very moment I can hear my roommate and his friend (both white) drunkenly yelling nigga this and nigga that while playing fifa with each other. Are they racists? No, they would describe themselves as very liberal/progressive people. Are they being racially insensitive? Probably. But is it really racially insensitive if no black people are there to offend? That's a more murky question. I think branding the use of the word nigga as racist should be more about the intent behind the word or if it's directly aimed at someone as an insult.

The ubiquity of the word in popular culture is definitely a problem in determining who the actual, malicious racists are. For example, if you were to play every song on my ipod and identify every time the word nigga was used, I would seriously not be surprised if the number was as high as 500. Will I (white) rap the word along to the song if I'm alone in my car? Absolutely. Is this racist behavior? I don't think so because racist thoughts aren't going through my head when I say the word.

Are these girls racists? I have no idea. They all very well could be the most hateful, scummy racists on the planet. And the fact that they took a picture of this whole stupid stunt definitely hints at that being the case. The kids definitely need some reeducation and serious punishment in some form. But as others have said, internet mob justice, doxxing, and miserable lives should ideally be saved for those who use the word publicly with racist intention.

But it's pretty hard to have any sympathy when they took a fucking picture of this behavior AT SCHOOL.

Yes?
 
Is that what they were doing? Why are we inventing scenarios?


I know context. I know racism when I see it and that's ignorance and racism mixed. Which is often the case.

I guess I should have posted first saying that these girls are obviously ignorant pieces of shit. I was more talking about my roommate and his friend yelling stuff like "yeah nigga" while playing fifa. Which I think is worth condemning but not necessarily racist.
 
Every non-black American wanting to defend their right to say or sing the n-word, you'll just have to do what black people are told any time they express something white people don't like to hear: get over it.
 
I just want to point out that effort went in to this. It wasn't just that they happened to be standing next to each other and whoops! There were a lot of girls in the original phrase. The chance that these exact six girls were close friends and all had the same idea. Nah, this was an effort to make this happen by convincing the other girls to participate.

My point is, this was deliberate. Arguing about whether saying the N word arbitrarily is racist is pointless because that's not what happened here.
 
how exactly is a gang sign (which most of the time is really just a middle finger or some other innocuous hand gesture) remotely comparable to racism? to go another step, one can easily attest the predominance of black youths IN gangs as a byproduct of institutionalized racism keeping black communities in poverty.

I did not say the person was in a gang. That is my point.

Photographs are not the ultimate tool of truth. Photographs are a curated moment of experienced reality.

In the end a photograph tells us nothing, they are merely an interpretation of events like a drawing or story.

Susan Sontag - On Photography.

Although there is a sense in which the camera does indeed capture reality, not just interpret it, photographs are as much an interpretation of the world as paintings and drawings are. Those occasions when the taking of photographs is relatively undiscriminating, promiscuous, or self-effacing do not lessen the didacticism of the whole enterprise. This very passivity -- and ubiquity -- of the photographic record is photography's "message," its aggression.

The photograph in the OP provides a "message", an aggressive statement telling us this is how the world is. We want to believe photographs are this objective eye on our world that's able to parse out the "real" from our "experienced reality" but they cannot. They only further entrench our biases and subjective beliefs about the world.
 
Make the argument for "nigga" if you wish.

There are no shades of grey in spelling "nigger", though. No one is using that one in pop culture.

No doubt. Every time I heard a white person say "nigger" it has been in an explicitly racist context (I went to college in South Carolina). I was more talking about my roommate and his friend using the "nigga". Which I guess is not the point of this thread.
 
Seems like kids doing dumb shit, the way kids always have and always will. When I was in high school in the early 2000s, this would have been hilarious to me and my friends. Not because of racism, but because of how inappropriate it is. It's the setting as much as it is anything else (it would lose whatever comic value it has if you took the pic in your bedroom).

I'm pretty disappointed that kids are as stupid today as we were back then. I thought this country had collectively moved forward.
 
I guess I should have posted first saying that these girls are obviously ignorant pieces of shit. I was more talking about my roommate and his friend yelling stuff like "yeah nigga" while playing fifa. Which I think is worth condemning but not necessarily racist.
Is it something they'd do in front of black people? If they would, I can respect their consistency and guts. But if not, open your eyes to your people: they're racist.
 
I did not say the person was in a gang. That is my point.

Photographs are not the ultimate tool of truth. Photographs are a curated moment of experienced reality.

In the end a photograph tells us nothing, they are merely an interpretation of events like a drawing or story.

Susan Sontag - On Photography.



The photograph in the OP provides a "message", an aggressive statement telling us this is how the world is. We want to believe photographs are this objective eye on our world that's able to parse out the "real" from our "experienced reality" but they cannot. They only further entrench our biases and subjective beliefs about the world.

Where's that post on racism being quantum locked?
 
Seems like kids doing dumb shit, the way kids always have and always will. When I was in high school in the early 2000s, this would have been hilarious to me and my friends. Not because of racism, but because of how inappropriate it is. It's the setting as much as it is anything else (it would lose whatever comic value it has if you took the pic in your bedroom).

