"The New Nigger" an essay on misogyny

[weemadando]

There was a time in the history of my country, when an entire demographic group was regularly pushed aside and disregarded – legally and socially. That group had some but not all of the rights that were granted to the rest of society and the rights they did have were ignored and denied with shocking regularity. Each member of the lower class was socially valued by how well they were liked and how useful the were to their superiors, the privileged class.

Members of the lower class were best advised to mind their manners around their betters. It was best not to say things their superiors wouldn’t like and in some cases it was advisable to avoid looking directly at them.

The lower class of people were expected to accept their treatment and some of them seemed to. It seems odd that anyone would accept their systemic mistreatment and abuse, but who could blame them, it was the safest thing to do. Those who fell in line and did their part to keep the superiors happy suffered less abuse than those who did not. It was easier to keep your head down and if asked a question or spoken to, it was safest to smile and say whatever the superior wanted to hear.

As is the case with any oppressed people the lower class became angry. Some of the lower class people became disobedient. They had the very laughable goal of equality. Those of the lower class who complained were troublemakers. Any member of the privileged class who supported those troublemakers were traitors.

There were words the upper class used to keep those lower beings in line, and check those who’d forgotten their place. One of these words seemed more effective than the others.

Nigger.

That was what they were, after all.

Niggers weren’t the same as human beings. They were legally and socially less than the privileged class. Niggers could be harmed and the police probably wouldn’t help them. Niggers were subject to vigilante justice.

I don’t know if it happened on a conscious level but I do not doubt that when a nigger was reminded that he was in fact a nigger, he realized he had stepped out of bounds and if a privileged citizen decided to punish him, there would be no help for him. That little reminder must have done wonders to shut an uppity nigger up.

The word was used so often that, it seems, it lost its effectiveness. Niggers learned to ignore the word, it didn’t hurt as much and sometimes it simply made them angry. The magic was gone and it was just another word, like stupid, or ugly.

In that time of social unrest there was a member of that lower class named Melvin B. Tolson. If you don’t know who that is, look up the ‘Forensic Society Debaters of Wiley College’ and you will learn that he was a troublemaker who dared to think that lower class people should be allowed to hold civil debate with the privileged class.

It was a rather unpopular idea which met great opposition. However when he did succeed in arranging for the oppressed to debate their superiors, the lower class people won. Looking back that is not surprising, the lower class were morally correct. What I find most interesting about their victory is the amount of struggle it took for the matter to reach debate.

The privileged class seemed to believe that the lower class were just dumb niggers, but I believe that was an excuse. I think that the privileged people knew that the societal norms were wrong and that everyone would realize it if the lower class people were ever allowed to show their intelligence. If the lower class showed the public that they were not dumb and dangerous, the injustices against them would be unnecessary and cruel.

It would be revealed that the privileged upper class were the ignorant, dangerous fools.

The opposition to a simple debate came from a fear of exposure.

You may believe that such societal norms and treatment are a thing of the past. That sort of thing could never go unchallenged today. People are more enlightened now… Right?

But I see it.

I see an entire class of people who can be harmed by a member of a privileged class and there is no help for them. They can be legally abused and everyone looks the other way. There are those members of the lower class who try to make themselves as useful to their superiors as possible or keep their heads down unless spoken to and then he’d better say what ever pleases his superior, that is the safest way to behave.

I hear the privileged use a few words to try and keep the troublemakers in line. One seems to be a particular favorite.

Misogynist.

Misogynists aren’t the same as other human beings. You don’t have to listen to anything a misogynist says. They aren’t allowed the same rights as everyone else. Debate with the superiors? Pfft, what for? They are just a bunch of angry misogynists after all.

Don’t talk to me because you hate women…Nigger.

Their misogynistic posters got torn down? Serves the niggers right!

Debate? No, they are dangerous nig- oops, I mean, misogynists.

Of course this refusal and opposition to the very idea of debate has NOTHING at all to do with the knowledge that the people they call misogynists really do have something to complain about. This opposition isn’t fear this time… right? It’s legitimate concern that the people you so flagrantly antagonize, openly taunt and yet who have done nothing at all to harm you, will suddenly go ape-shit and assault a helpless innocent member of the privileged class.

It’s okay to wave weapons at them, because they’re misogynists.

Its okay to silence them. They are just misogynists.

It’s totally cool to disregard them cause you know… they’re misogynists, and everyone knows it.

You don’t have to treat the misogynists like human beings, so it isn’t bigotry. Everyone knows misogynists don’t get rights.

I can only hope that using this word to silence and shame someone you disagree with someday reaches the same public regard as coming right out and calling your opponent “nigger.”



Nurdy Dancing
NurdyDancing is a blogger, vlogger, recreational bellydancer, a sex object, a reader, rather tall and most recently a traitor to her gender. She is also a mother who understands that someday her son, who is presently a toddler will grow up, and have to survive in this world

[Dominus Atheos]

...Dafuq did I just read?

[Flagg]

Pity the white man. He's so discriminated against.

[Dominus Atheos]

You didn't actually read the article, did you?

[Sephirius]

I don't think he did. You're a very bad person Flagg, and I hope you see the error of your ways.

[Chirios]

Genuinely have no idea what this is. Although, I'm pretty drunk atm.

