Racial epithets


First off, I'll ask you all to refer to the thread "similar war movies" under the board for John Frankenheimer's 1964 movie "The Train." I referenced "The Hook" as a similar sort of story where the big picture is not affected by the action of the film, but something profound happens for the characters in the story. This film may be a little preachy, and maybe Douglas' performance is a little limited. I thought it serviceable for the purposes of this movie.

But my comment was censored because I referred to Enrique Magalona's character by the name he was most commonly called in the course of the film: a coarse racial epithet used to name and dehumanize the North Korean enemy in the Korean War. Apparently IMDb's program automatically censors certain terms, and this is one of them.

I'm aware this slur has gone on, that it persisted along with others in referring to the VC and NVA during the Vietnam war, and that it is not a pretty thing. That's true about any racial epithet. But I'm not sure we can just wave a magic wand and make the words go away. This is dangerous ground, I realize, and I don't like using the terms as a direct point of reference myself. But like Lenny Bruce, I don't think we've reached the point where the words have lost their power, and we may need portrayals of that ugliness for a while yet until we do get beyond that. I realize that can be an excuse for all kinds of meaningless, hurtful poison to be spewed forth. But there's a point where automatic censorship gets out of hand.

This film is certainly a case in point. Any comments?

"I'm not from here, I just live here. . ."

-James Mc Murtry

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Things can be taken to an extreme. I had a post censored by IMDb for the very same set of letters. In my usage it had nothing to do with race at all. I will past an explanation from Wikipedia and watch the censoring start:

Gobbledygook or gobbledegook (sometimes gobbledegoo, *beep* or other forms is an English term used to describe nonsensical language.

Etymology

Gobbledygook was coined by former U. S. Representative Maury Maverick, then working for the Smaller War Plants Corporation, in a March 30, 1944 memo banning "gobbledygook language". It was a reaction to his frustration with the "convoluted language of bureaucrats." He made up the word as an onomatopoeic imitation of a turkey's gobble.

Examples

Nixon's Oval Office tape from June 14 shows H. R. Haldeman describing the situation to Nixon.

"To the ordinary guy, all this is a bunch of gobbledygook. But out of the gobbledygook comes a very clear thing: you can't trust the government; you can't believe what they say; and you can't rely on their judgment. And the implicit infallibility of presidents, which has been an accepted thing in America, is badly hurt by this, because it shows that people do things the President wants to do even though it's wrong, and the President can be wrong."

Former United States President Ronald Reagan explained tax law revisions in an address to the nation, 28 May 1985:

"Most (tax revisions) didn’t improve the system, they made it more like Washington itself: complicated, unfair, cluttered with gobbledygook and loopholes designed for those with the power and influence to hire high-priced legal and tax advisers."

Former Irish tennis star Bryan Crowley when describing his chat with the two Danish heroes abroad in San Luis Obispo :"Them Danish lads have perfect English, but when they speak their own language it sounds like a type of *beep*

Michael Shanks, former chairman to the National Consumer Council of Great Britain, characterizes professional gobbledygook as sloppy jargon intended to confuse nonspecialists:

"Gobbledygook may indicate a failure to think clearly, a contempt for one's clients, or more probably a mixture of both. A system that can't or won't communicate is not a safe basis for a democracy."

The Plain English Campaign FAQ includes the following explanation:

"What's wrong with gobbledygook? We can't put it any better than a nurse who wrote about a baffling memo. She said that 'receiving information in this form makes us feel hoodwinked, inferior, definitely frustrated and angry, and it causes a divide between us and the writer.'"

In popular culture

J.K. Rowling makes "Gobbledegook" the language of goblins in the Harry Potter novels, specifically Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, in which Albus Dumbledore and Bartemius Crouch can speak gobbledegook fluently. Ludo Bagman knows one word: Bladvak ("pickaxe").

In the film Thirteen, the two main characters use a form of gobbledygook as their secret language to separate themselves from their parents.

In the British sitcom Blackadder Goes Forth, set in 1917 (27 years before the word was first used), the character General Melchett declares that he likes the word "gobbledygook" and wants to "use it more often in conversation".

In the British series Robin Hood, set in the beginning of the 15th century, the sheriff of Nottingham, Vaisey, calls Latin, in those days commenly used in the church, "gobbledygook".

The first single from Icelandic post-rock band Sigur Rós's album Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust is titled *beep*

Gobbledegook was a comic fantasy goblin character appearing in the magazine White Dwarf up until about issue 100, usually being 1/3 to a full page in length and appearing semi-regularly.

