i just kicked a drunk woman out of my hotel for calling my gay coworker a fag

xpost to alisa, that was.

totally woulda bitched her out even if i didn't work there, r u kidding. that's just not acceptable

I'm just being honest, man. My mother's gay and I know she'd be ashamed of me if I didn't stand up to that shit, but I can't make a promise that I would.

lol no i wasn't like blaming u at all, i'm just channeling the anger i would've felt were i there

i also think there are 2 ways to react to an issue like this, 1 way is if you are familiar with homosexuality, ie ur gay or close to someone who is, and the other way is if you're not. it does make a difference, it just hits u harder, it becomes personal. and that lends itself to a no-tolerance attitude.

Obviously I'd like to think I would, but I can't say for sure until I'm there on the spot. None of us can, I think. xpost to self

omg xpost to self, classic

hoosteen has two mommies

ps http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedition_Act_of_1918

I think the thread took an interesting tangent into the whole topic of hate crime and hate speech, over and above what people thought about HOOS' actions. I can't speak for anyone else, but for me I was just interested in that bigger picture issue and didn't really comment/dwell on what HOOS did. For what it's worth, I think he did the right thing given the information we have. Also, thanks to nabisco and Drew I'm leaning that way in the argument.

In other words, I wasn't thinking we shouldn't confront bigotry when we encounter it.

Hi Ethan I've got a poster of Debs on my wall, I know what the Alien & Sedition Acts were. What's your point?

ps I've got a step-mom too so its 3.

Are you really suggesting that punishment for hate speech against racial or sexual minorities is tantamount to punishment for political reasons?

It is political reasons.

Well I mean if you can decipher the terrible english there you get what I'm meaning.

It is political reasons

you mean as in "everything is political"?

Political in the broad sense, perhaps, but punishing someone for using a pejorative term referring to an entire biologically-determined group is markedly different from punishing someone because of their stance on a particular government action.

xpost

can_o_worms.jpeg

It may be markedly different but in essence it's the same thing.

No that isn't a koan it's just too late for me to express myself in a way that makes any sense.

Political in the broad sense, perhaps, but punishing someone for using a pejorative term referring to an entire biologically-determined group is markedly different from punishing someone because of their stance on a particular government action.

"biologically-determined" goes against the gist of your argument. unless you're actually claiming that it's worse to be denied employment because of skin color, say, than because of religion, class, or what-have you. i don't see you can make an argument either way without sounding a total fucking fruit-loop.

also, arguments that use biological determinism for support always end up venturing dangerously close to eugenics territory.

I HEREBY SUMMON THE POWERZ OF THE SCOTT SEWARD IMAGE BOMB.

xpost

Point taken, definitely should have chosen a better phrase there. Race is socially constructed anyhow. When I said 'biologically determined' I was going for 'out of one's control.'

My essential point being: I'm not suggesting this drunk idiot be thrown in the tank for using the word fag. I wouldn't support throwing her in the tank if she'd called the bartender a nigger, darky, etc either. Social controls balance this sort of thing out.

I wouldn't support any 'hate speech' laws any more than I'd support the Alien & Sedition Acts, if that's what you were after BIG E.

spray-painting Q-bert on a synagogue

:O

You should've showed 'em to THE GRABEYARD hoos.

yo Ethan

Memorial Day is a time to chillax, bbq, grab a brew and enjoy the company of friends and loved ones.
you chose to spend this weekend trolling HOOS and making wack JPGs with fake airquotes.
that's how you chose to spend your weekend.

just marinate on that for a minute

1) you know, rather than image bomb, you can just let the people who wanna have the discussion have it & stop clicking on the thread yrself - just a thought
2) umm, nope. but i may yet be j0hn d@rnielle. just for clarification, no, I'm posting under my own name again
3) ethan I could be wrong about this, it wouldn't be the first time obviously, but isn't it the case that you don't think people slinging the word "fag" around is a particularly big deal? and if that's the case, shouldn't you put that card on the table face up in a discussion like this?

Drew Daniel, you talking about Austin and performative speech there really made my day. "How to Do Things with Words" is one of my favorite books.

also, i don't really see why people are calling this self-indulgent. i don't think hoos was asking for a ribbon or a handjob, he was merely relating a story. better than blathering on about how FUCKING AWESOME Super Roots 6 is, in my opinion.

oh wrinklepaws, you just got an 8080.

captain-save-a-HOOS

otm xxpost

better than blathering on about how FUCKING AWESOME Super Roots 6 is, in my opinion.
Well 6 isn't all that to be fair. 5 and 7 are the shit.

ILX is very hyper-aware - u can't just have a conversation about prejudice, it has to be a conversation about the gluttony of open-mindedness. hi guys, i'm so open-minded, i wanna scream it on the highest mountaintop! jabs, that kindofa thing.

you can't have a conversation about hate, it has to be a conversation about the loopholes to hate. how wrong is hate, really, if it's just a word, one syllable - what defines hate contractually?

but a little meta-awareness goes a long way: telling a story is just telling a story, and hate is hate.

hi fake wrinklepaws i didnt make any jpgs & posted to this thread like 5 times

The Pastor's Ass

The pastor entered his donkey in a race and it won.
The pastor was so pleased with the donkey that he entered it into another race, and it won again.

The local paper read... PASTOR'S ASS OUT FRONT.

The bishop was so upset with this kind of publicity that he ordered the pastor not to enter the donkey in another race.

The next day the local paper headline read... BISHOP SCRATCHES PASTOR'S ASS.

This was too much for the bishop so he ordered the pastor to get rid of the donkey.
The pastor decided to give it to a nun in a nearby convent.