[Flagg]

I read it. It's pretty much bitching about the term misogynist being used. The fact that it's written by a black person doesn't matter considering the content is "waaa, poor men!"

[Chirios]

I read it. It's pretty much bitching about the term misogynist being used. The fact that it's written by a black person doesn't matter considering the content is "waaa, poor men!"

Also, LOL at the idea of "misogynist" being used at the same level as nigger.

[Kuja]

My immediate reaction to the article matches Flagg's. That said, my Poe flags went up and after a few minutes of tooling around on that site I...I honestly still can't tell if it's supposed to be parody or not.

[Flagg]

I assume it's real until proven otherwise. If dumbshits want to point and laugh, let them. The day I start caring about what people on the internet think about me is the day I put a bullet in my face.

[Losonti Tokash]

Ando, is there some reason you posted a bunch of stupid MRA bullshit?

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Ando, is there some reason you posted a bunch of stupid MRA bullshit?

I was wondering this as well. Why the christ would anyone intentionally move some of the internet's dumbest shit out of the corner in which it belongs? It's like contracting AIDS for the sole purpose of giving it to other people. WTF, man.

[Stark]

BCG ate my goddamn reply and I hates it.

Anyway, it's better to destroy the ideas in debate than refuse to address them because you hate them.

[Scrib]

Meh. I would be somewhat sympathetic if this wasn't coming from AVoiceForMen. Yes, their posters were torn down by idiots (which I think is what's being referenced), but they've posted some really bad shit about certain personalities being whores and so on that made people focus on them.

As with the posters thing, if it was someone else I would care more but they don't really have much credibility as far as I'm concerned. Show me real problems with feminists being oppressive and I'll bite.

[weemadando]

Ando, is there some reason you posted a bunch of stupid MRA bullshit?

Because it is fucking hilarious.

And also to see if anyone would take the bait.

[Losonti Tokash]

Oh, you!

[weemadando]

Scrib came close, but sadly we don't have folks to blindly go rabid on this shit like I'm sure Spanky would've.

[Scrib]

Scrib came close, but sadly we don't have folks to blindly go rabid on this shit like I'm sure Spanky would've.

Sorry to disappoint you. But honestly, the whole thing is tedious, I don't see the potential for lulz.

[Imperial528]

Do note, I did not read the quote tag until after I read the thread, and so entered this unaware of it outside of the quite vague thread title.

Anyway, when I started reading the article, I had hopes that the author was actually going to say something intelligent and thought-provoking.

Then I hit the second part of the article and my heart sank so hard I had to put it back before I died of blood loss.

I'm practically at a loss for words to describe how much doublethink* would have to be going on to write this. The words here just aren't comparable. It's hard to think of how you could use misogynist (or racist or bigot) in the same way as a word such as nigger, or similar terms, though I imagine feminazi is in the same category as it if not at the same level. Which is ironic, considering the article.

This whole article is somewhere between and

*Stupidity? Ignorance? I'm not entirely sure what word to use here.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

It's written by a woman, who I suspect has low self-esteem and by siding with a bunch of misogynistic asshole professional losers finds herself the centre of their attention and finds piggish drooling over a "hot chick who knows her place" to be a substitute for real respect in her own low self-esteem.

[Korto]

Anyway, when I started reading the article, I had hopes that the author was actually going to say something intelligent and thought-provoking.

Same here, because it would be a daring claim that we've equalized women's rights as much as we have (which isn't a claim that there's nothing more left to do, by the way), without possibly going too far in some areas. Over-correction always happens. A father's rights to his children after a divorce, for instance, or the monetary settlement after divorce. Why is it women can have women-only clubs, but men can't have men-only? Do rape laws treat male victims fairly? All interesting areas for discussion and debate.
But the article is entirely content-less. There's literally nothing.

And as I haven't yet heard of any men being dragged behind a ute (sorry, "pick-up truck") by feminists until dead, I will say the link between misogynists and niggers to being drawing a bit of a long bow.

Do we know for certain the writer is actually a woman, by the way? As we know, on the internet you can't tell the difference between a man, woman, or drover's dog; a name is easy to make up. That female name is the only thing that gives the article any illusion of credibility. Not that it matters if she is really a woman, there were intelligent, thoughtful woman against women having the vote.

[DPDarkPrimus]

I've decided that I'm not much of a fan of people posting shit in N&P just to see if it gets a rise out of someone, instead of posting things that are actually informative, interesting, or legitimately newsworthy.

[weemadando]

Yes DPDP, we live in a post racial world with perfect equality and where there is not a growing backlash against feminism and a growing acceptance of sexual assaults etc.

[Terralthra]

And in the world with an obvious backlash against feminism, it's so hard to find something more meaningful to post than an obviously shitty blog post?

[spaceviking]

It's written by a woman, who I suspect has low self-esteem and by siding with a bunch of misogynistic asshole professional losers finds herself the centre of their attention and finds piggish drooling over a "hot chick who knows her place" to be a substitute for real respect in her own low self-esteem.

I don't agree with the author either, but I think your attack is kind of stretching. She thinks that men are unfairly treated, and that any man who disagrees with this is labeled a misogynist. Where does she state that she thinks men should return to their superior position?

She greatly overestimates the level of discrimination men face, but the main idea of her article is that no one's rights or opinions should be disregarded because they can be labeled as part of a n unpopular group.