(no subject)

[mari4212]

I can't believe this is happening again. Didn't we just go through racial issues and the problems of racist implications of words/decisions in SGA fandom?

Or, actually, I can, but I'm still incredibly offended. What, did HP fandom decide that since we didn't get the whole book seven explosion that we had to create the problems within fandom itself?

This link: http://witchqueen.livejournal.com/407901.html, explains it far better than I can.

Comments

[cheshire23.livejournal.com]

I...ugh. I wish I knew what to say.

Sounds like some people need to read Loving v. Virginia etc.

*extremely annoyed*

[mari4212.livejournal.com]

I know. It's just appalling. And to say that they won't change something so offensive because other people are squicked at other kinks is ridiculous.

[much-reality.livejournal.com]

Oh my God. I cannot believe that - I only know what that word means because it was the one Nazis used to describe interracial relationships.

And they defined homosexuality as a kink. I just...

Yeah. I have nothing.

[cheshire23.livejournal.com]

Likewise, I know the word because I wrote a paper for graduate school on Loving v. Virginia, the US Supreme Court case that struck down the laws against interracial marriage.

They're talking about different RACES and treating them as if they were different species, so actually taking this into different species is just...grr.

[snarkybando.livejournal.com]

I'm about to bang my head against a wall because someone's trying to tell me Honky is a racially offensive term *rolls eyes*

[alphamatrix.livejournal.com]

Is this word specifically used in US history? I've never heard of this word in New Zealand, and when I tried to get a clearer picture (through dictionaries - IMO Wikipedia, by its very nature, can be unreliable for words that have negative social connotations), the definitions didn't match up.
Oxford English Dictionary (2003):

miscegenation, n.
orig. U.S.
Coined by David Goodman Croly and George Wakeman in an anonymously published hoax pamphlet circulated in 1863, which implied that the American Republican party favoured mixed-race relationships (see quot. 1863). Cf. Portuguese miscigenação (c1960).]

The mixing or interbreeding of (people of) different races or ethnic groups, esp. the interbreeding or sexual union of whites and non-whites; a theory which advocates this as being advantageous to society; marriage or cohabitation by members of different ethnic groups. Also: an instance of this, and in extended use Cf. AMALGAMATION n. 2.

From this, I get the impression it's similar to the assimilation theory of colonisation (a theory that is both criticised and praised...), especially given the word's origin.

Wouldn't witchqueen be protesting about it's use as "anti-miscegnation", i.e. anti-miscegnation policies?

I didn't want to ask on her journal because I do disagree with how the mods of that comm responded, and I'm not sure if it's a cultural difference in our styles of English.

Can anyone clarify this for me?

[much-reality.livejournal.com]

Well, from the above it seems that the term was coined by two men seeking to discredit Abolitionists - the Republicans were, at that time - by accusing them of advocating racially mixed sexual relationships; at that time presumably a hugely loaded and prejudicial assertion. Which isn't that different to the sort of poison spouted about the mainstream German parties with regard to the Jews, in Der Stürmer. If that etymology is correct (and the OEC is a fabulous source so I'll totally buy it), it was created as a term to discredit those who wanted to abolish slavery by using people's racism and harnessing it to sexual anxieties, not as a legitimate attempt to promote acceptance of interracial relationships. I don't think an entymology can get a whole heap more racist than that. It's also been used in translations for the German policies on marriages to non-Aryans (the German word was mischling, so I suppose it was just a neat translation from that perspective) so it has a loaded meaning that way, to me. That's the sole occasion I came across the word before this.

My husband tells me that Nigger originally meant someone from the Niger Delta, or what's now Nigeria - it wasn't offensive due to etymology, but past use as a term of gross abuse, in a context of brutal oppression. Now it seems that miscegenation has its very etymology rooted in that same oppression. If miscegenation was coined to be racist and has been used since to describe racist legislation out-lawing interracial relationships, I'm kind of unsure as to why people are saying the comparator of the n-word is inappropriate. It seems wholly apposite.

On the upside, I've learned a ton in the past hour, and I'm sure I'm not alone. But...wow. I'm learning things that make me even more boggled by their refusal to reconsider, not less. Talk about being bang to rights.

a bit tl;dr...