The local paper hearing of the news posted the following headline... NUN HAS BEST ASS IN TOWN

The bishop fainted. He then informed the nun that she would have to get rid of the donkey, so she sold it to a farmer for $10.

The next day the paper read... NUN SELLS ASS FOR $10

This was too much for the bishop so he ordered the nun to buy back the donkey and lead it to the plains where it could go wild.
The next day the headlines read... NUN ANNOUNCES HER ASS IS WILD AND FREE

The bishop was buried the next day.

The moral of the story is . . . being concerned about public opinion can bring you much grief and misery and even shorten your life.

So be yourself and enjoy life. Stop worrying about everyone else's ass and you'll be a lot happier and live longer!

fuck you table.

Does anyone seriously think this woman hadn't already crossed "the line" before she dropped the homophobic bomb?

the 1994 US hate speech laws have affected the sentences of minorities - especially working class minorities - more than those of white people. the way most cases go down is that dudes get hauled into the station for fighting with each other: "yo i know you didn't just look at my girl" "i wouldn't look at your girl if she was the last sad-ass ho on earth" "come over here and say that" "i'll stand right here, cause she smells too" BAP BAP FIGHT FIGHT "blah blah fuckin n*gger" "blah blah wetb*ack motherfucker" CHA-CHINGGGG: HATE SPEECH! note who does not end getting hauled in for altercations like the above: educated people, rich people, white people: people who do not tend to get into chest-bumping macho street theatrics

it's similar to saying that some criminal act is "terrorism" and then attaching extra consequences on that basis. to my mind, blowing up a building is already a crime, so why complicate things? why accept the spin that the perp wants to put on it?

in answer, nabisco says, "spray-painting Q-bert on a synagogue is just unsightly vandalism, but spray-painting a swastika on a synagogue creates an atmosphere of worry / threat / harrassment that's slightly more serious"

my answer to that is a question: are judges not supposed to weigh evidence and argument when determining the significance of the central acts in a case? can they not distinguish between q-bert and a symbol designed as a threat? it's disingenuous to claim that without hate speech law a burning cross on a black family's lawn would subject its perps only to prosecution for arson blah blah. a recognition of racist speech and how it functions as harassment can and should be built in to the law's understanding of the world, just as the law knows how to recognize other kinds of intimidation, harassment and threat.

re the big hoos backlash, the explanation is simple and sadly all to common: he forgot to phrase his first post as a question

http://www.werecactus.com/funkystuff/mw.jpg

But the 1994 law doesn't regulate hate speech. It regulates hate crimes:

"crime in which the defendant intentionally selects a victim, or in the case of a property crime, the property that is the object of the crime, because of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender, disability, or sexual orientation of any person" 28 U.S.C. 944 note Sec. 280003

The situation you describe above doesn't fall into that category. While I'm sure that there are instances where hate crime penalties - like ANY laws - have been unjustly applied, can you cite where hate crime laws have had increased negative effects on the sentencing of minorities in a way that is really disproportionate from the sentencing of majorities?

http://www.fotosearch.com/comp/ART/ART327/MED031.jpg

xxpost holy nipples

I don't think there's anything holy about 'em.

Just to derail an already railless thread:
Did Big Hoos AKA the steendriver ever explain the provenance of that moniker?

They're like slices off a hairy sopresatta.

http://img01.picoodle.com/img/img01/8/5/29/alkiecat/f_hoosbz4m_abd3106.jpg

thank you, surmounter. your posts strike me as being one of the few eloquent voices of reason on this thread. i mean, wtf, guy has an obviously stressful, fucked-up experience at work (during what for many is a leisurely three-day wknd, no less), and then, omg, decides to post about it here, with the result that he ends up being vilified seemingly more than said obnoxious drunk woman who got booted from the hotel.

it seems to speak to the apparent compulsion for various posters here to have someone to pile up on at any given time...in some weird bullying fashion. i don't get it at all. i don't understand the weird culture of petty cruelty that occurs here. it's similar to some of the responses to the "hey" suicide threat thread, or even (and granted, maybe i didn't follow those particular threads closely enough) the recent banning of manalishi. surely there are better ways of handling that kind of shit. (and for the record, i think that much of what manalishi spewed out was fucked-up, but banning him seems kind of extreme and weird to me. like, there are people grumbling over the whole concept of "hate speech" on this thread who probably were among the first in line to demand that manalishi be banned for his particular brand of reactionary-ism)

generally i appreciate reading stuff here because there is often a great deal of intelligent, articulate, witty discourse that rivals so much of other stuff to be found on the web, but at the same time, i am perplexed by the weird brand of hyper-antagonism that seems to occur here (and often it's the same people whose various posts fall into both categories, so it's doubly perplexing to me!)...i honestly haven't witnessed people so ready to jump down someone's throat at the slightest perceived gaffe since i was in junior high school (or middle school, or whatever it's called these days).

so i guess i'm maybe yearning for a, erm, "kinder, gentler" ilx, or some bullshit like that. and, while i do realize that the participants who post along such lines outnumber the more exasperatingly aggressive, snarky ones, regrettably, as is i guess the case in "real life", the bullying type personas seem to overwhelm by virtue of being the noiseiest (no pun intended).

kingkongvsgodzilla - you're right, it's both hate speech and hate crime law that i'm talking about, not just the 1994 law

i'm basing this on several long conversations i had with a reporter who has worked in both texas and new york on various stories about how the law affects immigrants and minorities; i can't find any of her stories online about this, but i'll find it for you 2morrow, deal?