I was banned for telling a black person that "person of color" is a silly term, and that he should just call himself black. The justification cited : racism.
While I wouldn't agree that it is worth banning someone for; telling someone that their preferred term for self identity is silly strikes me as very rude and implies a sense of authority or expertise that you really have no business in.
I suspect though that that is a shortened version of the interaction.
If they were accused of racism for saying someone was black rather than a person of colour, and they said that was silly. That seems more reasonable.
And while perhaps being rude, I don't think being of a certain colour gives or removes any authority or expertise you may have on the subject. If you want to identify as purple, can I not comment unless I also identify as purple?
> And while perhaps being rude, I don't think being of a certain colour gives or removes any authority or expertise you may have on the subject. If you want to identify as purple, can I not comment unless I also identify as purple?
It adjusts the implicit context of what is being said. Which is heavy when it comes to white men telling Black individuals how to perceive themselves. In any case, calling someone's provided identity "silly" is hard to construe as anything but an attack. The best case context here is that you have assumed it is not important to them and thus harmless to denigrate. Which comes with its own loaded baggage of how people of privileged social classes don't consider how or why identity is so central to disadvantaged groups because they never really need to think much about being a "normal" person.
It's not a particularly malicious attack. But it's needlessly abrasive. No, don't comment on someone's identification as purple. Nobody asked for your opinion. If you want to ask them about their identity that's probably ok.
>The best case context here is that you have assumed it is not important to them and thus harmless to denigrate
My reply said it depends upon what actually happened. Your quoted part quotes me as saying it's perhaps rude (perhaps because we don't know what actually happened). So if I'm potentially accepting it's rude how am i assuming it isn't important?
Youre the one that seems to be doing all the assuming here.
What I was disagreeing with is the statements about authority and expertise. It's got nothing to do with authority. And I would love it if expertise came into the picture at all. But I would guess any etymological defense of any word would probably be cited as more evidence of X group subjugating Y group, and as blackness is a lived experience then nobody but yourself is qualified to say whether you're black or not, and any attempt to biologically or socialogically delineate blackness is racist or something and further evidence of subjugation.
>No, don't comment on someone's identification as purple
Theres a difference between commenting on something and commenting on someone who identified as that thing.
It's the difference between talking about obesity and calling someone fat. I have just as much right to an opinion as the person who identified as obese, to talk about obesity. They are no more or less an expert on obesity just because they are (or identify as being) obese.
> My reply said it depends upon what actually happened. Your quoted part quotes me as saying it's perhaps rude (perhaps because we don't know what actually happened). So if I'm potentially accepting it's rude how am i assuming it isn't important? Youre the one that seems to be doing all the assuming here.
The you in my statement was generically directed towards someone calling another person's described identity silly.
> What I was disagreeing with is the statements about authority and expertise. It's got nothing to do with authority. And I would love it if expertise came into the picture at all. But I would guess any etymological defense of any word would probably be cited as more evidence of X group subjugating Y group, and as blackness is a lived experience then nobody but yourself is qualified to say whether you're black or not, and any attempt to biologically or socialogically delineate blackness is racist or something and further evidence of subjugation.
No, this is missing the point quite dramatically. You have no authority nor expertise in telling someone what their identity is, not because you lack credentials or a shared experience, but because you're not them. It is their identity. It's rude to say something like this even if you're Black as well.
> Theres a difference between commenting on something and commenting on someone who identified as that thing.
If someone tells you they identify as X, and you say X is silly, there's an overt implication that you have just called them silly.
> It's the difference between talking about obesity and calling someone fat. I have just as much right to an opinion as the person who identified as obese, to talk about obesity. They are no more or less an expert on obesity just because they are (or identify as being) obese.
You can have whatever opinions you want. But when you share an opinion that implies a negative trait about obese people, you will have insulted any obese people taking part in the conversation, or even implicitly not in the conversation but just known to the participants.
Everything you're saying here seems to suppose that you can only be held accountable for the first order effects of your speech. Which is perhaps how the law works, but it isn't how people communicate and understand each other.
