General Discussion - Nelson Piquet [Keep it civilized!]

This is again missing the point.

It's not about whether or not you find it reasonable. It's about choosing to show empathy and compassion, and being willing to change words and behaviours when the target of those words and behaviours is offended.

Speaking from a personal perspective, I'm a heterosexual white male from Australia.
My ancestors weren't enslaved, lynched or victims of genocide. I've not been the victim of any racism, suffered from generational under-privilege or faced stigma walking into a store or going to a job interview. Nor have I been bashed about what my genitalia looks like or who I had a crush on.

So all I can do, is try my best to put myself in someone else's shoes and imagine things from their view.

I'm not going to get defensive about the small inconvenience of changing a word, baselessly accuse others of feigned outrage, or go on a tirade that my rights are being taken away. Because they haven't been.

All that's needed is to walk in someone else's shoes, and take very small and easy steps to change words and behaviours.

 

Yes it is about what I find reasonable. If I don't personally evaluate how I speak, that means I let somebody else do it for me. Might not speak at all if I start to do that.

Everyone is able to show empathy by putting himself in another person's shoes. But if you do that and the demand to change something you do every day still does not hold up, don't change your patterns of speech. Other people can point you in the right or in the wrong direction: Which direction is the correct one is for oneself to decide.

I really dislike this "just because anyone is offended, change it without question". Not everyone has enough or any reason for offense. Many do, but some don't and simply abuse people's willingness to accommodate them in order to fulfill their own narcissism.

Except that changing something like behaviours and words means to change your daily life, which is in itself not "small and easy", but an actually powerful way to say "I understand, I've got your back, I'll try for every day of the rest of my life to adhere to that". Not every position deserves that.

(If you disagree, I would henceforth like my pronouns to be "asdfsnkier" and "asdfsnkem", because only that disarray of letters symbolifies the true depths of my gender, incomprehensible in its glory to mere mortals who don't identify as asdfsnkarem. If you don't do that, I'm going to be really angry because I'm not made to feel special enough. Also, it's just two little words, how hard can it be to do as I say?)

 

If you go and ask a victim of racism (say someone who's grandfather was lynched because of his skin colour), do you think they will agree that the most important thing is what you find reasonable?

When did I say to do it without question? You should definitely ask yourself questions. For example, ask about how your language and behaviours can impact others, and whether you're willing to help address that.

Are you really part of a group of people who have been subject to things like persecution, banishment from family, friends and community, bashing and being murdered because of they way they were made? I don't think so, and pretending you are would only show disrespect to those who have had to walk that path.

But if like me, you struggle to even remember or understand all the pronouns, as a starting point a simple step would be to generally address people neutrally. Police Officer instead of Police man/woman. 'They' were at the shops. I'll be meeting 'them' tomorrow, etc.
Surely not too hard?

 

It's quite interesting: I speak about putting myself in another's shoes and thinking about whether his point has merit. You jump to assume that I, when thinking about anything, would disregard all of the above points and simply ignore someone who asks me to stop using a certain word because his grandfather's murder was connected to it? At least it seems like that, because you keep listing extreme examples like that, examples, in which most people would immediately agree on the common courtesy to watch what they say.

How exactly do you get there? What in the things I said made you assume this? Don't you think it's a little lopsided if you just assume that any "privileged" person (that is such a stupid generalization) has no empathy at all and just thinks about themselves, which of course means that only people with "oppression experience" can have any say in how everyone should behave?

Not so easy in German As in, not possible without thinking up constructions that are not compatible with our grammar rules.

 

If you re-read my comment, hopefully you'll see that I didn't assume anything or disregard anything.
I simply asked you a question about the condition you placed.

I also didn't assume or assert anywhere that any privileged people have no empathy at all. To the contrary, I think that if people simply swapped perspectives, most people would find that empathy quite quickly. And not just on the topic of racism.

I'm sure you clever Germans will think of something, and find a way

 

I'm Brazilian, mixed race (my dad is black and my mom is white), I've been discriminated against a few times in Brazil and I was discriminated against a lot of times when I lived in US by both white people AND black people (yes, black people can be racist too and say some really nasty things unfortunately, in my experience Americans in general have prejudice against foreigners regardless of skin color).
I speak Portuguese & English fluently, I understand Spanish, I took German & French classes in college (only 2 semesters of those), and I met people from all over the world when I went to college in US, so I can tell from experience that words that are harmless in one language can sound offensive in another language, and whether something is offensive or not can depend on context.