[skirmish-of-wit.livejournal.com]

I completely understand why you might be confused! The most important part of the definition (and the most popular interpretation of the word) is the part up to the first semicolon. I don't know if you have access to the online OED, but the later examples the OED provides generally do emphasize a sort of distasteful racist "watering down" of the otherwise pure genetic stock through mixing with those of other races. Examples:

1878 H. M. STANLEY Through Dark Continent I. 44 By this process of miscegenation, the Arabs are already rapidly losing their rich colour.

1902 Pilot 27 Dec. 540/2 The danger of ‘miscegenation’..ought to warn us against introducing Oriental settlers into South Africa.

1935 C. ZIRKLE Beginnings of Plant Hybridization i. 42 The myths that have come down to us from the earliest civilizations contain many accounts of miscegenation between gods and mortals.

1955 Amer. Midland Naturalist 53 409 The warmth of the slough water..may also be a factor conductive [read conducive] to miscegenation between the squawfish and the shiner.

1991 Transpacific July-Aug. 41/2 Because many states still had miscegenation laws preventing interracial marriage, mixed couples couldn't always travel freely.

Each of these examples implies some sort of inherent inequality or wrongness about the mixing of races. Also, because of the association with the old "miscegenation laws" preventing marriage between whites and nonwhites (particularly those of African descent), the connotations of "miscegenation" definitely are very racist, and the "theory" referred to in the OED, which actually created the word, isn't really common knowledge.

In fact, though, the word was originally coined as an insult: Croly and Wakeman took the Latin words for "mix" and "race" and mashed them together for their hoax pamphlet (which really was called Miscegenation: The Theory of the Blending of the Races, Applied to the American White Man and Negro), which was designed to offend white men by encouraging white women to marry black men, describing all of it in very political, Republican-sounding terms. It was published and circulated by Democrats, who at the time were associated with the pro-slavery movement, and therefore had stakes in inciting race-based panic in white men.

So... yeah, it does have a specific meaning in US history, but it's not a very well-known meaning. The term is really more famous (to those who know it at all) from the miscegenation laws, which is partially why it's so very offensive.

I hope this helps! :) Or at the very least didn't bore you to tears....

Re: a bit tl;dr...

[skirmish-of-wit.livejournal.com]

Oh, hell, much_reality posted just after I started typing this. Oh well! XD

Re: a bit tl;dr...

[mari4212.livejournal.com]

*pets* You added new bits of information, though.

[jediravenclaw.livejournal.com]

ok, I'm gonna post here what I posted there..,mainly because it's not the topic that infuriates me, but the people who are argueing about it.


I think this has been blown completly out of proportion. Ok, so they used an term in its literal sense (which does not *literally* promote white supremacism). The way I see this: people have read way too far into it. I don't think the mods are exactly KKK members here. I mean, look at the def I pulled off of wiki:

"Miscegenation (Latin miscere “to mix” + genus (“kind”) is a term used to describe the mixing of different races. It refers to marrying, cohabiting, having sexual relations or procreating with a partner from outside of one's racially or ethnically defined social group."

A white and another race do NOT come to mind when I read this in a Harry Potter forum...you know what does? Remus/Tonks! (Warewolf/human), or Fluer/Bill! (Veela/half warewolf). I wouldn't be surprised to find a few Dobby/Harry in there floating around. And hell, the Giant Squid has been paired with EVERYONE.


Ladies and gentleman, I HIGHLY HIGHLY DOUBT that they would have included such ships in this category as say, Ginny/Kingsley...
my overall message: let it rest, move on, and stop reading so much hatred into loosely worded posts.

[jediravenclaw.livejournal.com]

http://jediravenclaw.livejournal.com/266027.html

This will explain things better than I could have in a comment.


p.s. "come and see the violence inheriant in the system! HELP HELP! I'M BEING REPRESSED!"

[mari4212.livejournal.com]

Lierin, you're my friend and I respect you, but did you actually read the comments in that post? Because it was made explicitly clear what the history of that word is, why it is racially offensive, and that yes, the mods did classify Dean/Luna stories with the same tag they classified Harry/goat with. So within that comm you have an interracial couple equated with bestiality.

I responded in more depth over at your journal, but I had to reply here as well.