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In "holy shit" culture war moments, Kanye has lashed out at (((us))) on Twitter. He came out of the gate swinging by stating that:
Please note that Kanye is using double-spaces instead of periods for some reason.
This comes shortly after he was pictured wearing a White Lives Matter shirt, and shortly before he asked rhetorically
As always, the reaction is worse than the action, and causes the story to explode. In response to accusations that Jews control the media and invented cancel culture, Jewish organizations have loudly declared that such accusations are anti-semitic and inherently untrue, and then demanded Kanye be cancelled. The irony appears lost on them. To the surprise of I'm sure absolutely no one, Kanye was quickly locked out of his twitter account.
Social media reactions have been mixed, to say the least. /pol/ has apparently decided that Kanye is one step removed from goose stepping his way down the isle at the Grammys, and is almost /theirguy/. Of course there's also a substantial faction who just spam n****r so I'm going to stop short of saying that Kanye has struck a blow for unity within the racist community.
/r/Kanye, which is dedicated to exactly what you think, is in full melt-down mode understandably.
I really don't have anything else to add to this monumental pile of flaming garbage. There is no redeeming anything buried here. Only more decay and hatred seeping into public spaces. I leave you with only this thought that has been said by far smarter men than I. Twitter delenda est.
Just say nigger, man. We aren't in reddit any more.
There's really not much to go off on here. Kanye is one step removed from believing in lizard men at this point. People melting down at what he says for the uninterested observer is entertainment.
What is gained by saying it?
[EDIT] - No seriously, what's the argument here? Doing things simply because someone told you not to is childish. The idea that liberty can be secured by rejecting all norms was tested to destruction, and it did not actually work at scale. The taboo exists whether you like it or not, and flouting it provides no benefit that I can see. The word is actually garbage.
I don't actually want you or anyone else banned for mentioning it. I'm not going to, though, because I don't see the point, and I'll make the argument against mentioning because I think it's a sound one on the merits.
What is gained by censoring it? It's just letters arranged in a particular order, they can't hurt you. Treating words as though there mere utterance (even when just mentioning them) somehow causes harm is quasi-religious and stupid.
A counter point would be that we are supposed to write as if everyone is reading and we WANT them to read and take part. Given the term in question it is likely some people reading are likely to be upset or offended by it. If it is necessary to be used specifically for the post in question that should probably take precedence, but if everyone knows what you mean using the censored version, then that is a consideration worth thinking about also.
People who do not believe in the use/mention distinction are still people that we want to read here because they are a subset of everyone.
What's the limiting principle for this? Lots of people can be upset or offended by all sorts of things.
What if I find it offensive and upsetting when people censor words instead of spelling them out?
There isn't one. That reality will probably kill this forum long-term, as values-drift makes it completely impossible to communicate effectively across the tribal divide. Some people here regret that reality, and are trying to forestall it as long as possible. Of the actions taken to postpone that eventual tragedy, the one we're discussing here is quite minor.
This is not an arbitrary taboo someone thought up yesterday. It's one of the three or four most deeply cemented taboos our society has.
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