While the use of any slur is inappropriate whether it is a business/professional or personal interaction so is creating rancor and malevolence. Eric, LisaSTL and bgriffin have proven to be just as inappropriate with their hostile responses and misleading quotes attempting to create ill will. The three know-it-all, self-aggrandizing posters have not helped anyone here. They have only shown themselves to be what they are, argumentative, sanctimonious, mean people.

Yes, this did get out of hand. My apologies to all but this is definitely a hot button topic for me.

@rainy wrote:

@chigirl777 wrote:

@dspeakes wrote:

I have a client from New York who refers to gays as "fags" which jolts me because I have several gays and lesbians in my acquaintance (and have gay characters in my books) and around here, calling someone a fag is not a term of endearment, but I have not judged him on it because I have not felt disgust from him when he used the word and I suspect this may be a regional thing. Not living in New York myself, I don't know if it is common to use that word instead of "gay" or "queer." So until I know more, I am reluctant to judge him for using a word that may be nothing more than the commonly used term where he came from. If I ever sense an attitude from him about it, I will call him down on the attitude. But I'm not going to judge him or presume him to be homophobic because of the word he used.

You're unsure whether fag or queer might not be offensive but rather "regional"?

SMH.

I have many, many gay friends (in different states) and have often heard them referring to themselves and each other as fags, dykes, queers, and so on. Maybe if people expanded their horizons and didn't just associate with people that are just like themselves, they would have a better understanding that oftentimes people on the outside looking in might be offended while the people actually involved in the situation are not...so why bother getting upset over it? I also have watched shows (sometimes with gay or TS friends) like Queer as Folk, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, etc., and none of us was ever offended.... but people are free to get offended if they choose to. I just don't get why. It's especially strange to me that people who aren't even in the same category as the people that should allegedly be offended, like gay people, should have any involvement in dictating to those people and others what is offensive to every single one of them.

Someone who uses a potentially offensive word, the manner and context in which they use that word, and the relationship between that person and the recipient are important factors to consider before having a knee-jerk reaction to reading/hearing the word.

I live in New York and have several gay friends. It is pretty much the same as it is with any other ethnic or racial group in that some gays (not all) will sometimes refer to themselves and each other as fags and queers, but when the words come from outsiders, it can run the range from being a generally unwelcome derogatory slur to hate speech depending on the context used. I will only use the word "queen" when speaking to gay friends about the stereotype and only when the word fits the person. My gay friends never seem to mind because they know I'm their friend and they all know annoying "queens"! Intent is everything.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/14/2015 07:59PM by nycrocks.

Political correctness offends me...

@ShoppingBee wrote:

Eric, LisaSTL and bgriffin have proven to be just as inappropriate with their hostile responses and misleading quotes attempting to create ill will. The three know-it-all, self-aggrandizing posters have not helped anyone here. They have only shown themselves to be what they are, argumentative, sanctimonious, mean people.

Interesting. I don't know you, but I find it odd that you would comment on something that happened 7 months before you were even a registered user here. You obviously have no idea what happened and going back and reading it now would not help as the original posts have been highly edited. But you're more than welcome to thing I'm a know-it-all, self aggrandizing, argumentative, sanctimonious, and mean. At least 2 or 3 of those adjectives certainly fit.

You're assuming facts not in evidence, bgriffin.

Kudos to Chigirl777, you are truly a great person!

bgriffin, you obviously want this thread to be about you. That is not what it is about. The OP was asking for opinions. dspeakes offered a thought provoking viewpoint. Agree or not, it was an interesting perspective that you, LisaSTL and Eric in Tampa decided it was your right to hijack the thread and impose your moral reckoning. How many of you recall BBird's experience after her reveal? She had her car vandalized. BBird obviously is someone who seems to be so thoughtful, kind and caring. She even tried to help out the person who came after her when BBird was revealed. The OP may have given her drivers license for her shop. I will spell it out, the dealership may have her contact info. It may be obvious to the salesperson who his shopper was based on time and date alone! You and the gang should explain how you have helped the OP knowing she maybe found out. And "in jest", "only kidding", "it was a joke" definitely does not work this time around. Again it is not about you, it's about helping someone else.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/15/2015 02:22AM by ShoppingBee.

Toggled and good riddance!

Which fact am I assuming that is not in evidence?

Here are the facts that I assumed in that post:

1. I don't know the poster. It is true. It's a screen name I'm not familiar with, therefore I indeed do not know the poster.

2. The poster commented on something. Yes. I could quote it but above ShopperBee comments that I attempted to mislead by changing a quote. It's in black and white, there is no assumption of fact there.