So, whenever I see people who are very picky about language and are constantly looking for ways to feel offended and/or label certain words as offensive my answer to them is go learn another language, that really opens one's mind and gives one a different perspective about things.
Imo the main reason some people are constantly looking for ways to feel offended is because life is too easy, they don't have to struggle to survive, find food and shelter, they have the luxury of spending lots of time on TV and internet from the comfort of their home. It's easy to spend time worrying about "politically-correct" stuff on the internet when one doesn't have anything more important to do in life.

People who know me personally know I don't care about being politically correct, I'm a honest guy and I say what I think, and I like telling jokes that push boundaries. I do try to be nice to people, I'm fairly open-minded and I think people can be whatever they want and have whatever opinions they want as long as they respect other people and take responsibility for their actions. My problem is when people try to force their opinions on others and try to take away other people's freedom of speech and force them to behave in a certain way.

The whole cancel culture, people trying to stop others from saying certain things (words, jokes, opinions, etc), people trying to force others to use specific words that are "politically correct", trying to force others to follow a certain ideology, all of that has nothing to do with rights, equality, or empathy. It's simply an attempt to control people, take their freedom away, and force them to obey whatever ideology is being proposed. People who support that kind of stuff don't realize that forcing people to behave in a certain way is actually a lack of empathy for others, and trying to take people's freedom away and force them to use specific language and behave in a certain way can actually make things worse. The whole tribal mentality and always having to pick a side and trying to beat the other side by any means necessary (fake posts, poorly edited clips, etc) only makes things worse. That type of mentality is one of the reasons there's so much division and people are so polarized.
People need to realize it's ok to have different opinions on things sometimes.

Instead of playing the victim and constantly look for ways to feel offended people should be more worried about taking responsibility for things and taking action to improve their own lives and the lives of the people around them, and stop worrying about things that don't affect their own lives.

 

Changing language is happening all the time now. Words or sayings or items that were part of the daily vernacular in prior generations is hated on nowadays or changed to have a different meaning. Some of it i understand but a lot of it is ridiculous from our too easy to offend messed up society.

 

But why would you assume that people are only pretending to be offended or playing the victim?
I'm sure there are on the fringes, as there are on any fringe. But most humans are quite honest, and if someone tells me they find a particular word or behaviour offensive to who they are (as opposed to 'what they think' - very important distinction), then who am I to dispute that? Especially when they might be part of a group that historically has seen people like them harmed because of these exact issues.

Sure, everyone is different and what's offensive to one may not be to another. But that's beside the point. I don't see this as being about political correctness or about cancel culture, power or ideology.
It is simply about empathy and compassion, and being mindful others.

And to emphasise again for perspective there's no sacrifice here. These are very simple and easy changes to language and behaviour that are a great fist step.

 

I'm not saying everybody is like that, but I know plenty of people who are constantly accusing others of saying something offensive, trying to control everything other people say, and demanding apologies for every little thing. Whenever somebody says something they don't like they accuse the other person of being racist/sexist/homophobic/etc, if people don't agree with everything they say they accuse the other person of being racist/sexist/homophobic/etc, if people question them about something wrong/illegal/unethical they did they accuse the other person of being racist/sexist/homophobic/etc. They never take responsibility for anything. Imo that's all an act to get attention and force people to bend over to their will.
I'm all for people being themselves and expressing their opinions, and I'm willing to change and apologize whenever I feel it's necessary, but some of the "offensive" claims I see around are simply ridiculous exaggerations and make no sense, and I find it incredibly difficult to have a conversation with people like that who are constantly trying to control everything I say and think I have obligation to agree with everything they say.

Back on the Piquet topic, it could be considered inappropriate but it's not racist imo, there were bad translations thrown around, and the fact that it only got brought up during British GP weekend is kind of suspicious imo. He apologized so I don't understand why he's banned from F1 events while Juri Vips & Liam Lawson are still racing. Make a mistake > apologize > make necessary changes > move on, no need to ban or cancel anybody.

 

Am I? You are the one assuming a lot of stuff.

