Bonsai Kitten

Derek Sutcliffe | July 22, 2001
ok this wa bought to my attention by my friend alexis

the people at
http://www.bonsaikitten.com/bkintro.html
are sick fucken chinks...i think we should all spam the hell outta their e-mails what they are doing is cruel and unkind.

Scott Hardie | July 22, 2001
It's also a hoax, but a well-done one. I don't like their taste, but I have to admire their craftsmanship.

Btw, I think the "guestbook" is by far the funniest part of the site. :)

Kelly Lee | July 22, 2001
I like to put kitties in boxes. It's the American Dream!

Scott Hardie | July 22, 2001
I thought setting hamsters' butts on fire was the American dream. :)

Anna Gregoline | July 22, 2001
I'm offended by the use of racial slurs in these posts. I'm all for free speech, but do we need that kind of language?

Kelly Lee | July 22, 2001
Actually I thought putting babies on spikes was more of a personifcation of the American Dream.

Scott Hardie | July 22, 2001
To me, Anna, racial slurs hold approximately the same weight as swear words. I don't like either, but I won't object to them on my board. One of the reasons that I force users to use their full names instead of just usernames is so that you know who uses racial slurs and the like. (If I could force users to put their full names on comments as well as new entries, I would.) I still think it's interesting that you, Derek, Andy, and Kelly are all going to be in WPS3 together.

Derek Sutcliffe | July 25, 2001
anna...ok i realize that the racial slurs may offend you but you dont realize where i am coming from with them...i personally dont hate chinese people..i have a couple chinse friends as well a black friends and spanish friends...but where i am coming from with the "racial" slurs is how i describe ignorant people of another race...there are even racial slurs to Italians and im italian and i dont give shit people are entiled to their own opinoins..and when i say chink,im refeering to an ignorant people that happends to be chinese...if i said nigger, i'd be refering to a ignorant black person, if i said spic then te same goes its just an ignorant person to me

Anna Gregoline | July 28, 2001
That might be so, but other people who hear those words don't know your personal philosophy on using them. I think there's so much hate in the world, and so many people using those words in an intentionally hurtful way, that there's no real reason to use them.

By using a racial slur to refer to an ignorant person of a certain race, you are implying that the person is somehow ignorant because of their race, because that is part of what racial slurs and stereotypes serve to do.

I'm sure you're calling me all sorts of names about now, since you don't seem to like me at all, and that's your constitutional right. It's also my right to voice my opinion, and I did by saying those words are offensive to me.

Kris Weberg | July 28, 2001
Dull Intellectual Response:

Well, what derek's doing is attempting to create a private or even a limited-community language. The problem is, that language has some major differences in tone and meaning than the general mass of public language. And since public language isn't likely to chnage anytime soon...maybe it's best to keep in mind what most people think when they see those words.

Yes, you have freedom of speech, but this is a community, and it's not a public one...so the standards of the community, and thus it's language, are going to prevail here.

Mreanign that racial slurs here are read as just that: racial slurs, with racist meanings, not specially-tailored meanings. No matter how much explanation there is, that's the community standard.

Personal Response:

Having been on the recieving end of
a few slurs in my life, and knowing what racial slurs have usually meant, I really dislike seeing those words. Whatever you mean by them, all I see is racism when I read them.

And every time someone uses those words for anything, it keeps them alive. And that's one step away from my dream of a world wqhere words like that never show up anywhere because people are mature enough not to need them or want them.