309 Comments

I've heard so many people say, "I don't need to learn to pronounce their name if I don't respect them."

It shows that the person sees respect for other cultures and peoples as conditional on the behavior of individuals within them, and thinks racism is fine once the person behaves improperly. It reminds me of, "I don't need to use their pronouns if I don't respect them."

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That's like when people call Alex Jones fat, as if it's the worst thing about him. Hey jerks, I'm fat. I've also never spread misinformation and hateful lies to millions, or urged my followers to harass the parents of murdered children, or given a bullhorn to some of the worst bigots alive.

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Ah, reverse-racism. I haven't heard that particular dog whistle sound since the early 1990s.

For people born in the last 30 years, "reverse-racism" was a concept where white people claimed minorities (specifically black people) just assumed they were racist because they were white. This more or less gave white people a Free Racial Bypassing card, because why should you bother caring what happens to someone who's accusing you of being just like those awful Klan people? All you said was you thought the ACLU had outlived its purpose and should be dismantled so businesses and universities can get back to accepting people based on their merits.

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I am Gawd, destroyer of platforms.

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Has Vivek Ramaswamy and Donna Brazille given you all permission to be as rude and you can be, becoming a version of Twitter troll bullies as apparently Ramaswamy is? I don’t do Twitter, myself, but I can just imagine -- why I’m not there). What’s the point -- other than to get carried away with who can say the most trashy one-liners?

As far as Maher is concerned -- I bet Brazille thought she was on a show where the host abhorred political correctness. Where would she ever get that idea? The look in her eye when Maher said that was a bit racist -- she wasn’t expecting that (neither was anybody else, probably).

Anyway, I’m sure my response isn’t popular on this thread. Hope that doesn’t mean I deserve adolescent name-calling, not that it’s a big deal to me if you did. Just tired of that all over the place, all the time.

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founding

Help! someone has stolen my handle and now substandsardstack will not allow me to sign in without applying to Trix for a safe conduct. WTF?

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I think it would make more sense for Vivek to just spell his name differently. We're talking about brand recognition here. And he's selling it, largely, to people who, largely, can barely spell their own names.

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founding

Wrong. The correct pronunciation is "chumly".

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You assume Bill did not have her on specifically to get her to commit a verbal blunder so he could point out the Hypocrisy of Democrats.

Donna has a wee bit of history with such things after all.

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Speaking as someone whose tongue-twister of a last name has confounded my fellow Americans for decades, I suspect that screwing up Vivek's first name or last name or both may not be as huge a crime against humanity as, say, his policies would be if put into action.

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Wait. His name ISN'T RamaSMARMY? Oh, god, what have I been doing? Now people are going to think I'm a racist asshole instead of a snarky asshole. Man.

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I don't care how he pronounces his name. Don't care how Donna's name is pronounced, either. Both losers.

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Good points.

I’m still going to call him Ramasmarmy, though, because fuck that guy.

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Really well said

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Wow Stephen, too bad you wasted your time on this nothingness.

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Well, I admit I didn't know until now that Vivek is not pronounced how American English phonics would indicate, but I would have checked before I went on TV to talk smack about him. Sheesh.

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