Forum: Story Discussion and Feedback

If it said :

... beautiful, creamy light skin that some white women are lucky enough to be born with ;

or beautiful, creamy freckled skin that some Irish women are lucky enough to be born with ...

would you be equally offended ?

Or:

... beautiful, golden-bronzed skin that some women are lucky enough to be able to pull off ;

--Additionally, it didn't even need to cite race in my example. Although it implies women who can't achieve "a golden bronzed look" are somehow inferior. Black women and white women alike.

Sometimes people just look for reasons to be offended and no matter what you do, they WILL take offense at something.

it's not meant to be fun, not great literature)

OK, what's it meant to be, chopped liver?

I've edited my post to delete the first 'not'.

FWIW, I'm rather partial to chopped liver.

It's still there. Or playing on the word somewhat, It (not) is still there.

I like chopped liver too, if fried to crispy edges with onion and bacon, then stewed with tomato - but not simmered with sliced onions in a weak gravy like my partner prefers. That had me reaching for the local pizzeria menu.

the pork liver pate I had for my evening meal ;)

Not meaning to be racist, but did you have it spread on crackers?

As has the pork liver pate I had for my evening meal ;)

It will come back after you go to sleep. :)

"...beautiful, creamy dark skin that no snowflake is lucky enough to be born with."

I am not sorry to agree with Keet.

@Keet
I'm sorry to say that you sound like one of those annoying snowflakes that have to find something racist in every damn thing they encounter.

Nor am I.

You people all laugh at how ridiculous this is. Wait a few years, and someone vocal will decide that calling someone "black" is not politically correct. A year later nobody can say it without being seen as a horrible person...

What hole have you been in? Since the 1980's there are "African-Americans" who will take offense to being called Black. Meanwhile, there are Blacks who will take offense to being called "African-Americans" as they're either Black, or American, not any of the silly hyphenated crap.

What hole have you been in?

Maybe I just live in a different region :D

I'll continue to call Christmas by its name. If non-Christians find my doing so offensive, then they need to be more tolerant of Christian beliefs like they say we should be of their religious beliefs.

Ahh, but those people arguing against Christmas are often Cristians themselves! If I understand them correctly (nearly impossible to achieve), the pure overwhelming majority of Cristians inflicts so much pressure upon members of other religions that we should reduce this pressure.

I sometimes finds the commercializing of Christmas and Easter is going too far. (But that's another can of worms.)

HM.

Christens aren't compelled to comply with the types of requirements imposed on the faithful of other religions. Can you picture them walking through the street flogging themselves?

The only actual flagellants I am aware of were a Christian sect.

Can you picture them walking through the street flogging themselves?

Well....

I've not actually heard of a christian S & M public service, but each to their own, although it would make more sense to flog each other, self-flogging is a pain in the ass...

I've not actually heard of a christian S & M public service, but each to their own, although it would make more sense to flog each other, self-flogging is a pain in the ass...

As I understand it, the self flagellation wasn't generally done in public.

And it would have been a pain in the back, not the ass.

The flogger was swung over the shoulder to strike the back.

IIRC, the flagellant sect got started during the black plague in Europe and had largely died out by the time of the Renaissance.

Dan Brown's Da Vinci code

I wouldn't generally go to that book to get accurate facts on history or what religious people actually do. :D

Da Vinci code includes a character who indulges in self-flagellation.

Yeah, that was fiction. The author was trying to tie the Jesuit order to the flagellants. Because they were the bad guys in the book.

although the practice is now vanishingly rare.

Rare enough that the individual practitioners are likely isolated from each other and too few in number to be considered a distinct sect. From sometime during the black plague to sometime before the Renaissance, there was an organized sect of flagellants that engaged in self flagellation, not for the purposes of gratification but as a form of self punishment to purge themselves of sin.

IIRC, the flagellant sect got started during the black plague in Europe and had largely died out by the time of the Renaissance.

I'd take self flagellation any day over what some Buddhists do when protesting, i.e. setting themselves on fire. I remember some newsreels from the Vietnam War. I think some Tibetan monks also did the same protesting Chinese occupation.

BTW, you can find some of the films on YouTube, but you have to have an account.

Interesting, but for the Christian sect of Flagellants, self-flagellation was an integral part of daily religious practice.

How exactly can cream be dark?

Chocolate Creme.

"creamy dark skin" in this case is describing the skin as having the consistency or texture of cream, not the color of cream.

From the Oxford dictionary - adjective - Resembling cream in consistency or colour.

From the Oxford dictionary - adjective - Resembling cream in consistency or colour.

Anyone who develops skin with the consistency of cream should seek urgent medical assistance...

Anyone who develops skin with the consistency of cream should seek urgent medical assistance...

I've always assumed it was a reference to really smooth, soft skin. But then I've encountered "creamy smooth skin" before so I have a context to frame it in.

Now if it was being compare to cottage cheese, I'd be running.

I appreciate a author trying to be original in avoiding those descriptors that are done to death, but please, at least use a description that makes sense..!!

Sometimes you just gotta allow the author poetic license. Lots of really, really good fiction doesn't make sense. So it's not a far reach to admit some dialogue won't either.

Lots of really, really good fiction doesn't make sense.

Real life usually doesn't make sense either.

I thought he meant creamy skin some white women are lucky enough to be born with.

Exactly...!!!

I thought he meant creamy skin some white women are lucky enough to be born with.

It can be creamy white skin, in which case the color will be mentioned, otherwise it is more a reference to apparent or near-actual texture, among some other things.

