This society definitely needs some new racial ephithets. Through misuse and discontinuation, all of the really good racial epithets have lost their utility.
We start with the grandpappy of them all, the "N" word. I gather from the mass media that this particular epithet has fallen from favour. In fact, one comedian recently caused a substantial controversy just by screaming this word at a comedy club and thereby causing
royalties from sales of his television series DVDs to skyrocket.Even insults that are still in common use don't make any sense.
Ex. "White Trash." This one always has struck me as bizarre. Do you have to be white to be trash? Is it equally acceptable to talk about Yellow Trash or Brown Trash or Black Trash or Other Trash? And these Trash-people, are they to be recycled or just disposed of?
Ex. "Red Neck." Supposedly, the referenced condition of having a red neck arises from performing manual field labor under the hot sun. These jobs are now exclusively performed by illegal immigrants. I doubt that they have time to engage in the zany antics typically ascribed to Red Necks.
Ex. "Islamofascist" or "Christianofascist" or "Jewofascist" or "Rustofascist." Look, just because you want an omnipresent, all-controlling government run by zealots who take direction from the same supernatural being that you do, that doesn't make you dangerous. There is a fair chance that the voices in your head may tell you to do the right things.
Without some high-quality insults to hurl at each other, we stand the grave risk of losing racism all together. As we know, "race" is a social construct which
asks people to self-identify as a member of one "race." In other words, you are a member of the race that you identify yourself as a member of.
One can't deny the obvious need for such a distinction. Otherwise, for example, how in the Hell would the
Rwandan Hutus have known who to hack to death with machetes? How on Earth would the
Sudanese Jangaweed know who they should rape, loot and kill? Not to mention good old fashioned lynchings. Without some "race" distinctions, none of this would make any sense.
While completing the kindergarten registration form for my son this week, I received a puzzled look from the administrator when I wrote in "N/A" for his "race." (I suppose I could have written "human," but I take that as a given.) As far as I can tell, my son is too young to have developed the necessary sophistication and bigotry to identify with a race. Perhaps when he is older, he will mature into a racist. I only hope we can develop some decent epithets in time.