Lewis supports BLM, that is a radical group that used a fair share of real violence against pacific people. He openly support this group and use to preach their ideas.

I'm not bringing my personal life here because I think it would be a pour excuse of virtue signaling... and because I like the anonymous nature of internet forums. But just saying to you that assuming things is not helping your case.

Anyway... it's internet and, here, anyone can tell what wants.

It's not about me, it's about grammatic. Nego and negro are two different words.

And, again, you are presuming sht.

I'm over with you. I don't discuss people, I discuss ideas and facts... you like to judge, so we are not compatible.

I already explained the meaning of the word that Nelson used, but people are ignoring. And now the selected forum colleague above tried to teach me what words I can say in my own language.

There is a limit to how much colonized anyone is supposed to be. So I just leaved a phrase in colloquial Portuguese to those who understand, because I can speak in your language (or a common language, as I know that not everybody here is from an English speaker country) and will have a great joy teaching anyone of you my language AS I DID (and the supra quoted lad above disliked), but, please, give me the respect to AT LEAST learn my fkng language before criticize how it's used.

And, please, if anyone wants to, also, criticize my culture, please learn it. This forum can be focused in international Reiza's fans, but still a forum from a Brazilian developer... almost as it's an international host in Brazilian soil. So, here, you are in Brazil and will show us some respect. Our country, our language, our culture. Everybody is completely welcome here (we have the cordial people fame, and it's not just for the pose), but fking respect us!

Ok, parça... a lot of virtue signaling there, but I think it's a fashion thing over here and am not judging. But, as you are zuka, would you at least will agree that "negro" and "nego" are two different meaning words? Pq I believe that no one here is telling that there is not preconceito no Brasil, but just discussing if Piquet was racist or not. And vc deve lembrar que ele chama todo mundo de neguinho, as he did with Senna, Prost, Rubens and much others.

Abração!

 

I've never been on the receiving end of racism but I've certainly been bullied about my Religious beliefs and also because of my disabilities. Whist it may hurt and I would like for the people doing such bullying to have the compassion to let me be, just like I let them be I'm certainly not going about asking for them to be silenced or to be forced to change their language, I wish I could get them to see and understand me and my beliefs but it certainly shouldn't be forced upon them.

In the end they can call me what they want, I've discovered that the people doing the bullying always tend to do it for the same reason, jealousy. They see I'm doing well, possibly better than them and they want to bring me down, in the end they have to live with themselves.

 

There is nothing uncivilized here. Just the already made decision that "Nelson Piquet is a racist and everybody that disagree with that is a nazi". No one is even debating about the meaning of the word that means, IRL, a total different thing that the "n-word" in English. You can se by the reactions to the posts that nobody cares about the truth.

 

Yes, one is a formal word that's used in documents, the other is a slang. People call me nego/neguinho/negão all the time, it's no big deal for me.

I was member of a Christian church for many years but stop going for many reasons. The same thing I said previously applies here: you can be whatever religion you want as long as you respect other people. I know people from all sorts of religions and have good relationship with all of them. What I learned over the years is that the problem isn't religion, it's people.

 

The truth is that this not 1960 anymore. Like it or not, times have changed and will keep changing. Progress is unstoppable. This includes human relations. How we live with each other and treat each other. It doesn't really matter that something is considered a tradition or people say, this is fine, this is the way it has always been, because this cannot and will not stop changing for better.

 

Jugulador is completely right when saying that people are more busy calling out racism than studying the word at the root of this thread (because of who said it). Independently of the evolution of the brazillian branch of portuguese, their dictionaries currently still define the word nego in the following way.



Male substantive
Informal - Unknown person, dude, bro
Popular - Used as a person's name or to call someone
Popular - Endearing term given to someone; love: Come here, my nego.
Pejorative - Dark skinned person by excess of pigmentation; black

Adjective - Popular - Dark skinned, black

Etymology (origins of the word nego) - From negro (black), due to influence from pronunciation and suppression of the "r"

Synonims - dude, bro, (irrelevant), black

(As an additional note, -inho is used as a diminutive and can be used neutrally, positively or negatively)

Note that the pejorative is down below and not at the top. I reiterate that it seems people are stuck on demonizing the word because of who said it instead of accepting that it is a word that is mostly used neutrally or positively and can be used pejoratively mainly because this word's meaning depends on CONTEXT.
Now, again, Piquet Sr might be an asshole and he might have used the word in either way because I actually watched the interview after all the fuss and when listening to him, he says it in such a neutral way that all 3 possibilites could be true. But because of who it is, and because the media decided to throw a shítstorm, the man is condemned when there is no clear-cut tone to the use of neguinho.

