[asterisk-biz] Manners (was: Re: "Whats New at Digium the Asterisk Company")

Matthew Rubenstein email at mattruby.com
Wed Nov 14 08:55:17 CST 2007


	People call something that isn't a sexual human "gay" to insult it,
because lots of people have treated gay people as really bad things. We
don't say a bargainer tried to "jew us down" any more, either, even
though "Jew" isn't a bad word when referring to Jewish people (except
when people mean it that way).

	When you use the term for a group of people as an insult to something,
you are insulting those people. If people called some things "christian"
as an insult, for example, the way people have called things "gay" as an
insult for a long time, then "that thing is christian beyond words"
would insult not just the thing, but christians, too.

	This is a basic point of elementary manners. Ask yourself if you would
feel safe in a gay bar full of gay bikers, asked if you like the new
version of Windows, and you replied that you didn't, LOUDLY, saying
"THAT IS SO GAY". Would you feel safe? Would your rationalizations
protect you?

	You're one of those people who thinks you've carved out a whole zone of
bad behavior because you call rules against it "politically" correct, as
if the behavior is actually correct, but there's some arbitrary rule
against it. "Politically correct" refers to all kinds of correct
behavior that had to be forced on bigots by oppressed groups, because
bigots, usually in the majority, could be stopped only by a "political"
process, like long appeals like this one to people's sense of decency
buried under their convenient traditional bigotry.

	People like you have long insisted from your conveniently protected
roles in society that all kinds of ethnic slurs are OK. But their common
use is a reminder to people they insult that the insults are accepted,
will not be opposed, that the insulter has power to offend that the
insulted does not have power to stop. The reality is referred to by the
insult. To remind everyone that the target is an acceptable victim,
which perpetuates the abuse. Including physical and political abuse. Gay
people, even in America, are often second class citizens, with all kinds
of rights and privileges denied them. And your calling something "gay"
as an arbitrary insult to it is helping keep it that way. If you don't
understand that, it's because you understand nothing about politics or
how large groups of people operate. And now you're defending your
ignorance, just because it's convenient to you.

	I didn't say that making that slur was the sole action keeping everyone
down. But it is part of it. And people failing to confront those little,
everyday abuses is the essential part of it. Every time a White person
in Alabama let a bus driver direct a Black person to the back of the
bus, or any other of the little acceptable codes of racism was indulged
rather than confronted, the racism was kept propped up by the person
going along as much as by the person enforcing it.

	I also didn't say anything about "Christmas". But your bringing it up
refers to you acting like there's some kind of "war on Christmas", the
idiotic culture war that lets privileged people like you act like
victims, when you're not. A sad perversion of what Christmas is supposed
to stand for: the birth of someone who brought compassion for everyone,
no matter their station, regardless of how socially acceptable it was to
treat some people like animals or objects.

	Bigotry is *real*. It ruins lives. Just because you're privileged
enough to feel safe from it doesn't mean you are, doesn't mean it's OK
to do it. Just because you're at the end of an Internet wire doesn't
mean you can do wrong without consequence. You're talking in a large
group of adults, and there are consequences to your speech. Learn how to
behave, or keep your abuse and your excuses for it to yourself.

	BTW, ending your excuses with an insult and a smiley doesn't make it
OK. And your saying that your bigotry is no big deal, just because *you*
are so casual about it, doesn't mean it really is like that.


On Wed, 2007-11-14 at 00:48 -0500, Nick Seraphin wrote:
> 
> Oh come on.. get serious!  Or maybe I should say, "loosen up!"
> 
> 1) Since when is the word "gay" considered a bigoted slur?
> 
> 2) He didn't say a person was gay, he said a product was gay.
> 
> 3) Even if you apply it in a "person" context, last I checked, homosexuals
> refer to themselves as "gay", so it's obviously not a "bad word".  Unless
> you have something against gay people, Matthew?
> 
> 4) "gay" has multiple meanings, it wasn't invented for the purpose of
> identifying homosexuals, either in a positive, negative, or neutral
> manner.  Calling it a slur is worse than using the word the way Alex
> did... because you're basically saying that ANYONE who uses the word
> "gay", including homosexual people themselves, are using a slur.  
> 
> 5) It is absolutely insane how people overreact and take everything so
> personally when someone doesn't use 100% political correctness.  God help
> us if Alex says "Merry Christmas" next month or tells a joke about a
> midget that walked into a bar, blah blah blah.  You might have a coronary.
> 
> Now if he had called someone a "fag", then you would have ground to stand
> on -- that could be considered a slur by some people these days.
> (Cigarette references not withstanding)
> 
> Relax and don't be so uptight.  It's not like he insulted your dead
> mother's honor or something.  Sheesh. :-)
> 
> -- Nick
> 
> 
> 
> On Tue, 13 Nov 2007, Matthew Rubenstein wrote:
> 
> > 	There's a difference between slang and a bigoted slur. If you don't
> > know the difference, you should learn it now. I don't need to be a saint
> > to point out basic manners of speaking in public. If you think so little
> > of this -biz community, please just stay out of it.
> > 
> > 
> > On Tue, 2007-11-13 at 16:06 -0500, Alex Pilosov wrote:
> > > On Tue, 13 Nov 2007, Matthew Rubenstein wrote:
> > > 
> > > > 	Not only is that comment useless in pure business terms, but using
> > > > the word "gay" like that poisons business relationships, and demeans the
> > > > entire community.
> > > Blah blah blah. Look at the halo above Matthew's head.
> > > 
> > > Sometimes slang is the only thing that adequately captures the inherent 
> > > stupidity. 
> > > 
> > > Anyway, this is ridiculous. Business relationships? Entire "Community"? On 
> > > asterisk-biz? You must be joking. -biz has become a soapbox for Rehan 
> > > AhmedWallahBismillah etc and a kindergarden of tin-can-and-asterisk 
> > > providers.
> > > 
> > > -alex
> > > 
> > -- 
> > 
> > (C) Matthew Rubenstein
> > 
> > 
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> 
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(C) Matthew Rubenstein




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