Magdelin Laundry

[Jonathan]

Two main alarm pheromones have been identified in Gothic.net posters. One is released by the Koschevnikov gland, near the submit reply button, and consists of more than 40 chemical compounds, including isopentyl acetate (IPA), butyl acetate, 1-hexanol, n-butanol, 1-octanol, hexyl acetate, octyl acetate, n-pentyl acetate and 2-nonanol. These chemical compounds have low molecular weights, are highly volatile, and appear to be the least specific of all pheromones. Alarm pheromones are released when a forum post references race or a word or term associated with such, and attract other posters to the thread and causes them to behave defensively, i.e. sting or charge. It has been suggested that the alarm pheromone emitted when the submit reply button is clicked smells like bananas.

[Saya]

Originally Posted by Solumina

Why should anyone have made a thread? It's not like it was new information and when compared to what women go through in other parts of the world it isn't even surprising. Also do you always shrug off learning of human rights violations if it isn't presented in just the right way? Or just the ones that you could never see happening to you?

Oh and if it was something you had just then found out about why didn't you go wait a minute, WHAT?

I probably should have shouted loudly that the church was mostly to blame and some white savior male should come and attatch his concern to it. Through a dance interpretation, since that's probably the only way he'll ever listen to anything I have to say. Unless I grow a dick.

Despanan, can you explain why white supremacy is natural, with peer reviewed links? And explain why this disputes the fact that white supremacy in the long run isn't very old?

[Saya]

Originally Posted by Miss Absynthe

You know, listing logical fallacies doesn't do anything to address the points made and is bit of a trollish move - I know, because it's one of my personal favourites.

You could choose to discuss this without blocking your ears and yelling "LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU" even if someone doesn't put across the point that they are making to your standards.

My favourite part is dude does it himself every single time, except when he's being passive aggressive he demands we be polite. But he's allowed to troll and make personal attacks on everyone as much as he pleases, up to and including creating a thread telling me I should kill myself for being religious.

But no, I'm the one who's out of line and should take him seriously like I think at this point he'll ever be able to get over himself and think critically about his motives and limits.

[Despanan]

Honestly, no. I went back and reread your posts. At this point I'm convinced you aren't interested in a dialogue and I don't think I can trust you to argue in good faith, so I'm done here.

Feel free to think whatever you want about that. Duces.

[Saya]

You got a square Versus!

[Alan]

Who does Despanan think he is, feeling outraged at something he independently found out and began to look into it, instead of having realized there was already a passing statement of it in some thread a while ago!
We should criminalize people talking about things that have been talked about before.

[Saya]

Originally Posted by Alan

Who does Despanan think he is, feeling outraged at something he independently found out and began to look into it, instead of having realized there was already a passing statement of it in some thread a while ago!
We should criminalize people talking about things that have been talked about before.

The point is he wouldn't give two fucks if it wasn't for his hatred for all things religion. He responded to my post about how it was an Irish travesty, but I didn't specifically mention that the Church was involved. The point is he was aware of it at one point, but only recently has the religious connections been impressed upon him, and now he cares.

Seriously, white people only think slavery is bad because it has been impressed upon us that black slavery didn't turn out so well. I remember a thread we had on indentured servitude and most people seemed okay with it. We very much romanticize Roman and Greek empires, despite their slavery. The reason we find slavery horrendous is its connection to racial oppression and its just about the only thing we get into our heads that we've done wrong.

There isn't much critique heard on why we think it was so bad other than out of white guilt (that we sometimes try to push away by saying it wasn't that bad and they should be thankful they're not over in Africa starving to death), but its not because slavery is bad by default. We're very comfortable with different forms of it in our society that exist right in front of us, and we celebrate the products of exploitation.

Its sort of like calling something a holocaust even though you're not directly referring to THE Holocaust. There is a THE SLAVERY in our minds as well that we immediately refer to when we hear the word. We make references because the words have historical meaning.

[Versus]

Originally Posted by Despanan

Anyway, I don't think it's inappropriate. Clearly you disagree, so feel free to think I'm wrong/racist. I really don't give a crap what either of you think.

I'm continually amazed how you can always miss the fucking point.

Despanan, I don't give a shit how close to American slavery that Magdelin laundries are. I don't fucking care that those women were not property, that they were not bought and sold like they were things. I did not make comparisons between the two and I did not argue that they were or were not slaves.

What's fucked up is that you, as an American, know full fucking well that slavery is a racialized word in this country. You fucking know this. You can argue about it's definition all you fucking want and how it can be applied into a non-racialized context, but you know that it has picked up that additional weight in America.

Jesus Christ, I hear the same fucking bullshit from people who try to argue with me why they should be able to say ******. They fucking know why they can't say it. Nobody is that fucking stupid. They are pretending to be race blind on the outside, and on the inside they are making a conscious decision that their need to say it is more important then the pain it causes the people who hear it.