I'm pretty disappointed that kids are as stupid today as we were back then. I thought this country had collectively moved forward.

These are seniors (16,17,18) doing this at a school, posing in front of a camera so other people can see it. Yeah they are stupid as fuck but especially in the year 2016.
 
I did not say the person was in a gang. That is my point.

Photographs are not the ultimate tool of truth. Photographs are a curated moment of experienced reality.

In the end a photograph tells us nothing, they are merely an interpretation of events like a drawing or story.

Susan Sontag - On Photography.



The photograph in the OP provides a "message", an aggressive statement telling us this is how the world is. We want to believe photographs are this objective eye on our world that's able to parse out the "real" from our "experienced reality" but they cannot. They only further entrench our biases and subjective beliefs about the world.

With that logic, as I understand it, no photo can 100 percent be known to be absolute truth. Therefore all video and photographs being used in criminal cases should be thrown out. A lot of criminals are going to be happy.

I get what you are saying, I think, but there doesn't really need to be any context here. Girls posing for a photo at school. We know all the details really. No context is missing.
 
It's a fucking photo. I'm not going to let this photo define the character of the people involved in the same way I don't allow a photo of a black teen throwing a gang sign define them.

It's pretty clear this is racist and shouldn't be tolerated but of course there just had to be a defense force for this. I should have known better.
 
A distinction needs to be made between a racist remark (or even minor action) and a racist person. Someone that tells a racist joke is not inherently racist nor is someone that uses slurs for the sole purpose of shock value (though it is dumb most of the time).

That being said, there is reason to believe these girls do have racist tendencies, even if not necessarily malicious and more based on ignorance/insensitivity. Of course no one here actually knows them, so we can't say for sure.
 
Is it something they'd do in front of black people? If they would, I can respect their consistency and guts. But if not, open your eyes to your people: they're racist.

Oh definitely not. They would never act that way in front of black people. A couple black friends of his are coming over tomorrow night for his bday and there's no way he'd do that in front of them. But I don't think that makes him racist. A lot of times when a professional athlete makes a play he will yell "yeah nigga!" I think they are just emulating that behavior in a space where they are safe to do so.

Funnily enough I can hear them both talking about the boycotting of the Oscars now. They are behind it and are talking about how racist the movie industry is. I'm not even kidding.
 
I did not say the person was in a gang. That is my point.

Photographs are not the ultimate tool of truth. Photographs are a curated moment of experienced reality.

In the end a photograph tells us nothing, they are merely an interpretation of events like a drawing or story.

Susan Sontag - On Photography.



The photograph in the OP provides a "message", an aggressive statement telling us this is how the world is. We want to believe photographs are this objective eye on our world that's able to parse out the "real" from our "experienced reality" but they cannot. They only further entrench our biases and subjective beliefs about the world.

I'll give ya an A for creativity that's for sure.

You still compared a "gang sign" with a racisl slur though so I'm still going to have to fail you.
 
Oh definitely not. They would never act that way in front of black people. A couple black friends of his are coming over tomorrow night for his bday and there's no way he'd do that in front of them. But I don't think that makes him racist. A lot of times when a professional athlete makes a play he will yell "yeah nigga!" I think they are just emulating that behavior in a space where they are safe to do so.

Funnily enough I can hear them both talking about the boycotting of the Oscars now. They are behind it and are talking about how racist the movie industry is. I'm not even kidding.
LOL

Unreal.
 
A distinction needs to be made between a racist remark (or even minor action) and a racist person. Someone that tells a racist joke is not inherently racist nor is someone that uses slurs for the sole purpose of shock value (though it is dumb most of the time).

That being said, there is reason to believe these girls do have racist tendencies, even if not necessarily malicious and more based on ignorance/insensitivity. Of course no one here actually knows them, so we can't say for sure.

well said imo, but you'll find alot of differing opinions on this
 
Oh definitely not. They would never act that way in front of black people. A couple black friends of his are coming over tomorrow night for his bday and there's no way he'd do that in front of them. But I don't think that makes him racist. A lot of times when a professional athlete makes a play he will yell "yeah nigga!" I think they are just emulating that behavior in a space where they are safe to do so.

Funnily enough I can hear them both talking about the boycotting of the Oscars now. They are behind it and are talking about how racist the movie industry is. I'm not even kidding.

Because they know it's racist!!!
 
Oh definitely not. They would never act that way in front of black people. A couple black friends of his are coming over tomorrow night for his bday and there's no way he'd do that in front of them. But I don't think that makes him racist. A lot of times when a professional athlete makes a play he will yell "yeah nigga!" I think they are just emulating that behavior in a space where they are safe to do so.

Funnily enough I can hear them both talking about the boycotting of the Oscars now. They are behind it and are talking about how racist the movie industry is. I'm not even kidding.


Hey your roommate is fucking racist
 
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