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Racism isn't cool.

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Loki

Count of Concision
Disco Stu said:
The trump card thing won't work. I suspect we live in the same general area and probably have similar ancestry.

Drats! Foiled again! <shakes fist> :D


EDIT: Btw, whether it's used facetiously or not, the pertinent question was whether or not it is a racial epithet, in the sense that it can be applied to any and all member(s) of said ethnic group, since this is what would constitute a "racist remark" (i.e., whether the criteria for employing the slur is racial/ethnic or behavioral; I've argued for the latter). I hold that it cannot be. Neither I, nor any of my Italian friends, have ever been called "guidos," and there's a good reason for that.
 

ohamsie

Member
My understanding is that it has negative connotations, and it only applies to one racial group. You couldn't call a white person or a Japanese person, etc. a guido and have it make sense. So even if it is commenting about a certain lifestyle, it is also commenting on the race.
 

fart

Savant
Cerebral Palsy said:
http://209.59.175.58/showthread.php?p=1550114#post1550114



... right out the window! Free speech should only exist when you agree with what is said, right?


Bellwoods, you have offended this man worse than anything he could ever find on Rotten.com. You sir, are a fucking horrible person. You deserved to be banned.
GOOD DAY TO YOU SIR.
(1) i was referring to the new 2257 in general. yes, i didn't make myself clear. sorry. i don't agree at all with rotten.com's content, but the new 2257 is absolutely bullshit, and violate's rotten.com's right to exist, period. it's not declared censorship, but like a computational complexity argument to censorship. it's like saying "yes, you can still distribute all the media you used to distribute but everytime you hand out a copy you have to factor this 2kbyte composite number we give you". it's a ridiculous subversion of constitutional rights. it effectively cuts off the right to communicate.

so, that said: (2) i don't particularly believe in censorship, and this thread is not proof that i do, no matter how convenient it may be for you to discount my opinions by what is ultimately fallacy anyways. i do believe in free speech, and fancie is free to talk to me, or the mod that banned him directly, to post his little heart out on oa, or what have you. however, he violated the rules of the particular thread that he posted in, a thread especially designed to do foster unusually constructive discussion by means of short-circuiting the self-censorship that tends to be present on a board that is moderated, nominally to ensure that all participants have an equal right to speak (AHEM). the rules of this thread were designed to ensure that these qualities would still be present in the thread despite the relaxation of other rules.

now, there are a couple definitional issues:

particularly (3), free speech is NOT the ability for YOU (hypothetical you) to say whatever YOU want, whenever YOU want. let's say there's a single communications channel that everyone in a group shares, and let's say we want to assure that "free speech" holds for everyone over that communications channel. let's say that this channel takes in 1 message from every participant every unit time and broadcasts the first message and only the first message it receives during that partiod to every participant. if we let this system run uncontrolled and some participant consistently sends the first message every single unit time is this "free speech" over the entire system? my guess is the other users will be pretty pissed that they can't send any messages to their buddies over the channel.

nominally, free speech is a right that is shared over an entire population and is meant to ensure that there is always room for progressive discussion (that is, discussion that progresses some argument, not necessarily politically progressive discussion)

(4) censorship is the filtering of objectionable content. you'll notice the word guido is not being filtered. fancie's self-defence was not filtered. we are having an open discussion on "racism" right now, in this thread. more aptly, the kind of censorship that the new 2257 is trying to achieve, the kind of censorship that impedes on free speech is that which simply makes speech disappear in order to squash discussion, reason and thought. the problem with crying censorship everytime you are chided to consider your words is that it only demonstrates that you don't understand both what it means and what you mean. if you have no idea what you're talking about, you should probably reconsider your prose anyways.

in summary, i do still believe in free speech. i also believe in reason, discussion, and the ability to follow simple fucking rules.

if you have a problem with the rules evilore imposed on the hate thread, you're free to post about it in or out of the hate thread. if you can come up with a reasonable argument as to why they constitute unjust censorship, feel free to air it.

for the record, i'm not offended by the word guido. i am offended by whiny cerebral palsies who refuse to put two thoughts together.
 

fart

Savant
Loki said:
a racial epithet, in the sense that it can be applied to any and all member(s) of said ethnic group, since this is what would constitute a "racist remark"
i don't agree with this. any derogatory comment with an ethnic basis is a "racial remark" imo. however, this is really picking hairs, and irrelevant; it's just notational.

i (and others) read the instituted rule to mean that no attack in the thread should have a racial or ethnic basis. if you have no argument with that then i'm not sure where you're absolving him.
 