I took the description to reference skin colour like that of very light creamy chocolate colour similar to what you have with some coffees made with hot milk and not water.

Thus the phrase "café au lait" which IS actually used to describe skin colour.

I believe you, but I've never heard or seen that prase before.

This source might prove to be of interest. (To any writer)

Wow, do I take it that Australian High Streets aren't flooded with trendy coffee shops charging a fortune for miniscule amounts of beverage?

Australians prefer a Brownie, oops, politically incorrect. Ok, a Stubby, mmm that's politically incorrect too. A longneck, dangerously close to being politically incorrect. A tinnie? Pjoew that could work ;)
(for the uninformed: all terms refer to beer)

I represent that remark.

I'm leaning towards the opinion that 'professor' is a synonym of 'hopelessly deluded'.

Professor: one who professes.

Profess:

claim that one has (a quality or feeling), especially when this is not the case.

QED.(ish)

The story was in my daily paper. More and more I'm leaning towards the opinion that 'professor' is a synonym of 'hopelessly deluded'.

Modern Academia is beginning to resemble a redneck family tree.

90% of rednecks would find that statement insulting, and the rest wouldn't understand it due to the fancy word Academia.

👍😄

90% of rednecks would find that statement insulting, and the rest wouldn't understand it due to the fancy word Academia.

Sure they would, a lot of them like those fancy 'academia nuts...

90% of rednecks would find that statement insulting, and the rest wouldn't understand it due to the fancy word Academia.

Just curious. What is your definition of "redneck" and how do you know what 90 percent of them would understand or not?

Just curious. What is your definition of "redneck" and how do you know what 90 percent of them would understand or not?

If I had to guess, he's probably sticking largely to the historical usage. So predominately(but not entirely) persons descended from the Scots-Irish immigrants to the United States(who were called "Red-Necks" due to wearing a red bandanna around their neck to denote their (losing) faction prior to their leaving Scotland for Ireland in defeat.

The Scots-Irish initially settled in "the high country" of Appalachia, often by way of squatting. As American populations moved westward, so did they. Although the ones who moved west of the Mississippi river appear to have largely integrated into the general population, with the exception of a handful of southern states.

Typical hallmarks of modern Rednecks is they either live in poverty, or often give the appearance of poverty. They may or may not be particularly well educated, although the stereotype is they're mostly ignorant.

That said, they're also typically inventive as can be. Which is typically presented by their tendency to jury-rig just about anything and everything they can, even if there was no reason to. Or in more proper engineering terms: They favor function over form, and that function often doesn't give much consideration for safety...

see also: Hillbilly

Found this definition at Dictionary.com, which implies it applied to people who worked for a living.
"A slang term, usually for a rural white southerner who is politically conservative, racist, and a religious fundamentalist (see fundamentalism). This term is generally considered offensive. It originated in reference to agricultural workers, alluding to how the back of a person's neck will be burned by the sun if he works long hours in the fields."

Found this definition at Dictionary.com, which implies it applied to people who worked for a living.

Oh my, Dictionary.com is wrong about a definition and its origins. Alert the internet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redneck#Historical_Scottish_Covenanter_usage

In Scotland in the 1640s, the Covenanters rejected rule by bishops, often signing manifestos using their own blood. Some wore red cloth around their neck to signify their position, and were called rednecks by the Scottish ruling class to denote that they were the rebels in what came to be known as The Bishop's War that preceded the rise of Cromwell. Eventually, the term began to mean simply "Presbyterian", especially in communities along the Scottish border. Because of the large number of Scottish immigrants in the pre-revolutionary American South, some historians have suggested that this may be the origin of the term in the United States.

Dictionaries document the earliest American citation of the term's use for Presbyterians in 1830, as "a name bestowed upon the Presbyterians of Fayetteville [North Carolina]".

I think an 1830's dictionary wins on that one.

The peer review process for climate change papers is extremely incestuous ;)

Or not very good at the actual "peer review" part of the process.

When you have experts in entirely unrelated fields providing the peer review, you have to wonder. All those other fields may be able to do is spot flaws in the process/logic used. They're next to useless when it comes to understanding or interpreting the underlying data.

But that is venturing into obviously out-of-bounds territory.

All those other fields may be able to do is spot flaws in the process/logic used.

Those flaws most often turn headline-making research results into (how shall I say this tactfully?) something less than valuable additions to scientific knowledge. So spotting them performs a very useful function. The real problem, however, is that they're spotted but not exposed. Sort of analagous to software bugs that end up as features. And not very useful ones at that.

We'll also leave the absolute falsification of results out of this discussion. It really isn't needed, right?

The peer review process for climate change papers is extremely incestuous ;)

Sometimes I wonder if that isn't literal given how they fawn over each other.

The story was in my daily paper. More and more I'm leaning towards the opinion that 'professor' is a synonym of 'hopelessly deluded'.

There's a saying that a PhD is someone who knows more and more about less and less until they know absolutely everything about nothing.

Well, the obvious conclusion is that we must make absolutely certain that our kids receive no education at all.

ex-pert

Also known in my family a former drip.

"mary poppins blackface"

Is this really so different from soldiers putting on Max Factor's best to blend into their surroundings..??

Granted performers rarely kill people, but then again, performers don't risk death or injury protecting us..

In either case where a group does so, it is intended to make it impossible to tell the actual ethnic origin of any of them. What could be less racist..?

Guys and girls putting on makeup isn't anything new, just an easy target for those who can't help sticking their nose into anything just to voice their protest.

Mary Poppins getting sooty

Now that is racist..!! Unless she got Sweep too..!!

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