I was going to title this piece “Not Another Fucking Elf”, in honour of Tolkien’s editor who, when faced with yet another compilation of clippings from the great man’s wastebasket, is alleged to have held his head in his hands and uttered this immortal phrase.
I was thinking about this last night. I am reading aloud a history book to my children, a good one, and it factually uses a racial slur that I am not going to relate here, despite my lack of squeamishness with it, because it’s your Substack and I am well aware of the angry mob with pitchforks at the gate. (It can however still be found on a helpful Wikipedia page: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_slurs_and_epithets_by_ethnicity ) In any case, this book also commits other sins: it uses primary sources to humanize soldiers who fought on both sides of the Civil War and includes letters that show a Confederate soldier’s concern for his slaves’ safety and a Union soldier’s thoughts about the prejudice he’s faced as an Irish man (today’s revisionist historians, many of them dutiful and well-programmed young people, argue that no European or Asian immigrant ever experienced significant discrimination on American shores and this is all a myth, the primary source documents we have being hoaxes).
The nice thing is that this particular book we are reading is a library book; the troubling concern is “how long until someone realizes what is in this and gets rid of it?” I’m keeping my eye out for angry leprechauns (I write after cross-checking to make sure “leprechauns” isn’t an ethnic slur).
The best approach against actual, real racism is the Mel Brooks one.
Like in Blazing Saddles, and The Producers - cry Havoc! and let slip the slurs and epithets of ethnicity that we may revel in them instead!
I mean for pity's sake, the english name for my people is a root vegetable! Hello-oo, feeling put upon here! Gimmegimmegimme bajillions of pounds sterling as compensation for 1066, stat!
I am pretty ignorant as a Yank, but my dictionary informs me that (trigger warning*) a swede is the same thing as a rutabaga. (Speaking of foods, I guess as a rural white-ish American I could be called a “cracker,” although obviously that is very offensive unless you are also white and you say “cracka,” in which case it’s acceptable. This is all beginning to make me wonder whether “rutabaga” is actually the PC term for a “rutabager.”)
*this was meant to be a joke and will be taken as such by all people who are familiar with Rikard’s comments and know him as Least Likely to Require a Trigger Warning
Rutabaga sounds better than neeps, so I'm down with it. I mean c'mon Scotland, neeps? Sounds like a stomach condition:
"Och Jock, are ye goan to the oothoose agen?"
"Yah mum, I've got the neeps something fierce I have!"
Rutabaga is actually a swedish word originally, funnily enough. It's compounded of two older dialect words for root and lump respectively, so a proper english translation would have been "rootlump". Yeah, I'm fine with rutabaga.
In modern swedish, it's called kålrot. Kål as in cawl, and rot as in root: "cawl-root" comes pretty close pronounciation-wise. It's still very much a staple here.
Even funnier, it originated here in Scandinavia. How about that, that sturdy durable little lump is our (and the finns!) gift to agriculture.
In 2020, a Scottish man was convicted for calling his ex-girlfriend’s Irish boyfriend a leprechaun. The prosecutor declared that the message was threatening but added that it was a racially aggravated offense due to the use of the word.
My ex was from Ireland (the North) and I remember one meal time when her daughter looked at her mum and said with a fair degree of venom "not more fucking potatoes" 😂
Seeing as Sweden has had such a law for decades now, I can testify to what happens. See, our "hate speech law", colloquially called "hets mot folkgrupps-lagen" ("inciting hatred towards an ethnicity-law", doesn't roll off the tongue does it?) dates back to the 1980s, when it was first implemented for real.
It is vague to the point of "because the court wants to find you guilty", it makes no allowance for if a statement is factually true, and it is employed politically and arbitrarily - all nice and legal and democratic, like.
If I was to point out that somalis (f.e.) have an average IQ below the line for severe mental retardation for swedes/other white ethnicities and somalis in Sweden might therefore need help with various and sundry to fit in and function, and back thisup with scientific sources - I'm committing a crime. I'm inciting racial hatred, see, when I debate how to help those from more primitive societies to function in ours. Because all are equal - the law made by democratically selected politicians says so, so that's the truth.
If I point out that Ashkenazi jewshave higher IQs as a group, than does white americans, I'm not inciting racial hatred though. Because if the law would treat all races/ethnicities equal, the law would be racists.