Loki

Count of Concision
fart said:
i don't agree with this. any derogatory comment with an ethnic basis is a "racial remark" imo. however, this is really picking hairs, and irrelevant; it's just notational.

i (and others) read the instituted rule to mean that no attack in the thread should have a racial or ethnic basis. if you have no argument with that then i'm not sure where you're absolving him.

Fair enough. :) I just figured he meant the usual racist comments, and since this was something of a gray area, I figured I'd share my personal experience with the word. However, if you check urbandictionary.com, you'll see that "guido" does not have to refer to an Italian person (since it's based on behavior), and I have, in fact, heard non-Italians be called "guidos" in the past. <scurries out of thread> :D


Still, I'm not too invested in this matter either way, so I'm out. :p


EDIT: Btw, I haven't yet decided if you're trying to do an impersonation of me up there. ;) :p
 

Mandark

Small balls, big fun!
Meier said:
Kinda like honkey. That doesn't offend me at all even if it's a disparaging term (or at least was at one point).
Racial epithets really need some sort of history to give them power. A war, an unequal society, a resented immigration influx. An epithet used against a priviliged majority is unlikely to carry a lot of sting.

Cerebral Palsy: That's a pretty bad case of equivocation. I don't think fart's arguing that stormfront.org should be shut down. Membership in a private forum is somewhat different from the right to exist on the internet at all, for obvious reasons.
Drinky Crow said:
it's not the word itself, you disingenuous spankers, it's the INTENT.
This sums it up, though it offends me by attacking my family's long heritage of 14-year-old boys with hands.

Loki: While you may not have been called a guido, have you ever been called a drink-soaked popinjay?
 
From now on, 'guido' shall refer to a person who excels in music, specifically the fields of composition, notation, and technical prowress.

Guido D´Arezzo approves.

BTW, is 'wigger' now an offensive term? Mexicant?
 

djtiesto

is beloved, despite what anyone might say
OpinionatedCyborg said:
From now on, 'guido' shall refer to a person who excels in music, specifically the fields of composition, notation, and technical prowress.

Guido D´Arezzo approves.

BTW, is 'wigger' now an offensive term? Mexicant?

I've heard many people on this board (both white and black) complain about the usage of the term "wigger" since a lot of people think of it as a racial attack. There was a huge thread on this a few weeks ago, actually.

I'm Italian-American from an area with a HUGE population of guidos (they really only seem to be a NJ/NY/LI thing), I use the word all the time to describe them - nobody really seems to care and everyone knows exactly what I am referring to. The slicked back hair, gold cross hanging from their neck, muscle shirts (which, I remember some lady in Old Navy actually called "guinea shirts" to my mom and my mom just looked at her all like "WTF"). These people definitely give the rest of the Italians a bad name. But like another person said, the style isn't completely for the Italians, I know quite a few Jewish people who dress and act "guido". On the same token, "gino" is what they're called in Toronto, apparently.
 

belgurdo

Banned
Bell Woods is a idiot and needs to stay banned. He knew what he was doing when he said it, regardless of how "stinging" his comment was
 

ToxicAdam

Member
sarducci_live.jpg



Here's another famous Guido. I loved that guy as a kid.


I always thought Guido was deragatory term in the same way as calling a Russian "Ivan" or calling a black person "Leroy". Kind of insinuating a generic type of stereotypical ethnic persona.
 

CrunchyB

Member
Disco Stu said:
Guido is pretty offensive, as it refers to the sort of aggressive, unintelligent sort of Italian guys who wear the wife beaters, excessive jewelry, and actively promote hostility toward other peoples such as was evidenced by the Howard Beach affair a few years ago.


