My thoughts: this was not an accident. This was testing the waters.

I wonder what the person who absolutely insisted to me yesterday that this wasn’t about black people in general would have to say about this…

  • peopleproblems@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    If it’s in your regular enough vocabulary to “come out accidentally” you are a racist.

    You also can’t ‘unsay’ a racial slur as much as my ex can’t ‘unfuck’ someone.

    What’s also neat is that it also shows one’s intelligence. If you give him a pass “oh he said he was sorry” you’re a racist AND dumb.

    • tabarnaski@sh.itjust.works
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      (…) you’re a racist AND dumb.

      To a large extent you’re racist because you’re dumb.

      For the last few months they’ve traded their dog whistles for blow horns. More and more hatred is being normalized.

      • peopleproblems@lemmy.world
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        Not really, because he wasn’t a Black guy talking to Black people. He knew what he did.

        It’s a racial slur. That’s it. Don’t use it, don’t think it, don’t think you can say it with your Black friends.

        • FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          Obviously it’s fucked up how it was used in the above article.

          And obviously if you’re not black you should never use it. But you’re assuming I’m not black with your comment.

              • Monument@lemmy.sdf.org
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                Who was it intended toward?

                Someone that hasn’t watched TV since the 1980’s? ChatGPT, for when someone invariably turns it loose on the fediverse?

                It’s not niche as a concept. Your explanation is known worldwide.
                Its inclusion in the discourse is unwarranted.

                Next time you feel the need to add a disclaimer that justifies/explains/adds caveats to racist language: fucking don’t.

      • USSMojave@startrek.website
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        There’s a reason a distinction is made between how black people use it and when the “hard r” is in the pronunciation

      • MudMan@fedia.io
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        I don’t know. I mean, he does sound like he catches himself, and he isn’t that good of an actor. But then, who the hell has that just… ready to go to the point where it just blurts out by itself? Like, how often do you have to say that out loud for it to just hijack your train of thought? It’s almost less damning if he did it on purpose, honestly.

  • MeaanBeaan@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Even if this was just an “innocent” slip up it’s not like what he said wouldn’t have been racist otherwise. The dude is defending the false claims about Haitian immigrants. It’s still racist.

  • UmeU@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Really sounds like it starts with an N and not an M so I don’t buy the mispronunciation story.

    Also there is the fact that neither immigrants nor migrants ends in ‘gger’

    He prolly had a bet with a friend that he would slip in an N word.

    • Avatar_of_Self@lemmy.world
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      I saw the dumb defender say he was conflating immigrant and migrant but I replayed that part a dozen times. It really, really sounds like an ‘N’ as the first letter. It definitely was not him beginning to pronounce ‘immgr’. You can plainly hear it.

      But even if we gave him the benefit of the doubt, the fact that Megyn Kelly completely ignored it and the fact that he didn’t apologize immediately and explain it says volumes about both of them. Why didn’t Kelly even say anything? Maybe she’s so used to hearing it in her circles, maybe even saying it, that it didn’t even register as something unusual to her and she didn’t notice it.

    • WoahWoah@lemmy.world
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      It seems seems dubious to me too. But the ‘gr’ in migrants would sound roughly the same as ‘gger.’ The problem is… well. He seems to start it with an ‘n’ and then also mis-inflects the ‘i’?

      It would be like trying to say ‘clickable’ and instead saying ‘slacker.’

      Mad sus.

  • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    My thoughts: this was not an accident. This was testing the waters.

    The staff at the National Review have always been neo-confederate trash and I have no trouble believing Lowry simply uses this word on such a routine basis that it slipped out during an interview with another arch-conservative media figure.

    These folks are racists and it shouldn’t be seen as surprising when they show all the symptoms of a bigoted mind.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      Even during the Reconstruction Era, Indiana was both staunchly Republican and full of the KKK. And there was no shortage of racism irrespective of party in Congress during the height of the Civil War. The myth is that the Radical Republicans of the 1860s and 70s represented the party population as a whole, rather than a vocal minority within an ascendant movement that managed to squeeze in a few good reforms before Hayes sold it all down the river.

      Republicans barely abolished slavery even with half the country in Time-Out. And they were crucified for it in elections to come.

  • leadore@lemmy.world
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    I wondered if this might turn out to be somebody reading something into something, but Nope, he said it clear as a bell. You don’t accidentally say that unless you’re thinking it. This is obviously a word this guy uses frequently, and he even seems proud of himself for it.

    • Omega_Jimes@lemmy.ca
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      Yeah, sometimes there’s something else outside could have been saying but not here.

      Here it’s clear as day. And the host says nothing at all, which says a ton about her.

      • Kalothar@lemmy.ca
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        I changed my mind after putting in earphones and listening to it more clearly

        • PlantJam@lemmy.world
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          The video also looks like he’s making an M sound (closed lips) than an N sound (open lips). Grammatically, I also don’t think including “Haitian” makes sense if the next word is a slur.

          I’m all for calling out the actual content on the conversation as the absolute nonsense that it is, but this specific headline seems like a bit of a reach.

  • Rentlar@lemmy.ca
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    Haitian mig-r? Lol. Clearly the man is too used to saying the N word off public broadcast.

  • abigscaryhobo@lemmy.world
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    I don’t sympathize with this dudes rhetoric at all, just adding that from his mouth movements he does seem to be making an “m” sound not an “n” sound with his mouth.

    He’s probably still really racist, but I’ve got racist family and if they ever decide to drop a “hard r” you can see it in their face. I do think it was a case of trying to say “immigrants”, flubbing it, then just saying “migrants” because he realizes what it sounds like. Even the forced laughter afterwards has a sort of “oh shit that didn’t sound good” vibe to it.

    Again, not defending this guy. But we have to remember, all sides of politics can spin stuff to fit their agenda, so we have to be discreet in our decisions and judgements, that’s how we stand apart from all the people just sucking down the news as gospel truth.