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December 4, 2009
teabagga, pleez
Apparently the Republican fringe is considering co-opting the epithet "teabagger," a la "queer" and the n-word. From the National Review:
Some conservatives are happy to embrace “teabagger,†or are at least willing to do so. They are “owning the insult,†which is to say, taking what is intended as a slur and wearing it proudly. There are many words and names in our vocabulary that started out as slurs and became something else...What about a special case — the worst word in American English, as some of us see it, namely the N-word? When I was growing up, in Ann Arbor, Mich., there was a little debate: Should school officials try to prevent black students from using the N-word? I don’t believe the issue was ever settled. And this brings up the question of whether “teabagger†could be kind of a conservative N-word: to be used in the family, but radioactive outside the family.Wow. Just wow.
posted by john at 1:10 PM • permalink