>While I wouldn't agree that it is worth banning someone for; telling someone that their preferred term for self identity is silly strikes me as very rude and implies a sense of authority or expertise that you really have no business in.
> implies a sense of authority or expertise that you really have no business in.
What about this is inherently unique to the specific word 'silly'? Further the "no business in" applies to someone's (self identified) race.
So every way I try and parse this, I get to a general statement.
So why, when I challenge said general statement, do you insert the word 'silly' in there?
I'm not talking about that, I'm not talking about insulting people. That is rude. What I am challenging is the idea that you can't comment because it
> implies a sense of authority or expertise that you really have no business in.
That statement isn't limited to rude things.
So rather than running off saying
> Everything you're saying here seems to suppose that you can only be held accountable for the first order effects of your speech.
Which has absolutely nothing to do with anything. Why don't you read your first post and even if you didn't intend for it to be interpreted that way, at least accept that I did.
If PayPal isn't the morality police what makes you think you're the language police? Especially when it seems like you decided to police a person of color during a routine business transaction?
Unless you know that person's heritage, you don't actually know. Black as an identity is not a global thing. It's like when that director from Africa was called an African American in the press despite not being American. Forcing black on someone who doesn't identify that way is just as absurd as forcing American on someone who isn't.
> I was banned for telling a black person that "person of color" is a silly term, and that he should just call himself black. The justification cited : racism.
Where did you tell off this person? How did PayPal catch wind of it?
endisneigh: no, I'm not from the USA. But I'm reasonably familiar with its Jim Crow era. I'm not sure what point you think I was trying to make, but I'll try to clarify. I'm not saying anything about how people should refer to themselves, I really don't care. You asked: "why you think one term is somehow more appropriate than the other". I can't speak for swayvil of course, but my argument is that 'black' is much more descriptive than just 'colour' because there are so many colours. "Black" is also a range, but it's a more specific range than just "colour". Reading your question again, perhaps it's the word "appropriate" that's tripping us up? If you're trying to describe something, then it's more "appropriate" to be a descriptive as possible. If that's what swayvil was banned for, that's pretty insane in my books.
“Black” people aren’t actually black. If you’re familiar with the term colored in the context in the United States, I’m not even sure what you’re arguing. Black people like everyone else come in a large range of hues, hence colored.
The point is that if you haven't experienced discrimination (in terms of your ancestors being forced into slavery for the color of their skin or the constant barrage of laws attempted to keep you below others in society because of the color of your skin), you have no place in telling someone else how they should refer to the color of their skin.
This isn't an an issue of semantics that you're trying to make it out to be - it's just not your business in the first place.
How do you know my ancestors weren't forced into slavery? How do you know they weren't crammed in 2 families to a room in a cellar with sewage flowing through it? How do you know they werent sent up chimneys when they were kids?
If you want to have a discussion based on discrimination in the here and now that's one thing, dredging up century plus old things to complain about doesn't get anyone anywhere. In fact it weakens your argument because it suggests that the only discrimination is past discrimination, and we now live in an enlightened world where there is no discrimination.
Further. You're veering very far from the question posed, and inserting a lot of assumptions you have no basis for making.
One shouldn’t have to justify whether or not they are a victim of racism when they make a statement or claim. This isn’t Scarlet Letter.
You seem to place more value in the views of the supposed victims of discrimination. Ironically, this is discriminatory to anyone else who has something to say on the topic.
Setting aside whether you should have been banned, what you did was incredibly stupid. What made you think that you should go around telling Black people what they "should" call themselves? That's not your business or your job. Just keep your mouth shut about things that you have no right to comment on.
If I take your comment to heart then you should also shut up because its not your business to call people of color, black people. He most certainly has the right to comment. I do, too. I wouldn't want a payment processor to block you or fine you an arbitrary amount for vague rule violation with no legal recourse. Shutting up would mean this discussion wouldn't exist and paypal can continue stealing 2500 because they are always right.