09-02-2020, 11:47 AM
(09-02-2020, 10:28 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:(09-02-2020, 01:01 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: So, uppity is racist term too these days. Are you sure about that teach? So, how long is going to be until moron as in black moron is racist too? How about imbecile as in black imbecile, can we expect that to be racist too?
It has been a racist term in the past, and it can't be sanitized, especially when applied to African-Americans. See below.
Quote:Yep, 'Uppity' Is Racist
A lot of people have no idea that the word "uppity," when applied to black people, has racist connotations, but it's getting harder and harder to understand how public figures, in particular, are able to maintain their ignorance of the term's history.
ELSPETH REEVE
NOVEMBER 22, 2011
A lot of people have no idea that the word "uppity," when applied to black people, has racist connotations, but it's getting harder and harder to understand how public figures, in particular, are able to maintain their ignorance of the term's history. President Obama has been a well-known public figure for several years and his conservative critics, in particular, keep making the "uppity" mistake. This week it's Rush Limbaugh, who said Michelle Obama was booed at a weekend Nascar race because she showed "uppity-ism," as well as the conservative site Newsbusters, which is just shocked that anyone might call that comment racially problematic. Glenn Beck, too, is defending Limbaugh's analysis, saying it's just a synonym for snobby. It's hard to explain how they've managed to avoid finding out about "uppity" secret past.
Limbaugh said Monday "Nascar people... are mature, tolerant people who fully understand when they’re being insulted and condescended to," Limbaugh said, then listed Obama's transgressions such as taking expensive vacations and saying exercise is good. He continued, "They understand it is a little bit of uppity-ism." Glenn Beck defended the comment, saying on Imus' radio show, "Uppity? You don't think she's a little snotty? Really? Really? Miss Arugula? Come on!" (Arugula is a type of lettuce that is offensive to some conservatives.) "I'm not going to apologize for saying the woman who says 'I'd like a good steak and arugula once in a while'... Please. We're living in a country where you can't say that's a little uppity?"
Beck seemed unaware "uppity" was a term racist southerners used for black people who didn't know their place. In fairness, a lot of people don't know for sure whether "uppity" is racist. Various forms of the question "Is uppity racist?" is a very popular on Yahoo Answers. But a little more digging could help these guys out. The most liked and most disliked definition at Urban Dictionary notes that "uppity" is often followed by the n-word. Maybe these media guys don't know how to Google. Even so, they've had a lot of practice with uppity in recent years.
In 2008, Rep. Lynn Westmorland claimed he didn't know "uppity" had racial connotations when he used the term to describe then-Sen. Barack Obama. This is especially curious because Westmorland is from Georgia. In 2010, Harvard professor Charles Ogletree said Sarah Palin's habit of deriding Obama as a "professor" was code for "uppity." Limbaugh responded by saying the term was racist when applied to Clarence Thomas, but true when applied to Obama: "Obama is uppity, but not as a black. He is an elitist. He does think he’s smarter and better than everybody else. That’s what he was taught. He’s a Harvard man." (Thomas received his law degree, by contrast, from plebian institution Yale.)
But maybe that practice is starting to sink in. While Newsbusters' Brent Baker was appalled that ABC News had "elevated" the "left-wing hit," he didn't quite go so far as to explicitly say the comment wasn't racist. That's progress.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/11/yep-uppity-racist/335160/
As the words idiot, imbecile, and moron apply: they used to be technical distinctions for levels of mental retardation. Unfortunately for the people in the mental health business and in teaching, these words drifted into commonplace usage and (1) got confused, and (2) got used heavily out of context as in
"American mass low culture is made for morons"
"Idiot! Idiot! Idiot!", a cat-call I made at someone running onto a sporting field.
Yours truly used those words in that context.
"Idiot" in the psychological field used to apply to people with IQ's under 30... typically people unable to care of themselves in basic functions such as clothing and feeding themselves and basic hygiene. It's not stubborn refusal; it is inability. The term for such people is now "profoundly mentally impaired", or PMI. Such people can perform no better as an adult than a 6-year-old child.
"Imbecile" used to apply to people with IQ's between 30 and 50, or people now known as "Trainably Mentally Impaired". They can get little from formal schooling, but they can be trained to take care of such functions as clothing and washing oneself and perhaps some domestic chores. But they can be extremely reckless. The word has rarely entered the mass lexicon because unlike idiot and moron the word does not easily flow from the lips.
"Moron" used to apply to people with IQ's between 50 and the legal threshold of mental retardation, usually about 70, which corresponds to a mental age 14 for an adult, and now has the euphemism "Educably Mentally Impaired". They can at best achieve what a high-school freshman can achieve. At the top of this category one might even find suitable employment for them, but they must be watched. They are gullible, and they may have gaps in ethical reasoning. They are suited to highly routine, repetitive jobs "too small for the spirit" of people of average or above-average intelligence.
OK, idiot and especially "Idiot!" applies often to people who do things that are obviously unwise. Maybe one does such things while drunk, on drugs, or involved in a cult or a totalitarian cause. People can be trained to do hurtful things to themselves and others. Moron has largely replaced the largely-obsolete dullard and simpleton in mass use. OK, mass low culture, much advertising, political slogans, propaganda, much preaching is made for the dull-normal who can be induced to join a march, attend a religious service without help from others, or go to a shore and remember to buy (name of product).
Intelligent people can do things that seem stupid, like getting drunk or using drugs, having reckless sex, getting involved in political extremism, joining cults, or doing crime. Go figure. Joseph Goebbels, John Gacy, and Ted Kaczynski weren't stupid.