3. The event the poster commented on happened 7 months before the poster was a registered user. You are slightly correct, the event was actually 6 months before. I made the "offending" quote on 4/15/14 and ShopperBee registered on 10/16/14. That's pretty freaking close to 6 months.

4. The original posts have been highly edited. Yes. They have. The moderator even has a note attached to that post stating as such.

5. At least 2 or 3 of those adjectives correctly describe me. I would think you would agree that all of them describe me, along with a few more.

The real irony here (and this is a private joke between myself and the nom de plume I used since none of you have reason to know this about me) is that the prevailing theme of my first novel happens to be about discrimination, prejudice, assumptions, stereotypes -- both against blacks and gays. The hero of the story is an open-minded cop battling a sexist and homophobic chain of command while trying to solve a murder that may or may not be connected to a gay support group.

For anyone to take my words about words and twist them around to conclude that I am racist or don't understand the issues faced by minorities is, frankly, laughable. My best friend for 46 years is gay, I had a black boyfriend in high school and still have fond memories of him. Both of my novels feature minorities in a positive light, and condemn discrimination and prejudice.

But I am a wordsmith. I write. I have studied foreign languages and have taken a class in the History of the English language. I am interested in words and their nuances. Words mean what the speaker or writer intends them to mean. If a listener or reader wants to interpret them differently, despite knowing the intent of the speaker or writer, that is a choice made by the listener or reader. A choice. Some offense is in the eye of the speaker, and meant to offend, and meant to hurt. And some offense is only in the eye of the listener, who chooses to see offense where none existed. A choice.

Maybe we should choose not to be offended, where there is not clear evidence that the perceived offense was actually intended.

Maybe if more people would choose not to be offended instead of seizing every opportunity to try to right a wrong that never existed the world would be a more peaceful place. Choose to forgive instead of condemn.

@ShoppingBee wrote:

Kudos to Chigirl777, you are truly a great person!

bgriffin, you obviously want this thread to be about you. That is not what it is about. The OP was asking for opinions. dspeakes offered a thought provoking viewpoint. Agree or not, it was an interesting perspective that you, LisaSTL and Eric in Tampa decided it was your right to hijack the thread and impose your moral reckoning. How many of you recall BBird's experience after her reveal? She had her car vandalized. BBird obviously is someone who seems to be so thoughtful, kind and caring. She even tried to help out the person who came after her when BBird was revealed. The OP may have given her drivers license for her shop. I will spell it out, the dealership may have her contact info. It may be obvious to the salesperson who his shopper was based on time and date alone! You and the gang should explain how you have helped the OP knowing she maybe found out. And "in jest", "only kidding", "it was a joke" definitely does not work this time around. Again it is not about you, it's about helping someone else.

Ummm. Dspeakes was the first person to bring me up in this thread. Not me. I simply responded to something she blamed me for doing. I have never proclaimed that I have helped the OP, but if you'd like, I will add that yes, the OP absolutely should put it in the report as there is absolutely no place for that word in a place of business ever. I don't care if you and dspeakes love the word and use it daily, most people will be offended. At least the ones that aren't racist aholes. I'm really not sure what BBird has to do with this thread or whatever it is you feel I have done horribly bad as I actually enjoy bbird's posts and consider her a friend.

@bgriffin wrote:

Which fact am I assuming that is not in evidence?

The fact not in evidence is that you have no way of knowing if ShopperBee has always been ShopperBee. It's entirely possible that ShopperBee has been here longer than the registration under that name would indicate. They could even have lurked for months before registering. You only have to register to post, not to read.

Not saying that's the case, only that you are ASSuming they have only been here "X" amount of time and you have no way at all of knowing that for sure. And you are using that ASSumption to make a point that they couldn't have known what went on back then. Maybe they did. Maybe they didn't. You don't know. Yet you are drawing conclusions based on what you ASSume to be true and trying to discredit them based on your ASSumptions.

Like you ASSumed that everyone would find it hilarious that you twisted my words to deliver an insult up to the ladies of Maritz. It *would* have been funny, if you had altered a post made by someone who had the same disrespectful opinion of the nice ladies at Maritz as you did. (Well, *I* still wouldn't have thought it funny, but they might have.) You just picked the wrong person to play with. I've never been anything but respectful and complimentary about the ladies at Maritz. Many people here have denigrated them with "dinosaur" comments. But I haven't.

And yet using the N word is ok. How hilarious.

