Appropriateness of posts

Thu Mar 20 03:16:05 PDT 2014

On Wednesday, 19 March 2014 at 07:51:06 UTC, Nick Sabalausky 
wrote:
> I find that interesting. This is the first I've ever heard of 
> "caucasian" being even potentially offensive.

Well, I am not offended by the term, I dislike it. I am offended 
by having to provide racial information. I am not sure what other 
norwegians feel about that, though. After 2WW where we lost over 
1/3 of our jewish population (which was small already, jews were 
barred from entry until 1851) laws were established that banned 
registration of race, sexuality etc (unless where it has a very 
clear function of necessity). So my main objection is to having 
race and sexuality registered.

But there is a bias in terms like "nordic" to race, even though 
it formally isn't a racial expression. And when we talk about 
north Europe, east Europe, southern Europe we refer to culture, 
but there is also a bias towards genetic traits if the context is 
about what people look like. Like, "americans" is more likely to 
evoke stereotypical images of middle class white americans than 
multi cultural america or the native americans.

I think talking about "white norwegians", or "white swedes" is 
somewhat weird and makes me a bit uneasy, either because it is 
too close or because the labels "norwegian" and "swede" already 
have a white bias, so making it explicit makes it overly racial? 
But talking about "white americans", "the whites in Africa" etc 
is no problem at all and is politically correct. Perhaps because 
the usual context for those expressions is to talk about unfair 
treatment of minorities and lack of distribution of wealth.

> So that uncertainty leads americans to use "caucasion" 
> (apparently derived from the extremely academic term 
> "caucasoid", or so I've been told) just out of paranoia, since 
> it's seen as far too pedantic and technical to possibly be 
> offensive.

And this technical focus is what I object to since the nazis did 
take a rather "scientific" approach to this by measuring skulls 
etc to identify "pure genes".

Besides, how many third generation non-white american in the US 
have an actual ethnicity that makes sense? Like 1/4 african, 1/8 
german, etc…

> But that said, I still find both examples as completely 
> insufficient justification for bans on nudity. Fact of the 
> matter is, I like to use both as shining examples of "Just 
> because you don't want to see something doesn't mean it should 
> be banned".

:-) Well, we are all coloured by the taboos that we were taught 
as kids. Getting over those is a challenge. I would personally 
not be offended by any cussing in a foreign language, I think. 
Though there probably are some vulgar cussing in norwegian that 
I'd rather not be affiliated with.

> part of the country.) I've heard of a court case (IANAL, of 
> course) in San Fransisco where non-disruptive, non-sexualized 
> public nudity was ruled legal. And it's either there or maybe 
> Portland that has an annual non-clothed bicycling event. And 
> I've heard that some court case in New York City ruled 
> non-disruptive toplessness legal. Something similar in Canada 
> too, IIRC. It's still nothing like certain other parts of the 
> world, but still, baby steps.

In the 80s the feminist movement made a big point of top less sun 
bathing, so you would find it everywhere (also in parks 
sometimes). But then it became less common outside beaches. Not 
sure why, probably partially because of breast cancer news 
reports and a lack of interest after the point had been made? I 
think it is difficult to uphold in cold region where you have to 
wear lots of cloths most of the year. I think it sends signals of 
being self-indulgent if you do it "in your face" in a park these 
days, but if you find your own spot then it is no problem.

Of course, the population density of my country is low and the 
water front is accessible to the public even on private land (by 
law), so if you want to be nude you can always find your own spot 
somewhere.