Thank you again - it's always good to have insights from someone who's clearly intelligent and has thought about the subject at some length.
As I noted, I'm outside-looking-in, haven't lived in the culture that's generated this situation, and (not noted, but relevant) have a somewhat optimistic / naive / rationalist view of how the world should be.
Having said that, I feel we're talking past each other a bit here.
You indicated my claim that this particular word has such weight was because everyone (in the US, lesser extent elsewhere) has agreed to treat it as a very powerful word, was wrong, and selfish. You suggest that it's a sensitive word because it represents a 'huge and unsolved systemic discrimination and repression towards black people' ... which I can start to understand (historically), but can't understand how the current attitude helps towards resolving that.
I note you dodged my question in the last exchange, instead offering what my philosophy lecturers may have described as 'pithy aphorisms' such as 'it's just an aspect of reality'. Which is doubtless true. Pretty much everything we experience is an aspect of reality -- though that's not terribly helpful.
The suggestion that the word is a major symbol of racism that we all need to agree to keep alive sounds perverse when worded in that way.
Surely it'd be preferable to actually start to work on that whole actual resolution of racism.
So my previous question was basically whether either is dependent on, or retarded by, the other.
As I noted, I'm outside-looking-in, haven't lived in the culture that's generated this situation, and (not noted, but relevant) have a somewhat optimistic / naive / rationalist view of how the world should be.
Having said that, I feel we're talking past each other a bit here.
You indicated my claim that this particular word has such weight was because everyone (in the US, lesser extent elsewhere) has agreed to treat it as a very powerful word, was wrong, and selfish. You suggest that it's a sensitive word because it represents a 'huge and unsolved systemic discrimination and repression towards black people' ... which I can start to understand (historically), but can't understand how the current attitude helps towards resolving that.
I note you dodged my question in the last exchange, instead offering what my philosophy lecturers may have described as 'pithy aphorisms' such as 'it's just an aspect of reality'. Which is doubtless true. Pretty much everything we experience is an aspect of reality -- though that's not terribly helpful.
The suggestion that the word is a major symbol of racism that we all need to agree to keep alive sounds perverse when worded in that way.
Surely it'd be preferable to actually start to work on that whole actual resolution of racism.
So my previous question was basically whether either is dependent on, or retarded by, the other.