Obviously, you're clever enough to know that you can't socially get away with saying nigga. But hey, now I'm unreasonable if I don't forgive you since you apologized, right? After all, you DIDN'T MEAN to apologize to Saya, rather then me. You DIDN'T MEAN to imply that there is, in fact, an appropriate use of the word or a place for it. You DIDN'T MEAN to defend yourself by explaining your thought process.

So, apparently, up until friggin' 1996 the Catholic Church in Ireland was keeping "fallen" women against their will, in virtual slavery, taking their children away from them to raise in their orphanages, and using them for free labor in their for-profit laundry business. They beat them, they tortured them, they robbed them of all their possessions and gave them new names.

Here, you said virtual slavery. NOT QUITE slavery, but almost.

Here's the website of a group which is trying to get justice for the women, as of now neither the Catholic Church nor the Irish government has so much as apologized for keeping these women in SLAVERY.

And here, you removed the qualifier of "virtual" and just went ahead and did it, even to use caps lock for emphasis.

Do you know what this says to me? This says that no matter what the fuck you say, you knew that it's not the appropriate word to use because it's been so racialized. And then you just went ahead and did it, probably after thinking about it for a little bit. I mean, they have a lot of the same characteristics, right? It's close enough, isn't it? You even LISTED the similarities, probably with American slavery in mind as a direct comparison in your fucking head. You made a conscious decision that regardless of it's racialized context, it was okay to do. You made a conscious decision that, despite how it might make other people feel, your ability to decide when to use a racialized word was more important. You made a conscious decision that your freedom took precedence over an entire race.

So yeah, you're fucking racist. But do you know what the worst part is? That you don't fucking care.

[Alan]

I'm out of the context here. In Mexico when we think of slavery it does not come with a direct link to color. Even as indigenous people are treated as second-class citizens by so many upper echelons of society today, the link wasn't between them and slavery.
So I have no way of really knowing how an actual American mind works when they associate things to the word slavery.

That said, this doesn't change the fact that this is slavery. Agreeing with the bulk of your last paragraph, shouldn't the error be not to commit fully to calling it slavery rather than to claim that it was slavery?

[Saya]

Originally Posted by Alan

I'm out of the context here. In Mexico when we think of slavery it does not come with a direct link to color. Even as indigenous people are treated as second-class citizens by so many upper echelons of society today, the link wasn't between them and slavery.
So I have no way of really knowing how an actual American mind works when they associate things to the word slavery.

That said, this doesn't change the fact that this is slavery. Agreeing with the bulk of your last paragraph, shouldn't the error be not to commit fully to calling it slavery rather than to claim that it was slavery?

The problem arises when white people have exclusive control over the term to address issues that we deem worthy of the word. I mentioned earlier for example that there's an article I was reading (here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...lene-laundries) about how refugee seekers are being incarcerated and while a direct comparison wasn't made, the point of it was to point out Ireland has a horrible history of locking up the unwanted that continues today. Yet read the comments and most are outraged that anyone would ever compare the two and the immigrants should be thankful.

Likewise in America and Canada, while prison labour exploitation, immigrant labour exploitation and human trafficking continue to be a problem and are objectively slavery, we won't call it that. Slavery is something other bad people do, like our ancestors or the Vatican. We don't want to face responsibility to the fact that we allow slavery to continue in our society, so we won't call it that. There's too much guilt associated with the word. We'll call it anything but, because the word has the power like it did in this thread to create anger and outrage against someone outside, the Vatican, Ireland, and we can't unleash that anger at home and at ourselves.

Therefore I think its more than fair that white people be asked to be pretty uncomfortable with words we've racialized and assume power over. I actually wasn't going to say anything in this thread until Versus did, I'm that utterly incapable of analyzing this stuff until someone such as Versus gets the ball rolling. While I intellectually know that words have power, I can't get what words have power and what words don't until someone who is affect by those words tell me, and I really have to defer to his experience as an American man of colour, you know? If it was you, I wouldn't say shit. But I think I and other white people should be very uncomfortable using words we racialize and hold for our own, and probably should back down when challenged on it.

[Jonathan]

If it is inappropriate to use racially charged words, why the fuck do you have one in the middle of your adorable bingo board?

[Saya]

Sorry, I must of blacked out, are we living in a Save The Pearls situation where black people are oppressing white people and using language as a huge tactic of that oppression?

[Versus]

He reminds me of the kid in class who tries to act a fool just for attention.

[Saya]

Originally Posted by Versus

He reminds me of the kid in class who tries to act a fool just for attention.

Makes sense. The only other thing that made me remember who he was before this was being the guy who couldn't take a hint and kept asking Ophelia out.

[Jonathan]

No, it's just hypocritical to say on one hand that it's wrong to use charged terms without taking other people's feelings into consideration, and then congratulate yourselves over doing the same thing.