Err...I know two guys named Guido. It's a common name in the Netherlands (probably in the rest of Europe as well).

Also see Iapetus' post.
 

Bluecondor

Member
From the way I understand it, the term "guido" for Italian-Americans is similar to the term "hunky" for people like myself who are Slavic/Eastern-European. In the case of "hunky" - the Croatian people in our neighborhood will call one another "hunky" for a variety of reasons - from insults to teasing to expressing a specific point (for example, I have heard some people use this term to convey that someone is being boastful or arrogant).

But - when people outside of the community refer to us a "hunkies" or "mill hunks", they are referencing the idea that people from Eastern Europe/Croatia/Non-Western Europe are dumb and unsophisticated, and thus only suitable for work as laborers in mills.

As such - it is fairly obvious when "hunky" is used by in-group members versus when it is referenced by others in a stereotypical way.
 
fart said:
(1) i was referring to the new 2257 in general. yes, i didn't make myself clear. sorry. i don't agree at all with rotten.com's content, but the new 2257 is absolutely bullshit, and violate's rotten.com's right to exist, period. it's not declared censorship, but like a computational complexity argument to censorship. it's like saying "yes, you can still distribute all the media you used to distribute but everytime you hand out a copy you have to factor this 2kbyte composite number we give you". it's a ridiculous subversion of constitutional rights. it effectively cuts off the right to communicate.

Ah, I see. You do support freedom of speech. You know, the kind that you can twist around and only apply to the areas that support your agenda. Banning Bellwoods didn't cut off his right to communicate on GAF, right? I now see that rotten.com is the only one being picked on here.



fart said:
]so, that said: (2) i don't particularly believe in censorship, and this thread is not proof that i do, no matter how convenient it may be for you to discount my opinions by what is ultimately fallacy anyways. i do believe in free speech, and fancie is free to talk to me, or the mod that banned him directly, to post his little heart out on oa, or what have you. however, he violated the rules of the particular thread that he posted in, a thread especially designed to do foster unusually constructive discussion by means of short-circuiting the self-censorship that tends to be present on a board that is moderated, nominally to ensure that all participants have an equal right to speak (AHEM). the rules of this thread were designed to ensure that these qualities would still be present in the thread despite the relaxation of other rules.

Ah, a stickler for rules, eh.



fart said:
now, there are a couple definitional issues:

particularly (3), free speech is NOT the ability for YOU (hypothetical you) to say whatever YOU want, whenever YOU want. let's say there's a single communications channel that everyone in a group shares, and let's say we want to assure that "free speech" holds for everyone over that communications channel. let's say that this channel takes in 1 message from every participant every unit time and broadcasts the first message and only the first message it receives during that partiod to every participant. if we let this system run uncontrolled and some participant consistently sends the first message every single unit time is this "free speech" over the entire system? my guess is the other users will be pretty pissed that they can't send any messages to their buddies over the channel.

nominally, free speech is a right that is shared over an entire population and is meant to ensure that there is always room for progressive discussion (that is, discussion that progresses some argument, not necessarily politically progressive discussion)

(4) censorship is the filtering of objectionable content. you'll notice the word guido is not being filtered. fancie's self-defence was not filtered. we are having an open discussion on "racism" right now, in this thread. more aptly, the kind of censorship that the new 2257 is trying to achieve, the kind of censorship that impedes on free speech is that which simply makes speech disappear in order to squash discussion, reason and thought. the problem with crying censorship everytime you are chided to consider your words is that it only demonstrates that you don't understand both what it means and what you mean. if you have no idea what you're talking about, you should probably reconsider your prose anyways.

Well, for your little message system example. You just described someone that is taking away the free speech of others through spamming the system. I'm not really sure what this example has to do with the arguement. Well, unless we're talking about you. Your spamming of GAF with crying and whining has effectively led to the same outcome as in your example. Ah, I see it clear now though. No censorship here! Nope, there is still an open discussion going! Guido wasn't filtered either! Oh wait, but wasn't Bellwoods filtered from this forum? Censorship, no?


in summary, i do still believe in free speech. i also believe in reason, discussion, and the ability to follow simple fucking rules.

if you have a problem with the rules evilore imposed on the hate thread, you're free to post about it in or out of the hate thread. if you can come up with a reasonable argument as to why they constitute unjust censorship, feel free to air it.

for the record, i'm not offended by the word guido. i am offended by whiny assholes who refuse to put two thoughts together.

