More Ways to Shut Down The World It continues apace. Not content with the major world media outlets controlling the climate change narrative, now the Republican-dominated US House of Representatives Select Committee on the Climate Crisis wants Google to de-platform any videos on Youtube (which Google owns) that promote climate denial. Read more.
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The N-word and Who Can Say What I have in front of me a well-thumbed copy of the 12th edition (2011) of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary , open at page 967. A little over halfway down the page there is an entry for ‘nigger’, which reads, “ n . offensive a black person”. There is also a text box on usage, noting that in recent years the term is “sometimes used by black people as a mildly disparaging way of referring to other black people, in much the same way that queer has been adopted by gay people as a term of self-reference, acceptable only when used by those within the community”. The entry seems fitting for a concise dictionary: brief, a note on its social status (‘offensive’), and then a short discussion to help the reader overcome any confusions they might have about usage. Of course much has been written about trigger words and hate speech since 2011 (it’s notable that there is no entry for ‘social justice warrior’ in this edition), and so one question niggl...
Where are you from? Somewhere? Nowhere? Anywhere? In this insightful article Richard Norrie discusses the importance of feeling that you belong somewhere, rather than being a citizen of the world. "Nations are units of belonging defined by shared ancestry, language, history, religion, geography and borders. In that sense, they are exclusive, but they needn’t be reactionary or racist. It is entirely possible to reject chauvinism while believing in the nation." Read more .