Wednesday, October 13, 2010

People Who Said Nigger Today


It just sort of surprises me, is all I'm saying.  This just went up over on STREET CARNAGE, so go read the rest there.



Newsflash: People are awful and racist. No shit, right? Except I don’t know a single person who is actively racist — unless you count people over the age of 75, who sort of get a pass. (That’s where the term “grandfathered in” comes from, by the way.) Then again, I live and work in Cambridge, MA, which aside from Berkley is home to the single highest population of sensitive pussies in the country, so what do I know about racists? It’s racist to drink out of the wrong type of coffee container here and to not be really into performance art, so maybe I’m not the best judge.




Fortunately for people like me, the website People Who Said Nigger Today is here to remind us just how dreadful most of you people are out there. The title is pretty self-explanatory: It collects Facebook posts from people who dropped the N-bomb (as no one calls it) in front of their friends, family, parole officers, Jesus, Batman and everyone else monitoring the Internets. Like this pearl of wisdom right here from a fellow by the name of something something (he complained and I didn't feel like dealing with it). Consider everything sic.

“Obama is a Spook!!!! and i mean it in all negative senses.” So there are positive interpretations of that word. Cool, good to know.

“His ‘wounderful’ health care plan is costing my buddy $230 a MONTH!!!! holy shit ya know? that stupid nigger (no offense black ppl) should keel over and die. Who the fuck voted for him should be removed from voter regestery for life..Sorry mom and dad your DUMB”
I asked the guy behind the site why he hasn’t jumped off a fucking bridge after having to trawl through the whiter, dumber corners of the Internet’s racist underbelly.


 

 
Who are you first of all, or are you anonymous?
 
I’m anonymous, or as much as I can manage it, because I don’t want to deal with violent right-wingers in my personal life. Most of these people are just talk, but I have no doubt that more than a few PWSNTers are really mentally ill and have nothing to lose.

Why did you start collecting this stuff? Were you seeing a lot of people talking shit on Facebook and just got fed up or what?
 
I started archiving Facebook posts with racial slurs once I realized that for the most part, they go unnoticed and disappear down the memory hole. I figure if these people are so proud of their racist public updates, there shouldn’t be a problem with me reposting them for posterity.
Most of the credit for the site goes to youropenbook.org, which I think was intended to demonstrate how little privacy the default Facebook profile has, but quickly became a way to just find out how unimaginably fucking stupid most people are. I certainly wasn’t the first person who realized you could search for racial slurs, or commonly misspelled words, or potentially interesting combinations. I was just the only one dumb enough to make a site for the most offensive slur in the language.

How does it work? People send them in to you?
 
When I launched the site, I put up a “send contributions to” link, but took it off. Contributions have to be verified; I don’t want to fuck up someone’s life because someone sent me a fraudulent screenshot. All of the posts on the site are either me or one of the five other trusted contributors.

I sort of have this idea that nobody is really racist if you sat them down and talked to them about it in a neutral setting, and that it’s all just a thing that stupid people pretend to be on board with in order to impress their friends. After looking through some of this stuff I might have to cancel that dumb theory.
 
A few of the people on the site probably are like that, but that doesn’t really make it OK. I can tell you that pretty much everyone posted is just vile and vulgar and completely depressing to read about. It’s like a never-ending episode of COPS. Bad decisions, shitty communication skills, no way for them to step back and realize that their lives are fucked up not because of blacks, but because of their own mistakes and failures.



What’s the most common refrain you’ve found among these people?
 
It’s mostly “fuck you, I don’t care what you think, this is who I am,” etc. A real weird sort of defiant shittiness, as if acting out were the only way they could get attention, even if it is negative. A huge proportion of them are giving the finger to the camera.

That’s bad ass. What are a few of the posts you’ve seen that have just blown your mind?
 
Nazi Monday was hard, because while a lot of neo-nazis don’t come right out and say the word. It’s a depressing flood of ignorance and hate toward anyone who isn’t white (and their very specific, nazi-supporting kind of white). Guys who weigh 500 pounds and have no job taking about how they’re the master race. Women with six kids by five guys talking shit about the intelligence of a Harvard-educated black guy with a well-adjusted family who is also the goddamn President. The worst one I ever saw, though, was a normal-looking guy with a normal-looking family, you know, vacation pictures and such, helping out with bake sales, dropping 14/88 in every post. Like, “hey, buy cookies to raise money for the school, 14/88 brothers!” Lynchianly weird.

In your FAQ you take on sort of a defensive attitude. Are people giving you a lot of shit for this site?
 
It’s actually not very common; most of the emails and comments I get are supportive. But the negative ones are really homogenous and thus the questions/accusations therein are technically “frequent.” [They say] “you’re fat + gay + unfunny + a Jew + fat.” So, okay, believe that if you want to. I don’t care.

I think it’s still OK to be racist against fat people. Anyway, you’re white. Is that relevant?
 
I don’t think you can have a discussion of the word without the race of the participants being a factor. I’m white, and maybe I’m overstepping my boundaries as far as being personally offended by it enough to archive other white people saying it publicly. But I’m doing it anyway.

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5 comments:

said...

Whatever, Luke. Aren't you racist against Italians or something?

said...

Also, there's this (granted, she's old):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHKhB3-EmZM&feature=player_embedded

said...

This website reminded why I haven't moved back to North Carolina

Anonymous said...

Nigga Nigga Nigga Nigga Nigga Nigga Nigga!

Anonymous said...

I say this with love, nevermind.

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