And you are correct. I am a pretty above board kind of guy. I don't do things like go around changing my username on websites when I piss too many people off or join 6 months after I started lurking. Hell, it's pretty hard to lurk without a login as the whole "new" posts part of the forum doesn't work. So yes, I do assume that others do the same thing. Perhaps there's a reason you don't make that assumption?

@bgriffin wrote:

And yet using the N word is ok. How hilarious.

Where did I ever say that?

@bgriffin wrote:

...I don't do things like go around changing my username on websites when I piss too many people off or join 6 months after I started lurking.... So yes, I do assume that others do the same thing. Perhaps there's a reason you don't make that assumption?

Yes, because ASSuming is dangerous.

Plenty of people came here under their real names and wisely changed to an alias later on to enable them to speak more freely about MSCs without fear of retaliation. Others left, then forgot their signin or changed email addresses and had to make a new ID to come back. Plenty of reasons why someone might have had prior ID's. Maybe they just got tired of the old one, thought up a better one, maybe their old one was too similar to another they found here so they changed it.

But the point is your assumption that you know how long someone has been here. I've just proven that you cannot know that with any certainty, thus nullifying your entire criticism of ShopperBee which was based on that assumption.

Why don't you quit while you're behind? All you've done here is drag us off topic and make another lame attempt to justify your juvenile act of misquoting me to try to make a rude joke about one of the MSCs that several hundred of us shop for.

You are absolutely correct. I do assume that ShopperBee has only been here a few months. It's entirely possible ShopperBee is someone who has been here before but unless ShopperBee wants to correct me with what previous username they used is then I will continue to assume that.

I suppose if a poster was placed under moderation that would perhaps be another reason to change screen names?

Also, you're the one that brought it up. Not me. It wasn't a rude joke as it wasn't intended to be a rude joke. SO if you think it's ok to use the N word as long as you don't intend for then N word to be rude, then I absolutely should be able to make an old joke if the intention was not to be rude.

Can't we all just get along?

Absolutely Not!

And others started posting under another name after one was being moderated.

And wait, you are offended because bgriffin made a joke? Why are your feelings more valid than ours? And since you have expressed your opinion, how actually are any of us blocking you from expressing your opinion? Your post was not reported and deleted, it stands for anyone to read. I thought it was a conversation. Conversation occasionally involves disagreement and always involves back and forth communication.

As promised, here is the link to our discussion where I made the unpardonable offense of misquoting you while using copy/paste. My acknowledgement of missing a word is on page 6. You will see there were no edits made then or now. It surprised me a person who can apparently afford three cars suggested I need to mingle with the "common folk" because I tried to protect my investment in my only car without which I could not work and earn and living.

[www.mysteryshopforum.com]

Don't you love to see lovers....

To everyone who has to read this entire quote my apologies. Unfortunately if I don't supply the quote in its entirety I will be accused of misquoting the original poster. Who exactly is dragging things out? I don't recall mentioning a post from six months ago. If I did please show me where. My "misquote" left out one word and my response did not "rip" anyone up, it simply clarified what I had said after it had been twisted into something entirely different. Since you have chosen to chastise others for assuming, may I point out you assumed I never acknowledged my error because you did not read it and you assumed I had edited my post prior to offering the link.

@dspeakes wrote:

You can defend yourself and make jokes all you want, bgriffin, but deliberately changing someone's words is wrong. You don't get to decide when it is and isn't appropriate and thinking something is funny does not justify doing something that is wrong. And bragging about how "hilarious" you thought it was to quote me as insulting the nice ladies at Maritz just further shows the level of maturity that runs through your sense of humor.

But the current point is Eric in Tampa's misquote of me, which was of a much more serious nature due to the topic, especially given the rant against me he delivered up in response to his manufactured quotation, which then led others to agree with his assessment of me, which was based up on his twisting of my words.

And yes, Lisa, let's drag that old incident out further. I'm sure everyone is popping corn just so they can continue to watch the drama. Bottom line, you misquoted me then ripped me up over your misquote. And i never saw any acknowledgment of your error; you must have put that up after i took my ball and left. But by all means, give them the link. I'm sure by now you've edited your misquote to something benign.

All I was doing here was acknowledging OP's turmoil over reporting what the salesman said with apparently no malicious or hateful intent. Never said it was right to use the N word, only that it is not something to massacre someone over when it was said without hatred, and possibly accidentally. I asked if he was black because if he was black and used the word, it is not as objectionable as if he was white and used the word. I said several times that people find the word offensive and it should not be used because of that. But people now are thinking I think it's okay to use it and maybe even that I am racist just because I don't find it to be a "hanging offense."

Thanks to Eric and his misquoting rant.