(It's not just "race" either, but basically, if you're a normal swedish man then you are fair game for any slurs or any hatred including incitement to assault and hurt you; if you're a (f.e.) moslem migrant you can stand on a street corner yelling "Gas the jews!" in arabic while pointing at a synagogue without breaking the law.)
Initially, the law demanded the prosecutor showed that the charged party had knowingly and willingly with intent to harm and to inciteto violence, harassed a specific individual based on their ethnicity (if other than white, that bit's been there from the get-go). Now, if i was to overhear someone complain about a chore such as emptying out the septic tank being a "bloody negro-job" I could report them and get them convicted.
The slope is not so much slippery as it is a zero-friction surface in a vacuum.
PS: "Negro-job" (neger-göra) is an old phrase, meaning a job or a chore that is heavy, unpleasant, dirty and distasteful - the kind you'd have to enslave and force someone to do. It does not denigrate negros in any way, quite the opposite.
I wrote new lyrics to Another Brick in the wall pre the Plandemic. “We don’t need no medication, we don’t need no mind control. No diagnosis in the classroom, hey big pharma leave them kids alone” it had several verses. I’ve forgotten it now, but you get the idea.
With the greatest respect, my good Professor, today CIC stands for Corey In Contention. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the Canuck with the world’s sweetest swing won a Major?
When I was called names and teased by the neighborhood kids, my grandma always said, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me”. Today, I lecture my grandkids on the first amendment: “kids, it’s not Hate Speech, it’s speech they hate”.
I was thinking about this last night. I am reading aloud a history book to my children, a good one, and it factually uses a racial slur that I am not going to relate here, despite my lack of squeamishness with it, because it’s your Substack and I am well aware of the angry mob with pitchforks at the gate. (It can however still be found on a helpful Wikipedia page: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_slurs_and_epithets_by_ethnicity ) In any case, this book also commits other sins: it uses primary sources to humanize soldiers who fought on both sides of the Civil War and includes letters that show a Confederate soldier’s concern for his slaves’ safety and a Union soldier’s thoughts about the prejudice he’s faced as an Irish man (today’s revisionist historians, many of them dutiful and well-programmed young people, argue that no European or Asian immigrant ever experienced significant discrimination on American shores and this is all a myth, the primary source documents we have being hoaxes).
The nice thing is that this particular book we are reading is a library book; the troubling concern is “how long until someone realizes what is in this and gets rid of it?” I’m keeping my eye out for angry leprechauns (I write after cross-checking to make sure “leprechauns” isn’t an ethnic slur).
The best approach against actual, real racism is the Mel Brooks one.
Like in Blazing Saddles, and The Producers - cry Havoc! and let slip the slurs and epithets of ethnicity that we may revel in them instead!
I mean for pity's sake, the english name for my people is a root vegetable! Hello-oo, feeling put upon here! Gimmegimmegimme bajillions of pounds sterling as compensation for 1066, stat!
Nah. Let's share a laugh instead, yes?
I am pretty ignorant as a Yank, but my dictionary informs me that (trigger warning*) a swede is the same thing as a rutabaga. (Speaking of foods, I guess as a rural white-ish American I could be called a “cracker,” although obviously that is very offensive unless you are also white and you say “cracka,” in which case it’s acceptable. This is all beginning to make me wonder whether “rutabaga” is actually the PC term for a “rutabager.”)
*this was meant to be a joke and will be taken as such by all people who are familiar with Rikard’s comments and know him as Least Likely to Require a Trigger Warning
Rutabaga sounds better than neeps, so I'm down with it. I mean c'mon Scotland, neeps? Sounds like a stomach condition:
"Och Jock, are ye goan to the oothoose agen?"
"Yah mum, I've got the neeps something fierce I have!"
Rutabaga is actually a swedish word originally, funnily enough. It's compounded of two older dialect words for root and lump respectively, so a proper english translation would have been "rootlump". Yeah, I'm fine with rutabaga.
In modern swedish, it's called kålrot. Kål as in cawl, and rot as in root: "cawl-root" comes pretty close pronounciation-wise. It's still very much a staple here.
