I don't think I'm looking at the negative side of things, merely saying that she needs to look.
Phelix Send a noteboard - 08/09/2010 11:01:11 PM
giving her the benefit of the doubt.
I'm basing my stance off of the comments she made in the article. She has said that this was a negative, offensive thing that is out of character for her. If it is in character for her, but doesn't mean what everyone is assuming it means, then she should say that, then I'd be much more inclined to say "well, if she grew up in a culture that uses the term for something else, she might not have meant it in the international sense." But she didn't.
She said something she claims is out of character for her to say, so she should think and look into why she felt the need to say that at that time.
I can't speak to those cultures because I don't know them very well. I do know in similar groups I've interacted with, I spent some time a box factory outside of Johannesburg, faggot definitely meant queer. I know South Africa isn't New Zealand, but they're similar enough in this instance, no?
Not really, no. They are so very far apart, and have vastly different cultural heritages.
OK, I was basing that on the idea of hyper-masculine groups, Blue collar laborers and athletes, from similar cultures (relatively recently settled former colonies that did not have much interaction with American culture until recently).
But arsehole doesn't target a specific population and denigrate them. Everyone has an arsehole, and if someone is being an arse, you're calling them out for their behavior. Calling someone a faggot is different.
Nor does faggot in the usual Australian/NZ definition, which is the major point here.
Does everyone have a faggot? It's not a universal term, it's a targeted term. It is different than arsehole.
But she is not. She's 22, if I recall the article correctly, which means she would have been born in 88, well after the timeframe you put on the American Influence becoming big. She would have grown up hearing it in its more recent context and meaning as well as from older male relatives in the older context.
She's not much younger than me, no. And what did I see on TV when I was young? British shows, Australian shows, Sesame Street, and repeats on things like Gilligan's Island, I Love Lucy, and shows like that. In her formative years, the years that matter most for acquisition of language, those are the kinds of things she'd have seen. (My family in Australia, in Sydney and Queensland, certainly grew up with those shows, some of them cousins 10 years younger than me.) So most likely for her, that would be the meaning of the word. Weakling. Wimp. But not necessarily homosexual. I didn't really come across that till I moved here.
OK, I really can't speak to the conditions you grew up in. You know them, and I don't.
If there's no underlying dislike for queer folk, fine, she'll go on, none the worse for having looked inside herself. If she looks, and realizes she does have an issue, she can address it.
What's the problem with that?
I'm sorry, but you cannot be a world traveling athlete and not be exposed to a global definition of an insulting word. It doesn't hold water that she would be unaware of the insulting meaning.
The problem I have is that there's no need for deep soul-searching if she didn't know that meaning of the word, which really isn't an unlikely scenario considering the culture of Downunder. You seem to be assuming that she did.
I'm sorry, but you cannot be a world traveling athlete and not be exposed to a global definition of an insulting word. It doesn't hold water that she would be unaware of the insulting meaning.
If she didn't then soul-searching about her opinion of homosexuality is not necessary. She knows what she thinks about that.
Does she? We don't know that. All we know is that she said something offensive, and then apologized for it, claiming it was out of character for her.
Don't you investigate your motives when you do something out of character?
If I went out, got completely drunk off my arse, made out with half the bar, and went home with a random couple, I'd sure stop to think why I did that the next morning.
Examining our motives, soul searching, is how we learn from our mistakes.
I was Phelix on wotmania, I will always be Phelix in the "real" world, and now I am Phelix on RAFO.
You will make all kinds of mistakes; but as long as you are generous and true and also fierce you cannot hurt the world or even seriously distress her.- Churchill
*MySmiley*
You will make all kinds of mistakes; but as long as you are generous and true and also fierce you cannot hurt the world or even seriously distress her.- Churchill
*MySmiley*
Interesting way to bring people together 
- 08/09/2010 04:36:19 PM
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- 08/09/2010 04:36:19 PM
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1. That girl is an idiot who needs to do some soul searching...
- 08/09/2010 07:07:47 PM
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? not that her comment was excusable...
- 08/09/2010 07:45:59 PM
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It's not a cardinal sin against humanity...
- 08/09/2010 07:55:55 PM
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or it just means...
- 08/09/2010 08:18:57 PM
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Societal problems don't go away from the group level. 
- 08/09/2010 08:25:21 PM
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- 08/09/2010 08:25:21 PM
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You have an odd definition of homophobe (or at least that's what your last paragraph implies).
- 08/09/2010 10:04:52 PM
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I was trying to use her words...
- 08/09/2010 10:17:32 PM
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Ah, okay. Her apology does seem rather clumsy, agreed there.
- 08/09/2010 11:05:34 PM
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Glad to clear up that confusion. 
- 08/09/2010 11:11:35 PM
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- 08/09/2010 11:11:35 PM
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I don't think you should read too much in the exact wording of her apology.
- 08/09/2010 11:24:21 PM
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*NM*
You should watch that Southpark episode where they change the meaning of the word faggot.
- 08/09/2010 09:24:16 PM
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I've seen it, and it was funny.
- 08/09/2010 09:40:43 PM
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Suspect you need to consider the way the word is used in other countries.
- 08/09/2010 09:46:05 PM
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I admit, I don't know many (any) kiwis personally (in person that is)...
- 08/09/2010 09:52:45 PM
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The insult word for homosexuals Downunder tends to be Fruit or Queer.
- 08/09/2010 09:58:04 PM
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OK, I can see that.
- 08/09/2010 10:09:16 PM
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I think it's unfair to people to assume that there's some underlying bad nature...
- 08/09/2010 10:18:29 PM
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I'm not assuming there's an underlying bad nature, I am saying she should look to see if it's there.
- 08/09/2010 10:27:21 PM
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And I'm saying that you're instantly looking on the negative side of things instead of
- 08/09/2010 10:46:11 PM
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I don't think I'm looking at the negative side of things, merely saying that she needs to look.
- 08/09/2010 11:01:11 PM
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Or, she was replying to interview questions and thinking on her feet.
- 08/09/2010 11:10:26 PM
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She said she needs to learn to think before she tweets lol
- 08/09/2010 08:14:38 PM
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Yes, but that's just a surface change.
- 08/09/2010 08:20:59 PM
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- 08/09/2010 08:20:59 PM
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