Racial Religious And Ethnic Slurs Essay
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Words today mean so much in society that we seldom look back on the consequences they hold. These words can cause much pain, anguish, and conflict amongst people who don t even know each other. People say slurs such as jap, flip, chink, and jew to others, but they don t know who these other people are. These racial, religious, and ethnic remarks are made to demoralize others and to make others feel inferior. Sometimes these slurs are made in society where we have learned to live with them, by them, and from them. The terms of race, religion and ethnicity have evolved in our society as time continued. The negative connotations of words sometimes change because of deliberate changes in the way they are used. (Hayakawa 232.)
When slurs are made towards us about our race, religion, or ethnicity, it plays a large role in we perceive ourselves. When we hear a slur made upon us, we feel as if we are less of a person. This is because there is a weakness in all of us. This weakness is the vulnerability that others can create by making a remark about us. By doing so, these people look down upon us, and more importantly, they degrade us to something less that what we are. It is dehumanizing to be labeled as a fob, wet back, nigger, etc. We can not be fully described through those terms. We are more than just nips, hicks, and wops, because we are individuals who should not be grouped from our race, religion and ethnicity. Many times, people see us as a whole and do not see us for who we are and what we have accomplished. Black Americans, inside and outside the walls of the university, experience racism as a group. (Barnes 242.) People see us through what nationality we are and what beliefs we have. Those people that make these slurs do not know what effect it has on other people or what they faced in the past. Those same people do not know what other people have suffered and do not know what dehumanizing effects those slurs have.
An elderly Japanese woman of my acquaintance used to squirm at the mention of the word Jap. Whenever I hear that word, she used to say, I feel dirty all over. She was reacting to the negative connotations as it was used during the second World War and earlier. (Hayakawa 232.)
The way this woman squirms upon the word jap is a mental acknowledgement of the negativity held in that three letter word. She understands that people still see her the way people saw Japanese civilians in the second World War. These people probably don t know who they are calling a jap and they probably don t know how much it hurts the elderly woman to make such a comment. But yet, people in society are careless towards the feelings and emotions of others. By doing so, they scar others and leave them at their weakest point.
A person s weakest point is when he/she is being held down. It is when he/she is being taunted, made fun of, harassed, verbally or physically abused. When a person can no longer fight against the harassment and intimidation brought down upon him/her, it makes a person feel as if they do not belong in society.
Just as you turn the corner of the long driveway, sprinting towards freedom, a gang of white males catch and beat you senseless, all the while shouting, The world is mine and nothing you can do will ever change that. You lie there swearing revenge. All you really want to do, though, is go home. (qtd. in Barnes 242.)
These incidents were factual and did occur on a college or university campus in the United States between 1980 and 1988. The purpose of slurs of derogatory meaning are to cause others to feel as if they were outcasts and to somehow separate themselves from those they are remarking towards.
These remarks of racial, religious, and ethnic backgrounds have changed from the way they are used. Granted that the word nigger or jap is derogatory in it s own way, these two terms have different meanings when used in different situations. More recently, JAP is n acronym for Jewish American princess, heard as an insult by an entirely different ethnic group. (Hayakawa 132.) The connotation of Jap is used positively here, but at the same time it is taken as repulsive and demoralizing towards the Japanese race. Also, the term nigger is considered to be a negative connotation since the times of slavery.
In recent times, the negative connotations of the word nigger are more widely understood ...
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