I know augie's had that avatar for a long time. I have no idea what the original motivation for it was, and I wouldn't assume it was explicitly racist at the time. However, it definitely does fit with some pretty racist tropes, intentionally or not.

What I do know for sure is that he switched back to it with the intention of riling up politics forum posters who were sure to see it as racist. It's another bit of trolling regardless of the original meaning.

Probably what is also true is that if he never posted dubious takes on race and racism most people would have continued to not be bothered by the avatar, as most people weren't for 10 years. But people are going to read its meaning differently when the person with the avatar posts the way augie does on that topic.

In any case, regardless of original intent the trolling is pretty obnoxious.

So you're telling me that you think it's okay for you to call someone an attention whore, but not for any man to call any person, including other men, an attention whore?

The problem you're going to have here in comparing it to the n-word, is that you've got a very different argument. I've actually made the same type of argument you're making about that word on the radio before in my old broadcasting career, arguing with one listener after another on a sports call-in show about it.

However, the n-word does not have any practical use in language. It was first put into dictionaries in the 1860s and was a racial slur from the start.

"Whore" can be used in a non-offensive sense, and has been historically. A whore is someone who sells themselves sexually for money, and thus using derivatives of that to describe politicians who sell themselves to donors/corporations/etc/etc shouldn't be offensive in my opinion.

So while I could agree with your argument on a word like "slut" which I basically never use, with rare exceptions, I don't think it applies to derivative uses of this word. I wouldn't call an actual prostitute that word, or any other sex worker, and I'd probably try to avoid even using those derivatives for female politicians to avoid being sexist, but it's really not the word itself that should be offensive, it's the way in which it's used. My guess is that most women would not have a problem calling various people corporate whores, attention whores, etc... if I prove to be wrong about that, and a bunch of women were to say, "No, any use at all of that word in any way is offensive," then I'd stop using it in any way.

Also, the other major problem with your argument is that the main reason that most black people will give for why they use the n-word and derivatives of it and why it's okay is that they are turning it into a term of endearment. That's not what you're talking about, in using forms like "corporate whore" or "attention whore." If you were talking about walking up to a female friend and calling her the w-word as a term of endearment, then you would be getting closer to using the same argument as people use for the n-word, one I happen to agree with.

I assume you will think that makes me part of the problem, and you have a right to your opinion.

Can we get back to talking about how 90's rap owns 2010's rap?

Yes, but only because he was getting complaints and came here and that's the problem he perceived. It's only a theory I have. And part of that also means not worrying about other politics threads on the site.

You're right, though. At this stage, for this forum, my powers are not all that meaningful.

Media whore sounds like a terrible job.

I think the whore conversation deserves it’s own thread.

Mat, can you think of any particular reason for the Politics regs to be loyal to this site given the way we've been treated over the years?

So you think that I think that I have ownership over women's bodies? That most of the men on this forum think that? That we don't oppose that view? If so, you're way off.

There's one major political party in this country that advances policies that give men varying degrees of ownership over women's bodies. There's another that fights them. The vast majority of regulars in this forum are voting for, volunteering for, donating to, etc, the one that's fighting on the good side here. I think that law in North Carolina sucks, but I'm not sure what you think I should be doing about it that I'm not already?

I don't think that there's a big link between dth's post and the response or lack thereof here, and laws like that, especially given that dth and the majority of the forum would vehemently oppose any law like that.

Now if you want to go to the post in the Bitar thread, you can perhaps establish a better link, but still, you're trying to hold this forum accountable for that? You're trying to make that out to be the big issue? When there are cesspools of sexism on the Internet full of people fighting for the other side, carrying out acts of violence for the other side, and radicalizing more people to the extreme fringes of the other side? That's where the damage is being done... and at the end of the day, I really don't see what yelling at people who are allies for the side that you're advocating for is accomplishing.

So, I'll just ask, what are you trying to accomplish? Like ignoring the fact that you apparently think I'm a sexist and part of the problem. Pretend you actually agreed that I was an ally. What am I not doing now that you would like me to be doing?

I assumed as much, which was the reason my original comment to him was what it was...

Well that was sure something.

Yeah, this is definitely true. I wasn't really sure what his motivation of choosing what is at its most charitably described as an unsavory looking avatar was, but when he started posting some really racist things, then it's clear that he's just wanting to celebrate racism.

Given the last couple of pages of this thread, this post is way out of line and is clearly just an attempt to instigate Crossnerd and others here.

Zilla > 90s gangsta rap

No. I don't actually understand the politics posters on this site.Or politics posters on any site. However, it's clearly a pretty tight community of people who like congregating here and have said it's a pretty cool place. So loyalty may not be relevant.

From a business perspective, I thinks some people overestimate the importance of traffic in off topic forums. Our advertisers pay to have direct contact with engaged and active poker players. It's not very much about the banners.

I can't speak for anyone else, but the politics forum is the reason I log into this site 99% of the time these days, but often while I'm logged in I'll scan another forum or read some poker content, or even post in a poker-related thread. So there is some crossover value.