Well, since you insisted on dragging this out let me give the Readers' Digest condensed version so people don't have to read all seven pages of that thread to find the relevant parts.

That whole thing started when I made a philosophical, non-argumentative observation that "The people who need insurance the most are usually the ones who can afford it the least. I think that's generally true of all kinds of insurance. The people who can pay a high premium *without thinking about (it) are probably the ones who* could replace the item on their own if they had to" and then you had to argue with that by saying "That's not true" and going on and on about how you wouldn't dare not carry full insurance because you couldn't afford to replace the car without it and surely anyone could afford the extra $35 a month for it to protect their means of getting to work no matter how poor they were.

Arguments and dogpiling ensued.

And later in the thread you said:

"Apparently I should have been more clear about finding my insurance to be "cheaper" than coming up with thousands of dollars to replace a car, compounded by the loss of income. Having several permanent projects which must be completed on a monthly basis, being unable to meet those commitments could result in me losing them permanently. In case it wasn't clear the first time, I was being specific to my situation. It wasn' even a comment regarding the OP and was in response to the comment, "The people who can pay a high premium........could replace the item on their own if they had to." " ===(Note that this is not what I said, the omitted part is marked with asterisks above in the first paragraphs.)

Eight words you chose to omit, not just one, and deliberately (as evidenced by the ellipsis), that changed a speculative opinion into a statement of fact that you were compelled to argue with.

Here's your "correction": "BG, I did quote her and left out the word probably. It probably wouldn't have prevented more arguing anyway." You left out more than the word "probably." You left out the whole part of the sentence which made the sentence not about you in the first place. You took personally something that wasn't about you or people like you at all.


I had left the thread by then, and had probably toggled the lot of you. But that comment you directed to your misquoting buddy bgriffin hardly constitutes a "correction" or apology or anything else. It was just another lie designed to make you look like an innocent victim of my outrage over having my words twisted around again.


And since apparently you are reading-impaired as well as quoting-impaired, it was bgriffin who brought up "six months ago," not me. I have better things to do than keep track of all the times I got caught in your crosshairs.


So tell me again.... why did you think you needed to bring all this up now? Did you have some self-destructive need to prove to the world that I was right about your deliberately misquoting me? You think that's some kind of virtue? You must, because you continue to applaud bgriffin doing it and I don't see you condemning Eric for doing it here.


(BTW, this was not the misquote I was thinking of in the first place. I'd forgotten about this one; thanks for the trip down memory gulch.)

@dspeakes wrote:

And since apparently you are reading-impaired as well as quoting-impaired, it was bgriffin who brought up "six months ago," not me. I have better things to do than keep track of all the times I got caught in your crosshairs.

Excuse me? Here is the only post I placed in this thread before the topic turned to misquoting:

@bgriffin wrote:

I think dspeakes is obviously not from the south, where you have two kinds of people. Racist aholes and people who find the word offensive always.

Then here is YOUR quote bringing the topic up a few posts later:

@dspeakes wrote:

I am getting sick and tired of people pretending to quote me but changing my words. You've done it, bgriffin has done it and LisaSTL has done it more than once.

Please. Explain to me how I'm the one that brought it up and not you?

I'll patiently await your response.

I am interested to know what the OP has been doing since he/she seems to be a one-hit poster. I am also interested to know why this thread has not been shut down by the forum owner or a moderator. I have seen other less offensive threads shut down on the same or next day.

The OP may have followed the thread and picked up suggestions without making another post. The OP's post was a No. 1 post and I'm thinking probably the OP didn't want to get caught up in the hailstorm this thread became.

As far as this thread being shut down, I don't understand why it should/would be shut down. What we have here are arguments, differences of opinion, and a long standing on going tiff. If I were a moderator or an owner, I would see nothing here to warrant a shut down but then I don't make those decisions.

I was thinking the same thing Sybil.. I would love to see more contributions to the "Where are you shopping today?" thread. Surely you all are busy shopping right?

@bgriffin wrote:

3. The event the poster commented on happened 7 months before the poster was a registered user. You are slightly correct, the event was actually 6 months before. I made the "offending" quote on 4/15/14 and ShopperBee registered on 10/16/14. That's pretty freaking close to 6 months.

This was the reference to "6 months." From you, not me.

You brought the incident up, not me. I was just the one that mentioned the incident was 6 months ago.

Funny that I'm being accused of misquoting someone when I copied and pasted their quote verbatim within my post. Plagiarism, maybe. Yet I don't misquote.

Nonetheless, the point was completely missed on what I was referring to via distraction. No worries. Folks can have their opinions, while I will maintain mine.