this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2024
8 points (90.0% liked)

Socialism

2844 readers
141 users here now

Beehaw's community for socialists, communists, anarchists, and non-authoritarian leftists (this means anti-capitalists) of all stripes. A place for all leftist and labor news and discussion, as long as you're nice about it.

Non-socialists are welcome to come to learn, though it's hard to get to in-depth discussions if the community is constantly fighting over the basics. We ask that non-socialists please be respectful and try not to turn this into a "left vs right" debate forum by asking leading questions or by trying to draw others into a fight.

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
alyaza@beehaw.org
OneRedFox@beehaw.org
8
Fuck all cops, but should we really be calling them bastards? (beehaw.org)
submitted 3 months ago by rosethornRangerTTV@beehaw.org to c/socialism@beehaw.org
37 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

ACAB is a common slogan, especially in anarchist spaces. Should we really be using it though? It is a reference to children born without their parents being married, and due to christian morality is seen as inherently negative. It is effectively a slur. Do we really think that trying to enforce the hierarchies we are trying to get away from on others is going to help us? How have we allowed this slogan to become so common?

As an anarchist I think we should be defending these people, not punishing them with the hope of some of that transferring to cops.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Rekhyt@beehaw.org 11 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (5 children)

I saw a headline today about Trump (in private) calling Kamala Harris a bitch and someone referred to it as a slur (presumably against women). Since there's not an exact equivalent for men, but bastard is usually the "equivalent" male-aimed curse word, I was wondering when we would see someone on beehaw arguing that "bastard" is a slur, but against the children of unmarried parents.

Bastard is only a slur against a person born to unmarried parents if being born to unmarried parents is considered wrong. In older times, this WAS seen as wrong, because sex outside of marriage, and raising a child outside of a traditional family unit, was seen as wrong.

Bastard lost its 'slur' edge a long time ago. Trying to call it a slur is assigning "wrongness" to the state of being born to unmarried parents.

Words change meaning over time. Calling someone "queer" used to be an insult (now it can be used as hate speech but I can also say "Oh my friend Lucy? She's queer." without it being hateful). For that matter, queer didn't always have sexual implications (it meant weird) — I feel like trying to call bastard a slur is the same as trying to say "queer" is a slur against the neurodivergent.

[–] tilefan@lemm.ee 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

yeah I only use bitch and cunt to insult men these days. or inanimate objects.

interestingly, "vixen" used to be a similar insult to bitch. it's a female fox, nowadays it implies a seductive quality but back in the day it meant the same thing as bitch

[–] Rekhyt@beehaw.org 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yeah calling a woman a bitch just oozes extra sexism that calling a man that doesn't. That's definitely in slur territory as far as I am concerned.

[–] tilefan@lemm.ee 3 points 2 months ago

it's not even so much that it's a slur, it's just fucking lazy. if a woman is being an asshole, tell her she's being an asshole. or a dick

load more comments (2 replies)