Double standard

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Double standard

Submitted by Rick on Mon, 07/03/2006 - 3:37pm.

[A lull in the action at the BroHo -- everyone's off buying drinks.]

Let's talk about free speech. Today, during the Nazi's hateful and angry rants, they used obscene language twice (the "s" word on both occasions). I'm not raising the issue because of my sensitive ears, but rather because there were no consequences to the use of these words, unlike what seems to have happened yesterday to a group of young musicians at the Unity in the Community rally.

My point is just that, in a completely fair world, the Nazis would have had the plug pulled just as quickly on their garbage as those kids did on their music.

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Jade goes off

Submitted by Jade on Mon, 07/03/2006 - 4:18pm.

What about the level of security? Personally, I felt it was SO over the top that it was an encroachment on free speech. I mean, ok, there was a riot in Toledo. There was also a riot at the World Series. Big crowds sometimes riot, and I understand the police need to be prepared to handle that.

But, Lord have mercy! I have NEVER seen anything like what I saw today. There were far more police than demonstrators (fascists and antifas combined) and the barricade! And the 100 yard distance! Honestly!

I was shocked and quite frankly offended to see such gross misuse of our public facilities and resources. That was a terrrible waste.

Our government threatening to arrest us if we got close enough to see each other's faces or talk to one another. Shame.

And finally, WHY was the state patrol facing US (Oly community) in their riot gear? I have seen presidential candidates speak with less protection than these clowns were getting, and the police were acting like WE are the threat!

Jade

(A Rose in the Pumpkin Patch)

Jade answers the question

Submitted by Jade on Mon, 07/03/2006 - 5:23pm.

Personally, I find the words "kike", "nigger", and the like offensive, whereas I could care less about "shit", except when directed at a person. (as in, sack of)

Interestingly, the reason why we find some words offensive, and others with the same meaning not to be is itself rooted in racism. It comes from the rooting out of certain languages as a part of colonization. Hence, saying "shit" is my right as an anti-racist. At least that's what I told my high school principal...

So yes, there was clearly a double standard. I don't know why. Very disappointing, though. Jade

(A Rose in the Pumpkin Patch)

We talked about this at the broho

Submitted by Norm on Mon, 07/03/2006 - 5:35pm.

they were facing you because there were more of you, and they obviously had a decent handle on whole 11 - 13 nsm members. 13 vs 200, I'd keep my eye on the 200 also. They were scheduled to be there, they had their time, and frankly the anti-nsm people have been building up to this, it sounded like a tense situation coming in. I thought it was fairly obvious myself.

My thoughts on the difference between the rappers at the rally and the speakers for the nationalists. Saying the "S" word twice, versus a song that contains that word and the "F" word as the chorus. C'mon guys, there's a huge difference there. Not unlike the difference between a sticker that says, " If you come within 100 meters you'll be shot " and " MADD". We are all adults here, let's look at this rationally instead of trying to assign who are the victims. Your message was well read, there was no violence and you made the nsm just a little bit laughable.

I get the diff.

Submitted by Rick on Mon, 07/03/2006 - 6:08pm.

But we're talking about a community standard. I personally don't care about the language, so maybe I'm not a good judge. Does it matter how many times, really?

In a perfect world? No, it

Submitted by Norm on Mon, 07/03/2006 - 6:53pm.

In a perfect world? No, it shouldn't matter. In a human world frequency is going to matter. I think also severity of the word. I know many people that the S word doesn't offend them, but say the F word and they get all up in arms. As I said at the Broho, I'm willing to bet the cop who pulled the plug had a few people come up to him and complain. I'm not normally offended by words for the most part. I do have a really hard time listening to music ( if rap can be defined as such ) that uses swearing. I just feel that it shows a lack of vocabulary in the song writer. I know I tend to cuss like a sailor, but I very rarely cuss in front of children, sometimes by accident I suppose. The two events sounded very different in that respect, sunday's sounded like a family event, monday's seemed far more adult oriented. I don't think I would have taken a child to an nsm rally, I'd rather not expose their little ears to that crap.

Also remember, if the NSM had been cut off they would have looked like victims. In this case I'm actually glad that they were allowed to spew their hate and get essentially laughed at by everyone. Olympia has given them more than enough with the media coverage and attention in general, making them a victim doesn't look good for us. I don't know...it's 1am and I suppose I'm rambling, so I'm off to bed.

Personally I am not really

Submitted by kiki on Mon, 07/03/2006 - 6:58pm.

Personally I am not really offended hearing either word in public granted they aren't directed at me. I think someone mentioned in another post (dealing with the Scream Club incident) that since the Unity in the Community event was supposed to be family orientated they were bothered by the profane lyrics. On the other hand they don't expect a Nazi rally be family oriented. I can understand the point, I did think it was a little weird that Scream Club was performing songs with those words just because it seemed out of sync with the rest of the event. It seemed a little awkward to me, but I am not down with the way it was handled at all.

It seems out of balance to me. I can understand why people were upset about Scream Club even though it didn't bother me, but if Nazis are protected in making distasteful speech I think Scream Club should be too. It raises the question of what speech should be protected under law and what speech should be outlawed and I think that's an extremely sensitive issue. My gut says, legally it should be all protected because selfishly I fear outlawing one and not the other will leave me vulnerable to censorship myself.