Even funnier, it originated here in Scandinavia. How about that, that sturdy durable little lump is our (and the finns!) gift to agriculture.
I like swedes, they're sweet and tasty, versatile, and colourful - and they also make great flat-packed furniture.
Personally, I'd rather be called a Swede than a Root Lump - but maybe that's just me 🤣
I thought it might have been, potato, turnip, carrot, or kholrabi. 😉
In 2020, a Scottish man was convicted for calling his ex-girlfriend’s Irish boyfriend a leprechaun. The prosecutor declared that the message was threatening but added that it was a racially aggravated offense due to the use of the word.
https://jonathanturley.org/2020/06/21/scottish-man-convicted-of-calling-ex-girlfriends-boyfriend-a-leprechaun/
I didn't know the Irish were a "race".
I suppose the next thing will be that anyone cooking potatoes is accused of cultural appropriation
Yeah, from the Inca
I speak as an Irish (yes we are definitely neither English, scotch or Welsh) potato addict
My ex was from Ireland (the North) and I remember one meal time when her daughter looked at her mum and said with a fair degree of venom "not more fucking potatoes" 😂
I cannot ever imagine saying that 😂
Was he very short?
From Canada's ethicists in the healthcare sector comes a strong contender in the Riggervision Song Contest:
The Welfare Industrial Complex doing their version of Dead Kennedys' 'Kill the Poor'.
Hat tip to IgorChudov for shelling out andreading the full Aktion T4-programme, Canadian-style this time:
https://igorchudov.substack.com/p/assisted-suicide-for-the-poor-recommended
Seeing as Sweden has had such a law for decades now, I can testify to what happens. See, our "hate speech law", colloquially called "hets mot folkgrupps-lagen" ("inciting hatred towards an ethnicity-law", doesn't roll off the tongue does it?) dates back to the 1980s, when it was first implemented for real.
It is vague to the point of "because the court wants to find you guilty", it makes no allowance for if a statement is factually true, and it is employed politically and arbitrarily - all nice and legal and democratic, like.
If I was to point out that somalis (f.e.) have an average IQ below the line for severe mental retardation for swedes/other white ethnicities and somalis in Sweden might therefore need help with various and sundry to fit in and function, and back thisup with scientific sources - I'm committing a crime. I'm inciting racial hatred, see, when I debate how to help those from more primitive societies to function in ours. Because all are equal - the law made by democratically selected politicians says so, so that's the truth.
If I point out that Ashkenazi jewshave higher IQs as a group, than does white americans, I'm not inciting racial hatred though. Because if the law would treat all races/ethnicities equal, the law would be racists.
(It's not just "race" either, but basically, if you're a normal swedish man then you are fair game for any slurs or any hatred including incitement to assault and hurt you; if you're a (f.e.) moslem migrant you can stand on a street corner yelling "Gas the jews!" in arabic while pointing at a synagogue without breaking the law.)
Initially, the law demanded the prosecutor showed that the charged party had knowingly and willingly with intent to harm and to inciteto violence, harassed a specific individual based on their ethnicity (if other than white, that bit's been there from the get-go). Now, if i was to overhear someone complain about a chore such as emptying out the septic tank being a "bloody negro-job" I could report them and get them convicted.
The slope is not so much slippery as it is a zero-friction surface in a vacuum.
PS: "Negro-job" (neger-göra) is an old phrase, meaning a job or a chore that is heavy, unpleasant, dirty and distasteful - the kind you'd have to enslave and force someone to do. It does not denigrate negros in any way, quite the opposite.
The only hate speech, is the censorship of free speech.
The lunatics have taken over the asylum.
I wrote new lyrics to Another Brick in the wall pre the Plandemic. “We don’t need no medication, we don’t need no mind control. No diagnosis in the classroom, hey big pharma leave them kids alone” it had several verses. I’ve forgotten it now, but you get the idea.
With the greatest respect, my good Professor, today CIC stands for Corey In Contention. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the Canuck with the world’s sweetest swing won a Major?
I thought that teacher with the large bolt-ons had the best swing?
FOWL Filthy Outrageous Woke Liars.
When I was called names and teased by the neighborhood kids, my grandma always said, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me”. Today, I lecture my grandkids on the first amendment: “kids, it’s not Hate Speech, it’s speech they hate”.