The *beep* was a character played by Hector Guererro at the World Wrestling Federation (now World Wrestling Entertainment)'s Survivor Series. The character hatched from an egg and then proceeded to dance with announcer "Mean" Gene Okerlund in the ring. Widely considered one of the worst gimmicks created by wrestling fans, it has subsequently spawned the name of the annual Wrestlecrap Award for the worst gimmick of the year.

English indie pop band The Ting Tings has also used "gobbledygook" in a song titled "Impacilla Carpisung".

Gobbledegook is Hank Hill's word for nonsense in King Of The Hill.

In the video game, Final Fantasy VI, there is an enemy named Gobbledygook.

In "The Beatles Anthology", John Lennon says that he wrote teenage poems using "gobbledegook" to disguise his emotions from his aunt who cared for him while growing up.

The British kids show Alphabet Castle has a character called Gobbledygook the turkey, who always gets his words and letters jumbled up.


Oh Lord, you gave them eyes but they cannot see...

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thumbs up on your comment, thumbs down imdb

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Gobbledygook is not an epithet.
G@@k is.

Has there ever been a war where epithets weren't used for the enemy?

If you see the enemy as some sort of savage subhuman, he's easier to kill than if you see him as a man divine as yourself.






Absurdity: A Statement or belief inconsistent with my opinion.

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not sure if this will get censored or not but perhaps if it makes it through some light will be shed.... among the many 'racial epithets' used I find the term *beep* one of the most misunderstood...

much like "Nip" is derived from the Japanese word Nipponjin, that means Japanese people, *beep* or rather "Kook" is a derived from a non offensive descriptive

applied by many (particularly from GI's having served in Korea or Vietnam) as a blanket reference for any Asian, it is actually a Korean term that basically means "person" there are Han Kook, which means Korean person... Mee Kook means American person... I have forgotten more as it is many years since I have spent much time in the Korean community

some people can make any word seem like a dirty word, especially if there is a lack of information.




a little difference made in the life of one can be the big difference made in the world

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I agree with your description of the origins of Han Kook and My Kook (American).
However, the etymology of racial pejoratives is often complicated. The infamous "N-word" derives from a variation on pronouncing a word that means "black." Black is usually an acceptable term for African Americans and the "N-word" definitely is not. That is because the "N-word" was used to mean an extremely despicable pejorative for hundreds of years.

I have read that the etymology of the "G-word" actually traces to a shortened form of a work for a tribe on Mindanao in the Philippines and predates our involvement in Korea by fifty years. It has been used as an anti-Asian slur since then, whomever it is aimed at.

The challenge we have is to discuss history honestly and accept that many societies routinely accepted the use of ethnic slurs in everyday speech. We no longer allow such a thing. So, it is proper for us to curb our tongues (and fingers) when communicating publicly. It doesn't hurt to think about the words wee use when communicating privately, for that matter.


The best diplomat I know is a fully charged phaser bank.

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actually traces to a shortened form of a work for a tribe on Mindanao in the Philippines


Really? And I always thought the only derogatory term for a Filipino was a 'flip';




Why can't you wretched prey creatures understand that the Universe doesn't owe you anything!?

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Wikipedia quotes "Mencken," (I presume them to mean the journalist H.L. Mencken) as saying the term was used by U.S. Marines to refer to indigenous people in Nicaragua in 1912 and that they (the Marines) said they brought the term from the Philippines.

The Republic of the Philippines consists of several major islands and hundreds of smaller islands with more than 100 different tribal languages. The tribes include not only Negritos and Tagalogs, but several different tribes in Mindinao including the Huks. I am not sure it "Huk" is the proper name for the tribe, but it is a name for one group of people we fought in the Philippine insurrection, 1904-1908 (I'm not sure of those years).

Wikipedia also references the k(g)uk transliteration of the Korean word for "national." However, they also point out that the word predates our involvement in the Korean conflict by as much as 100 years. It was being used to refer to prostitutes in the 19th century.

The origin and original use is confused.


The best diplomat I know is a fully charged phaser bank.

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Well I am pretty sure the term 'Huk' refers to the Hukbalahap a communist guerrilla movement that plagued the post war Philippines. They were the precursors to the currently still active New Peoples Army (NPA) another long running guerrilla movement that, like the FARC from Colombia, seems to linger on like a persistent infection.




Why can't you wretched prey creatures understand that the Universe doesn't owe you anything!?

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Thank you, that sounds right. When I was stationed at Clark, the big concern was the NPA.



The best diplomat I know is a fully charged phaser bank.

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