I am listening to Dennis Prager. According to Prager, Harry Truman once wrote on a postcard "I am now in kike town." And then Prager went on to make the correct observation that quoting a person's use of a word is not to use that word oneself.
Philosophers distinguish between use and mention. It is one thing to use a word to refer to a thing or a person; it is another thing to mention the word. One can quote someone's use of the word 'kike' without calling anyone a kike. Someone who grasps the distinction should not be squeamish about writing out the word 'kike' as I have just done. What's more, no one one I am aware of is squeamish in that way.
But people routinely speak of the N-word. They won't write out 'nigger,' but they will write out 'kike,' 'cracker,' ''wop,' 'guinea,' 'dago,' 'greaseball' . . . Why the double standard?
'Kike' and 'nigger' differ in that the first is monosyllabic while the second is disyllabic. I am talking about the words. 'Kike' and 'nigger' are not persons. No person is monosyllabic or disyllabic.
Make the distinction and avoid the double standard.
Would anything be left of the Left if leftists were forced to disembarrass themselves of their manifold double standards? (That is what we call a rhetorical question.)
Related: Paula Deen: A Modern-Day Lynching
Civil-Rights Generation Prisoner to its Fears
Recent Comments