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Your medical status is not a racial slur.
But neither is your skin colour expressed in Latin. It becomes a slur based on how and when it's used.
I agree with feeling 'obese' is a neutral, objective term for the physical/medical fact. But then, coming from a non-Anerican context, I used to have no sense of the N word being so offensive, any more than any other random insulting (or even affectionate!) term.
In the wrong context, 'obese' can certainly be hurtful and inappropriate. I can imagine, for some people, it's a trigger word of years of pain and mockery.
Look I'm a fat American and here at least nobody I've ever heard has used "obese" as a slur. You hear actual insults, "fatass" comes immediately to mind but there's plenty of others; I've heard plenty of them personally. The OP in the pic is a fucking doctor according to her obscured user name and needs to be far more responsible. Obesity is party of a medical status - being called a land whale is an insult.
Further, the N-word has centuries of racist cultural weight behind it. The word "obese" is far more recent and isn't used as part of the systematic oppression of an entire ethnic to group - one that makes up an enormous amount of American population.
This isn't even apples and oranges. This is cantaloupes and blueberries. Not watermelons though, that has racist baggage too.
She's off her rocker to compare the two, but I do want to say people are policing medical terms as being offense, so maybe she was trying to express (very poorly) that obese should be considered offensive like using the terms retarded, idiot, or what not that started as a medical diagnosis/meaning, and now can be viewed as hurtful. I don't agree with it because the reasonsaying the term retard is insulting is because the person you are calling it isn't actually fitting the medical diagnosis, and therefore using a medical term to put other people down. (Doubt it is used by doctors today, they likely have found different ways of expressing a person's mental growth in terms of comparing to average growth, growth within science and all that). So if we were calling people who were not obese obese to put them down, maybe it would start to make sense, but it hasn't occured around me much. That said, I have seen jokes made around belimic people calling themself a fat ass for eating say a slice of pizza, but even most movies have moved away from joking about such anymore.
But neither is your skin colour expressed in Latin.
Niger is Latin... Nigger is not.
While I'm generally not sensitive to these things, claiming something that's factually not true as a defense of the word is just not okay. Use the word if you really want to use it. If you use it in any other way other than academically (such as discussing the word in of itself)... don't surprise pikachu when people shun you for it.
Nigger is a diminutive (or at least derivative) of negro, is it not?
Not according to the etymology. https://www.etymonline.com/word/nigger
1786, earlier neger (1568, Scottish and northern England dialect), negar, negur, from French nègre, from Spanish negro (see Negro).
All of these languages are latin-based languages... So there must be a latin root. If you dig further you find
from Latin nigrum (nominative niger) "black, dark, sable, dusky" (applied to the night sky, a storm, the complexion), figuratively "gloomy, unlucky, bad, wicked,"
So yes negro exists in the middle but not as the source necessarily... It would have evolved (if I read the etymology correctly) as Nigrum -> Niger -> Negro/neger/negar/negur -> Nigger.
Good thing the N word is being censored here, otherwise we might actually learn something.
I fucking hate indiscriminate censorship. In some context the word is important in order to learn and educate
It's your own .world instance that's doing the censorship.
Oh that's good to know and also fucked up, I thought they stopped that censoring bullshit. Thank you for letting me know.
How would I go about to see this post outsife ot my .world? I can't even click the link because it removes it from the URL, this is so fucking stupid.
Click the little multicolored pentagon symbol next to my name.
Should link to https://lemmy.saik0.com/comment/3423797 which is a direct version from my lemmy instance.
Yeah... While admittedly discussions like this one are far outweighed by the negative uses of the term; when discussion is happening where clarity is more relevant than appeasing the euphemism treadmill censorship sucks.
https://lemmy.saik0.com/comment/3423797 should get you to the original version. My instance doesn't censor.
Negro. Jeez, you really out here saying those words huh?
Jeez, you're really out here word policing when it's clear we're simply talking about the word... You know... not actually attributing it.
You act like just saying "Negro" with no context is any better.
Just like your namesake, you've added nothing to the discussion except a bit of toxicity.
Shut up.
I never used or seen used 'obese' as a slur.
Fatty, yes. Absolutely, all the time. Obese, no.
If you're 'triggered' by being called a fatty, stop being fat.
If you're 'triggered' by being called a fatty, stop being fat.
Now that's a bad take.
We shouldn't mock people for things they struggle with, even if we think they could just stop.
Struggling with actual problems, sure.
Struggling with being unable to stop shoving burgers in your mouth is not an actual problem.
And saying things like that is exactly why obese people have so much trouble having the confidence to start losing weight. And no, it is not as easy as you are suggesting. We live in an era of processed foods and food deserts where people are so overworked and often with such long commutes that they don't have the energy or the time to cook a healthy meal when they get home.
Telling those people to stop shoving burgers in their mouth doesn't help anything.
Also, and I can't believe this is the second time I've had to say this to someone today- have you ever been insulted into making a lifestyle change? I sure haven't.
Thanks for confirming my opinion that fatties are fat because they are lazy and have no willpower.
"I work too much this is why I am stuffing my face full of burgers for breakfast" is a phrase nobody should be allowed to say without getting absolutely ridiculed for saying it.
Imagine saying that to someone who works shifts at a steel mill lmao.
have you ever been insulted into making a lifestyle change? I sure haven't.
Your mistake is thinking I give a fuck whether they stop shoving burgers in their mouth at every opportunity. I'm not their therapist nor personal lifestyle assistant. But if they want the mocking to stop, there's only one solution.
My reply got deleted by a mod so this discussion is over.
Enjoy your breakfast burgers.