Try to Slur Me

[Russ H]

Great story, taichijedi.

And a really, really great post.

Thanks for sharing with us-- and communicating it so well.

Rep speed + + +

-Russ H.

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

I have found this conversation to be intelligent and handled with a great deal of tact. It can be a very slippery slope to discuss words of such root and cause, and actually find it refreshing how the members of this forum have had an intellectual conversation in the pursuit of greater understanding of such matters.

I was raised blue collar, by a single mother and wore a great deal of second hand items as she tried to keep a roof over our heads and food on our table. I have two younger siblings, so money was tight (I'm sure a great portion of my drive for success is derived purely from this upbringing, but I digress). As was mentioned earlier, intelligence was an innate gift, and it was free to use, so I did constantly. Amazingly, that didn't win many friends either. So I received a glut of insults and other verbal assaults designed solely for the purpose of undermining my perception of my own value. In my youth, many of these attacks were actually rather successful. Other people in their designer this and that would mock me for wearing last year's styles off the discount rack, or ridicule my lack of aptitude in sports, or disassociate from me because they thought I was a "dork or a "nerd." I am Caucasian, and so I didn't have to deal with ethnic slurs (and cannot in good conscience testify as to what the experience must be like to someone who does, except to draw a corollary to something like my socioeconomic upbringing that I had no control over.) There were however, many weaknesses in my makeup that were exploitable by those wishing to do so. "Poor," "Bastard", and "Worthless" were launched at me often. It came to be that my grandfather would become my savior in such matters; as he watched my self-worth deteriorating he could withhold his sage wisdom no longer and I guess he just felt it was time. This is what he said:

"Nick, you are blessed with many special gifts. You are intelligent, well spoken, and outgoing. Consider the source of this ridicule. The fact that these individuals do not appreciate these facets of your character does not reflect a weakness on your part, but rather a weakness in theirs. You keep striving to be constructive, and you will go far. It is those who do not know their own worth who try to bring others down in such a manner. Never lower yourself to their level, but rather do all that you can to raise them up to yours."

I have never forgotten this lesson, and live it to this day. I always took "raise them up to yours" to mean help people find and utilize their own innate gifts. By and large, it is not those "in power" that I see using such language and connotations, generally because people of influence realize the lack of credibility such verbiage entails, and as such are less affected by it because those who are truly successful in their own right are self assured and do not require an outside source to validate their self worth.

Some of these "Chosen Ones" that are spoken of in the earlier posts are being groomed for positions of power, but they have not necessarily created one. It is the difference at the crux of the "Give a man a fish..." parable. They ride on the coattails of generations prior, and have not had to contribute to the successes they so easily enjoy. They have a developed sense of entitlement perhaps, though they have done little to earn such accolades. This creates a vacuum of their own self worth, where their success are not their own but rather an endowment of someone else's accomplishments that they take on to be their own; the use of slurs and negativity is a method employed to force someone else to feel they are inferior. Some are successful in their own right, and some not so much, but this is where there is a separation of the wheat from the chaff; the results of individual accomplishment. There is no fault in the parents for wanting their children to have such fruits of their labors, but none that I have ever met condone such use of slurs or negativity. Most of the successful people I know generally follow a tact of "If you don't have anything good to say, silence is your ally."

I ran into one of the individuals who made a daily ritual of tormenting me in my youth at the funeral of a dear friend 15 years after grade school. Upon recognizing me, he came up and shook my hand, and we converesed for awhile. He told me "You know Nick, we tormented you treated you like an a**hole all the time, and you were never anything but cool to us. I can honestly say that makes you one of the most impressive people I have ever had the pleasure to know." This was a rather vindicating reinforcement of my grandfather's belief and ethos, and though I wouldn't have changed it anyway, it was nice to know my example positively impacted someone.

I am feeling rather exposed in this post, but I feel it will be well accepted by the members of this forum who I have come respect deeply. I am truly sorry to any who may be offended by anything in this post, as this was most sincerely not my intention. I am also sorry for its length. It is simply my experiences on the receiving end of such verbiage, how I ultimately disenfranchised it, and the logic I see in the methodologies of those who use it. In short, its my $.02.

I hope this helps in your search for answers.

:cheers:

EDIT: I found these quotes that put the above rather succinctly:

“Good thoughts bear good fruit, bad thoughts bear bad fruit – a man is his own gardener.†-James Allen, author

"Before considering criticism or praise, first consider the source."
-Zig Ziglar

Speed+Thanks ...

Awesome post --- it might be time for me to create a legendary post section. Sometimes great posts get lost in threads where many miss them.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Google's attempt at installing racial hysteria ...

Real or fake? “White people stole my car” is big on Google

I'm going to say it is FAKE and a photoshop.

 

[Russ H]

Wow, so many people are searching this right now to see if google returns this that in the past few days, it's showing as a google "trend"!

Very savvy bit of viral marketing. Leads to a spam/virus site, so they don't really care about making money-- just creating havoc.

Which they have.

-Russ H.

 

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[Russ H]

BTW, this is a really easy level one photoshop-- you just need a draw program.

Initial search for "blakc people stole my car" would return "did you mean "black people stole my car"?

Then, do a search for "white people stole my car", and just seam the two together (top and bottom).

I tried to show this, but google has overides in right now every time you type in something close to "blakc people stole my car", it returns the standard "white people stole my car", w/no autobot suggestions.

So I did a variation on the above, pasted below. Took a total of 2 min, incl "photoshopping".

-Russ H.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Funny though how something so simply masterminded can go viral. Also has the potential to damage google's brand without them being complicit.