Why I Stopped Using Slurs | Vlog 228
This has been a hot topic issue in my stream that has resulted in me losing a lot of 'friends' over the past few months, and I find it all really immature and silly. Here's a very basic video on the core position of why I stopped using slurs because they are harmful and unnecessary. Be a better person, learn and grow. If you want to continue the discussion, feel free to drop comments or message me personally.
My video is at DLive
Very nicely put. I think you hit the nail on the head when you said people's selfishness plays a part in the matter, and over such an inconsequential thing as one or two words, too. I guess some people are so 'all or nothing' that even the smallest show of contrition is too much. Ah well, if they can't understand how you're bettering yourself, then they probably aren't worth having around in your life.
I agree, but they're the ones who won't let it go so that's why it's so weird lol
I largely agree with your arguments and the sentiment behind them, not completely though and to a degree I'm being finicky. Your point of view is too far reaching for me and I think slurs can be used responsibly but the criteria for doing so is very narrow and perhaps exclusively restricted to private conversation between friends. I don't want to be too much of a free speecher about it but language is at its best when it's unpoliced and slurs have their place as a form of highly emotive language. A lot of slurs have a history of being used to oppress and I'm more for weakening that rather than simply eliminating their usage and leaving the stigma of the word in place. I think I already mentioned that a while ago. It's a futile objective but I find it idealistically more appealing and more workable in a free society.
Realistically speaking there are very few situations where it's contextually appropriate to use a hard slur and the vast majority of them still result in the user being perceived as an asshole. Thanks to a long standing form of internet culture these words see 1000000% more usage than they should if they were to be used “appropriately” even by my standards, and there are millions of people ready to vehemently defend their misuse. At the very least the way slurs are most commonly used is effective for giving a good idea of people best avoided or to be wary around.
One argument of yours which I can't really agree with is the defense of so-called trigger word rhetoric. I think this recently emerging viewpoint is likely counter-productive since it leaves certain people in a position where they can be hurt by words in a way which is disproportionate. “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me” is a deeply untruthful rhyme taught to kids, but it's an admirable personal goal to move toward. As someone who knows a couple of people suffering with PTSD (the most common example used for justifying these sorts of things) it's best not to coddle them and exposure therapy is still one of the most effective avenues for treating it. There's no reason to inflict undue distress on someone who finds these words genuinely “triggering” but to shield them from it completely leaves them with a personal weakness which could lead to more suffering in the long term.
I'm still open to the idea of safe space/trigger warning type environments being accepted in the future if they've proven clinically useful. Intuitively it makes sense, it's just everything about our current understanding of human psychology points to it being unhelpful.
As a relevant but perhaps ill-fitting example, imagine if someone who is vulnerable to being "triggered" by it were suddenly to be called the T-slur and told to kys by Gamers as often as you have been recently (which I'm sure does happen). You'd have to hope they are desensitized pretty quickly or they would be in for a world of hurt. There's no way to protect someone from that kind of harassment online without allowing them to become literally oppressed. It's not fair, but caring less is the only appropriate self-defense.
...I was bored and had nothing to do. Even for me this essay length is pure cringe material.
As I said, I don't really care what people do in private, since it's private. The thing with me and my streams are they are not private, and that's why I changed the stance in particular.
I half-agree with a lot of what you have to say, but I think it's excusing the jackass Gamer types way too much. "Well it's gonna happen and that's how it is" is pretty silly, and you can make that same argument during civil-rights era america toward segregated bathrooms, and stuff. Yeah, it's how it is right now, but we should collectively try to shame the wrong-doers and promote people that need help. It doesn't mean coddling them all the time and putting them in a padded room, but they shouldn't be subjected to hatred on a daily basis simply for what they are. 99% of people are reasonable and can figure out what is and isn't reasonable in context-based situations, but that doesn't mean they should have to use that skill of reason every few minutes for any random Gamer that wants to throw 69 slurs their way on social media.
People need to be given the benefit of the doubt and even though these Gamers are morons now doesn't mean they can't be reformed in the future. A significant proportion of them are sheltered kids who drank the internet culture kool aid, as they gain real life experience and head toward their 30s a lot of them are going to realise where they've went wrong. Not all of them obviously, but enough to make a real difference. Not that it excuses their current behaviour but I think it's more effective to plant the seeds of reform rather than act to punish them. It's not justice, it's just what I consider the most realistic means for reaching the end goal I think we more or less share.
Part of the problem is that punitive action like shaming someone doesn't function well in the current environment. For every person shaming a transphobic racist there's another hiding in the shadows patting them on the back. I think it only works when there is a chance for genuine reflection and that often doesn't exist due to the recent strengthening of the "us versus them" style of politics. Not many people will rethink their position if someone is still telling them they're right.
I do broadly agree with the things you say, it's just I don't always agree with your proposed means for achieving what you're wanting. You are right though, I'm very focused on what vulnerable people can do to protect themselves now rather than building a future where they don't have to. Possibly too much so. Considering our differing circumstances I can see why you want to be more active about something like that, I'd probably feel the same in your position. Luckily for me I'm straight, white, European and roughly middle class, so I'm well insulated from feeling any of the effects of the obvious inequality which plagues society.
My perhaps rather weak defense of my own opinion is that I think progressivism is the default direction for society and given enough time things will gradually improve (though not necessarily in the case of rich vs poor). Constantly fighting for what you want is good but the message is often drowned out by the opposing team. In my opinion picking your battles is a better way to win over the silent majority because it makes arguments more novel and it's not as easy to dismiss someone as being a loony lefty if there's less evidence of them duelling with the outspoken right. Most people on the extreme left and right are making themselves invisible to the centrist cucks because they look at their profile and read "proud LGBT+ trans activist smash the patriarchy! BLM" or "white is right, natsoc ethnostatist trump supporter, MAGA" and they think, "oh no, not another one". The message is best to be well timed and sugar coated with both simple arguments and "reasonable discourse" which isn't sullied by being a little too radical for the still somewhat closed minded.
I think I might've went off on a tangent.
nice video i love fan fictions. people stopped watching because you did a complete personality 180 in about 1 weeks time not because you stopped using slurs . your stream use to be a place where you can say ANYTHING and if it offended people SO WHAT they would either have to grow a pair or pay to silence you, now if anyone says stuff YOU don't like you just ban them like a coward. reminder since this "stop using slurs and being racist" shit has taken place you have gone on MULTIPLE rants about white people,straight people and men being stupid while simultaneously standing on some fake moral high ground that you are the white knight who took down all the "edgelords" and silences all the "racists and sexists". i know you are gonna fall back on the old "LOL I WAS OBVIOUSLY JOKING DUHHH LOW IQ CRINGEEEEEE" but ill take the same stance in that case, me saying the "n word f word or t word" ARE OBVIOUSLY JUST A JOKE triggered streamer.
cringe btw
bwahahahaaaa