As to the question about our loyalty here, I think a big part of the reason is knowing that we have a lot more people lurking/reading here than perhaps most people realize, so our posts and debates here can actually change some minds. That has nothing to do with loyalty to the owners here necessarily, but it does make this particular forum more appealing to us than may be otherwise obvious on the surface.

It also gives us a chance to absorb more new posters, which is always good. Like I could easily see Crossnerd becoming a valuable regular poster here if she has an interest in it and maybe gets to know some of the posters here and their views a little better before going on the attack. My educated guess is that we definitely have a very small sampling of women here, and I think we'd benefit from having more female posters. It's tough to get them on a poker forum, but not as tough as it would be on some random private forum.

Just ****ing embarrassing. 90's children's movie soundtracks had harder **** than than your entire catalogue.

Ya, right.

90s had a bunch of studio gangstas. Zilla and a lot of dudes are legit street kids or gangstas.

I mean you can't even troll properly.

that's the answer to zikzak's question. despite the openly hostile relationship between 2+2 management and the users and moderators of the 2+2 perverted utopian hellhole, this is still just the best place to be.

Zilla is more legit than Biggie and Suge Knight? PS I'll listen to studio gangsters any day before I put these unlistenable illiterate dip****s on my playlist.

I mean, okay, Stitches is legit, I'll give you that.

She's already on holiday man, you've been binge-replying to someone who can't respond for at least a half-hour, I think.

On the 'W' word, I assume most posters ITF would co-sign something like: It's unacceptable in the context it was originally objected to, but the 'N'-word comparison doesn't work for reasons both political and, frankly, linguistic. The term has even been appropriated by some pro-sex-worker feminists, as seen in the term 'whorephobia' - try that as an analogue for a snappy new term describing racism. Not so much, right?

I get not criticising Melania Trump's ambition or success in the abstract, but I also get criticising her for marrying Donald Trump specifically. Like he was the only option going? Or like, she weally wubbed him? Him?

Other hand, and it may not be especially prevalent ITF, but a tendency to denigrate women who marry successful men absolutely exists. And there have been times ITF when people have gone to pretty ugly places when talking about Melania Trump (and Sarah Huckabee Sanders). Crossnerd is right to say that we've been remiss in calling that out, imo. The correct attitude to Melania Trump is one of indifference, honestly - she really doesn't matter. Sanders is thornier, but you can criticise her role in the administration without digging out various misogynist tropes.

Wait until Crossnerd finds the "Huckabeast" references.

Just noticed that.

Yup, I think you're right that most posters here would agree with that and it's similar to a lot of my points I think.

Yep.

Sort of, but there are also plenty of people with a tendency to denigrate the men on the other side of those marriages, as well as the overall practice of marriages that appear on the surface to be transactional in nature. I think most of the people focusing most of their vitriol at the women in those marriages are going to also be deplorable in plenty of other ways, as well. I don't think we need to stop criticizing those types of marriages in order to continue fighting sexism, INCLUDING the type of sexism that only calls out the women in those marriages.

Like Donald Trump is a sexist buffoon who objectifies women and has repeatedly married solely for looks, and I think his behavior in this regard has been loathsome... and that's before you even get to the rape allegations.

Yeah but I recall several instances of pretty intense back and forth on this forum about the words used to denigrate SHS. Am I remembering wrong? There is one other place where I discuss politics where it's also come up, but I'm pretty sure that most of the arguments about whether it was okay to use certain words about SHS were here. I specifically remember a debate about whether "Huckabeast" was okay, with some claiming it was totally okay, some claiming it was okay because she was a horrible person and the name didn't HAVE to be a reference to her looks, and others opposing it. I also recall some back and forth over what Michelle Wolf said about her makeup at the WH Correspondents' Dinner.

I also think criticizing Melania is fine. She's the first lady and chose a bogus platform for her "issue" and wore an "I Don't Really Care, Do U?" coat. She's fair game for criticism, and it should be done in a non-sexist way.

All you're saying is your basic.

I think this is not quite right. The criticism of men who enter those marriages is founded on the notion of 'trophy wives' - very attractive women 'acquired' by dint of wealth and status. As such, the practice of acquiring 'trophy wives' is at least reflective of, and in the case of famous people, arguably contributes to, perceptions of women as valuable only insofar as they're attractive.

Even if we disregard that, it's not the case that criticism of those men very plausibly contributes to hostility or violence towards men in general. Whereas it's hard to dispute that a general culture of disdain and outright hostility to such women contributes to a climate of disdain and hostility (and, ultimately, violence) towards women in general.

The only one I recall was the controversy over simplicitus making a joke about Down Syndrome, which was mostly focused on how it was/wasn't OK to mock the intellectually impaired in furtherance of mocking SHS. There may have been others, I don't recall.

She's fair game in the sense you describe, I just don't think she's worth the effort.

I would not mind being a kept man.