Wow, did you say something about rules earlier? Or is my memory foggy?

A. Language

You agree, through your use of this service, that you will not use the Gaming Age Forums to post any material which is knowingly false and/or defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, or otherwise violative of any law. Sexual, racial, or ethnic slurs will not be tolerated in any form and are bannable on the first offense. It is recommended that cursing be held to a minimum, as it does not promote civil conversation. Foul language in the form of insults directed towards other forum members may result in a ban.


OMG YOU SHOULD BE BANNED!!!1 And who is the whiney asshole? Look in the mirror to find out.
 
Um, Cerebral Palsy, the internet is not a democracy. Banning someone on a message board for saying the word guido isn't some free speach violation, it's just stupid.
 
Bacon said:
Um, Cerebral Palsy, the internet is not a democracy. Banning someone on a message board for saying the word guido isn't some free speach violation, it's just stupid.

Nah, not necessarily a free speech violation. Just fucking ridiculous censorship.
 

Musashi Wins!

FLAWLESS VICTOLY!
I couldn't care less about his banning but I'm glad there are many fine people who busy themselves policing the internet for mildly offensive speech.
 

Bluecondor

Member
If there is one part of free speech that I have gladly yielded, it is the freedom to use ethnic and racial slurs as "free speech." I can still remember the days when people would use racial and ethnic slurs, without being afraid of political correctness. I always found the use of such slurs to be uncomfortable, and am glad that people don't use them as freely and openly as they did just a few years ago.
 

fart

Savant
Cerebral Palsy said:
Wow, did you say something about rules earlier? Or is my memory foggy?

A. Language

You agree, through your use of this service, that you will not use the Gaming Age Forums to post any material which is knowingly false and/or defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, or otherwise violative of any law. Sexual, racial, or ethnic slurs will not be tolerated in any form and are bannable on the first offense. It is recommended that cursing be held to a minimum, as it does not promote civil conversation. Foul language in the form of insults directed towards other forum members may result in a ban.


OMG YOU SHOULD BE BANNED!!!1 And who is the whiney asshole? Look in the mirror to find out.
i've edited. happy? now slag off. have me banned if you want, i really don't care.

ps, when will you people realize that a ban at GA is the internet equivalent of giving a preschooler a timeout for eating paste. it's not the end of the fucking world, and the mod who did it isn't pol pot, a nazi, or any of your other favorite inherited stereotypes for "evil". they're just people trying to keep some fucking order on the forums. maybe they don't have the greatest reason all the time but jesus christ you're eating paste.
 

MC Safety

Member
CrunchyB said:
Err...I know two guys named Guido. It's a common name in the Netherlands (probably in the rest of Europe as well).

Also see Iapetus' post.

It's very well established that Guido is a common Italian name. That's not in debate.
 

Manics

Banned
I'm of Italian descent. My parent's next door neighbour is named Guido. But he's an idiot so I support the use of Guido as a derogatory term for Italians. :lol
 

miyuru

Member
As Drinky already said, it's all about the intent. And it's obvious EBW was just out to diss Alyssa, and guido was the first thing to come to mind :lol

What a fucker. That kid needs to get some discipline beat into him.
 

whytemyke

Honorary Canadian.
Hey! You guys wanna know something cool? I learned about the origination of the word 'wop' from this really old guy I used to work with. Italians used to come over around the beginning of the last century (1900s) and had to have their papers to work legally. However, most of them couldn't afford their papers, so they'd sneak into the country on different boats and such. Employers had no problem giving them work, cuz they could pay them cheaper and, if done correctly, they didn't have to pay taxes. So employers started identifying their employees by those WITH papers by marking on their own paperwork "w/p", and the illegal immigrants were given the mark "w/op"... or, wop.
 
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