You don't give a shit what people think or feel, you're just caught up in being self-righteous.

edit: holy shit you are delusional.

[Saya]

The point is language has power and historical context. What is the historical context of "cracker" and how have PoC used it to oppress white people?

Also, you've already said that you don't find the word offensive and you're just taking the piss, so you're just kind of being an ass just because you can.

[Versus]

Originally Posted by Alan

I'm out of the context here. In Mexico when we think of slavery it does not come with a direct link to color. Even as indigenous people are treated as second-class citizens by so many upper echelons of society today, the link wasn't between them and slavery.
So I have no way of really knowing how an actual American mind works when they associate things to the word slavery.

That said, this doesn't change the fact that this is slavery. Agreeing with the bulk of your last paragraph, shouldn't the error be not to commit fully to calling it slavery rather than to claim that it was slavery?

Not really. The error is to call it slavery without permission. If you remember the thread you made, Miss Absynthe asked if it was alright to use the term in a S&M context because she felt uncomfortable with it. She acknowledged that it could be problematic and might bother someone. Despanan acknowledged that too, except that he decided he didn't need permission, and that's the point.

As Saya said, people know that it's a powerful word sometimes and has disgusting connotations, so they reserve it for when they can take advantage of that, like in the links I posted when I replied to you. That's the part that's fucked up. It's a form of slavery, maybe not chattel slavery, but it's not really enough for me to get bothered about. I think it's fine to call it that assuming that the person saying it doesn't do so with the intention of using the term just because it suits them.

I didn't say the f-bomb unless I really wanted to make somebody feel like shit, and that's not okay. I can't take what isn't my word and use it to invoke a reaction, saying "fuck the people who don't like it." Similarly, Despanan shouldn't use racial charged words so fucking arrogantly because they aren't his burden to bare. It's not his decision to make, no matter how much he kicks and screams when his entitlement is confronted, or tries to say that racism is natural when he's called out on being biased.

There's nothing wrong with also calling the Magdelin laundries inhumane exploitation, but that's not fucking provocative enough for some people, I guess.

[Jonathan]

Just because I am not personally affected by the use of a term doesn't make it any less a racial slur.

[Saya]

Originally Posted by Jonathan

Just because I am not personally affected by the use of a term doesn't make it any less a racial slur.

Who is personally affected to make it a racial slur?

[Jonathan]

Just to be clear, you are suggesting that "whitey" and "cracker" are not racist terms? Am I supposed to believe they are intended to be terms of endearment?

[Versus]

Originally Posted by Jonathan

No, it's just hypocritical to say on one hand that it's wrong to use charged terms without taking other people's feelings into consideration, and then congratulate yourselves over doing the same thing.

You don't give a shit what people think or feel, you're just caught up in being self-righteous.

edit: holy shit you are delusional.

It's hypocritical, you say?

From my facebook a few months ago:

Except he actually didn't say "the n-word." He said ******. Even my phone knows that it's wrong and tried to correct me by replacing it as a misspelling of "bigger."

I told him not to say it again in my presence.

He whitesplained what the word "really means," and told me not to let it bother me.

I told him not to tell me how to respond to oppression.

He asked "why is it oppression if blacks say it all the time?"

I told him that it means something different if other people say it.

He asked me why it offended me. Like he didn't fucking know. As if everybody doesn't know.

I told him about the history of the word, and that when white people say it, it's in two ways. I said "The first way is the way that I will slap the shit out of whoever says it like that," and explained that the second way, casually, is the way that ignores, dismisses, and marginalize how it hurts me. How it causes my gut to churn and my teeth to clench.

And he asked me "But why is it different when I say it, and not another black person."

I said "because you're a white American and know damn fucking well why."

He raised his voice and said "That racist! You're a hypocrite when you condemn racism and use it yourself! Stop being a fucking pussy and rise above the ignorance."

Then we really argued.

I'd be convinced that you work at Ft. Carson if I hadn't met dozens of other people who say the same thing.

What is it with people who think they can just shit out the same arguments and think they've somehow got you in a vice?

[Saya]

Originally Posted by Jonathan

Just to be clear, you are suggesting that "whitey" and "cracker" are not racist terms? Am I supposed to believe they are intended to be terms of endearment?

Racism is discrimination plus power. So no, it has no power over me and therefore is not racist. Maybe its hurtful to some people? But hurtful doesn't make it racist.

[Jonathan]

OK that clarifies things.

Versus, just because the guy on your facebook and I both used the word "hypocritical" doesn't make it the same argument. I'm not defending the right to use a racist word, I'm saying that ethnic slurs in any context are awful.

[Versus]

No, he did have the same arguement. I hadn't posted that part, but he said the same thing when he compared cracker to, you know, an actual slur.

[Jonathan]

Blatantly referring to someone's race in a hateful way is not a slur. Got it.