I think one thing is, I bet if the people who had had a problem with Scream Club had gone to the organizers of the event and complained they would have been pretty receptive. I can't imagine the NSM would have been as receptive to complaints about their language, but I am just guessing.

Children are made out of

Submitted by Soldier for War on Mon, 07/03/2006 - 8:01pm.

Children are made out of rubber. This whole idea that we need to shelter kids from bad words is retarted. Kids know when you're hiding something from them and it makes them want what you're hiding, and it makes them learn to hide other things too.

Parents that are so worried about swear words maybe need to take better care of themselves and stop hiding things from the kids.

Swearing is virtually meaningless today, I cannot think of one situation where swearing would hurt. If swearing hurts, you've got other issues.

Soldier, when you have kids

Submitted by Norm on Tue, 07/04/2006 - 2:49am.

Soldier, when you have kids ( you may already ) you can call the shots with them. There are still people out there ( myself included ) that want to limit the amount of foul language that their children hear. It is ultimately up to the parent and you claiming that keeping from that is "retarded" probably isn't the best way of putting it.

What Norm said

Submitted by OperaGirl on Tue, 07/04/2006 - 3:06am.

Ya I would just LOVE to have my 2 1/2 year old running around saying "fucking shit". I know that it doesn't bother some people - I have a friend who lets her kid swear all the time because they are "just words". Fine. It doesn't work for me and when I take my kids to a Unity Festival the message that I want them taking away from it is NOT "what the fucking shit?"!

Really.

Submitted by Phil Owen on Tue, 07/04/2006 - 3:18am.

Having kids hear obsenities wouldn't be a big problem if they weren't inclined to repeat them. But the fact is that children want to be like adults. Just imagine if a six year old were to show up at school and use some of that band's language with their teacher, or principal. Deep trouble.

My daughter has

Submitted by Jade on Tue, 07/04/2006 - 10:47am.

been in this situation. I was contacted by a teacher because my little Kindergartener dropped the F-bomb at school.

I realized when I confronted her about it that she has no understanding of the difference between that type of vernacular and other forbidden words. (When I asked her to think of some examples of cuss words she came up with "stupid" and "shut up".)

I had a very matter-of-fact conversation about how while at home that word may warrant a "watch your mouth!", in the wider world people will get severely embarrassed and angry by those words, especially when coming from the mouths of sweet little children. I think she knows to watch her ass now.(tehe)

Anyway, I'm not trying to say everyone should parent the same way as me or anything. But there are ways to be a bit relaxed about such things without being indulgent and irresponsible in the context of the larger culture.

Jade

(A Rose in the Pumpkin Patch)

Words, words, words

Submitted by Rob Richards on Tue, 07/04/2006 - 1:38pm.

I have all the respect in the world for the right of a parent to try to keep their kids from saying certain words. I also disagree with you Norm, SOW has a point. I don't know how many times my mom told me not to smoke cigarettes, threatened me, yelled at me for it, grounded me for it. It just made me want to do it more. Kids think rebellion is cool, and rebelling against their parents is really cool. Want to keep your kids from smoking or swearing? Don't make it into a big deal if you catch them doing it. The way Jade handles her daughter's swearing is about the best example I can think of to follow. I know Jade, I know she's a great mom, her daughter is well adjusted and intuitive for her age. I think the fact that Jade isn't a super strict parent has a lot to do with it.

It varies...

Submitted by Norm on Tue, 07/04/2006 - 1:49pm.

from parent to parent. My parents told me not to smoke...I didn't smoke, they didn't want me to cuss, I STILL don't cuss around my mother. Your argument can be turned right around. Just because you have a great theory doesn't mean it works for everyone.

Rick has a point

Submitted by chad360 on Tue, 07/04/2006 - 4:14am.

Rick's point is valid. Who gets to pull the plug? As a community we need to keep track of this stuff, note, and remember. Have on hand during events a contact list of all relevant stuff like codes and permits details-- justa thought

On Sun, we had wifi, so that was cool [thanks donor!]...maybe plan to support citizen journalism that way in the future?

Public vs private

Submitted by OlyCop on Tue, 07/04/2006 - 2:01pm.

Being a community means being sensitive to the whole community and compromising so no one faction of the community feels alienated, particularly in a public place.

A lot of talk about kids here, which I believe we should do all we can to keep them innocent. But also, there are a fair amount of the elderly in that area too. Many of the elderly really don't care for the use of the f-word.

I think it is insensitive to use that kind of language in such a public forum, amplified, and serving no real purpose.

I would disagree the f-word is just another word. If the f-word is just another word, then I guess when a professional comes to your home, whether they be firefighter, cop, cable guy, phone man, etc. He can f-this and f-that, it would be just fine? Maybe try using it during your next job interview, or while waiting on customers if you are in a customer service position, see how that works for you.

The f-word is in my vocabulary too much, and I work to reduce it. It does have a gutteral release that no other word seems to be able to replicate. But I wouldn't use it just anywhere, and certainly not in a public area like this was.

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