Just as a finishing note, I am portuguese. I speak the same language as my brothers across the atlantic (for the most part - we did deviate a bit over the last century and a half) and due to cultural differences I wasn't aware of the word nego. As such I can only go by the actual meaning of words as defined by the brazillian institutions, watch examples being used and form an opinion. When it comes to calling someone black we just say preto, literally meaning black (but through tone and context it too can be used pejoratively, doesn't make the word bad). If we mean to use a pejorative word, we'll tend to go for negro, which in portugal will directly be tied to a negative definition (when used for a person - it's still a synonym for the color named black) just as in english.

I hope to have at least brought some focus back on the importance of definitions, meanings, tone and context.

 

Well, I'm white and people (black, pardos, asians, indigenous, other white and whatever) call me that. No one gets offended by this word unless really wants to. It's very different to the "n-word" in English.

Don't fell me too much of progress to import to Brazil the dynamics of racial hate that exists in other countries and just mimic them as if we shared the same history, demographics, and social structure... and as if they were dealing with this situation better that us.

You may get offended by being called "alemão"... I surely didn't liked to be called "rato branco" when I was five... but after the Lei Áurea, things in Brazil always moved towards the most peaceful resolution and we never develop an Apartheid state as in SA and some places of USA. Black people in USA and UE still black after hundreds of years, at the same time that in Brazil the black people became more European, more Asian, more Tupi and more Xavante, as all people here are a kind of viralata caramelo. It's still a work in progress, but it's working. The divisionism, collectivism, blaming and thought policing is the thing that is only making things worst. And inventing that "nego" means "negro" or the exactly "n-word" as in USA is a mistake

Of course I'm right, as always

But, serious:

"Nego" means "preto" (black), not "negro", only in some states at the northeast of the country (I'm from the southeast and Piquet is from the center-west) and, even them, it's always a tender word.

In the "Meme Era", some people made a lot of memes using it in a pejorative way, but never stuck this way in the RL culture.

There are a lot of songs using this word, and all of them in a non pejorative way.

The word is widely used by anyone addressing any other one.

As I said... a lot of folks are using this case to signal virtue... to show how woke and engaged they are. The Media and King Lewis already decided that Nelson shall be guillotined and everybody that disagree is a retrograde nazi. A fkng bed of nails it is!

 

Also there's a very famous musician called Neguinho da Beija-Flor.

 

There is a Gal Costa's song that is very recent and called "Neguinho". In the lyrics, the "neguinho" is a kind of an a-hole in her vision (she is a left extremist, for those who don't know this """""masterpiece""""" of an human being), but yet there is no skin color context, and the character could be anyone from the middle class (it's a blatant classist attack, as expected from her).

Just to enforce that the word have absolutely NOTHING to do with the "n-word" in English. This is why people shouldn't judge Nelson's case without knowing Portuguese from Brazil and at least something about our culture. Apparently, there are even some Brazilians that need to lacrar less and study more... just saying.

 

100% and that's what @Jugulador et al just don't get.
Still not able to figure out that racism is not how the speakers interpret the words, its how the target of those words interpret them.

A really simple personal example:
Where I grew up, people from Pakistan were often known as 'Pakis'. When my country played cricket against theirs, it was common to say 'We're playing the Pakis tomorrow night', or 'I work with an Aussie, two Kiwis, and a Paki'.
I used thee word with not a racist thought or intent ever crossing my mind.

One day an English colleague pointed out that in the UK, Paki was a derogatory and racist name and if someone from Pakistan heard me refer to them by that name, they'd likely be hurt or offended.
I had two choices:

1. Be like @Jugulador and accuse society of being too woke and stealing my language. Pointing out that we've used the word for ages (yes, even in songs), accusing Pakistan people of doing something wrong towards me or making up a conspiracy theory about the 'brown media'.
2. Have empathy for people from Pakistan and not use that word any more.

I chose 2.
Not hard, and a small step to making things a little bit better for someone else.