Here's the "historical" spin.
The words precede the sticks and stones, Eric, always have. They're what make the sticks and stones work.
The ***** ( and let's take it as a given I'm not calling Bill one
are a text book case of how a society used words to stereotype and revile the Jewish population, to dehumanize Jews to the extent that a whole citizenry could be rounded up and literally shoveled into ovens with nary a protest. Such an unfathomable act was only possible because several years of racial name calling had softened the collective German brain to a polluted mush. (of course there were individuals - exceptions who decried it)
The propaganda machine led by Josef Gebbels featured a whole vipers nests of pyschopaths like the "political cartoonist" Julius Streicher, whose "artwork" consisted of large beaked swarthy men lurking after innocent Aryan beauties. Words like "defiler", "Christ-killers", "parasites" and "polluters" were throughout the mid to late nineteen thirties used to describe the Jewish population. The difficult times following the international stock market crash, and the harsh terms of the Treaty of Versailles were both blamed on the "Jews".
All of this was done with words, not sticks and stones. The word campaign so thoroughly convinced the Germans that their fellow citizens were "subhuman" (a favorite term of the **** mind controllers, that by the time the sticks and stones were hauled out, the "battle was already won". We wonder now how a whole nation could sit silent as they watched their neighbors, and co-workers rounded up, but just as the first concentration camp victims were given over silently or eagerly (the gays, German Communists and "mental defectives".. all of them attacked as unpatriotic or impure or unproductive for some time before they were imprisioned), the dehumanized Jews could be sacrificed merely because they were "Jews".
One thing **** Germany taught is that a nation's minorites are ALWAYS at risk. Germany was the most technologically, and scientifically advanced nation in the world at the time, with a long flowering in the arts and philosophy. On one level, this was the most advanced civilization of its time. But is was able to do the unthinkable, because WORDS, rhetoric, scapegoating and simple name calling produced an environemnt in which millions, and many of them children, could be slaughtered.
Of course this is one of the most horrible examples of concentrated STATE power using the "word" to instill its evil will, but ALL governments at some time actively engage in deliberately dehumanizing a population, usually in wartime.
The use of the word "gook" in the VietNam Era was an example. In wartime a soldier is going to get killed himself, or cause the death of comrades, if he has even the slightest hesitation about killing. But it's hard to kill another human being, as every moral code in the world deplores it, and every decent human instinct protects life. For some it might be enough to kill out of a sense of duty, patriotism, or just because you were told to do so. But killling a "gook" is a lot easier than killing a human being. If you have to sink a bayonet into a man's gut at close range, it helps to think he's not quite a man exactly like you are. Who could anyone kill more easily? A ____________ or a man?
Similarly the N word, supported, and often incensed lynchings, sometimes executed by quasi governmental elements, as the local law enforcement was typically involved in KKK style murders. The young men who killed Matthew Sheppard were said to use the word "faggot" often, and not in a adolescent way,. In a hate filled, dehumanizing way. It is almost unheard of that hate crimes are not accompaned by hate slogans. Before the bomb goes through the window of the synagogue or church, the term "mud people" has been used a million times.
This is why, dislike the "politically correct" or not, the government of any reasonable nation sometime appears to overprotect its minority populations, and sometimes with specific legislation. Hate talk can turn to pogroms, and vendettas, and vigilanteeism fast. We saw how quickly the Bush Admin set the tone afetr 9/11 to protect our Arab American and Muslim citzenry. Some folks thought "what are they worrying about THOSE people for", but the gov did wise to let it be known no extra-legal independent actions were going to be appreciated.
Racial and ethnic slurs dehumanize. They make the reipient less than human, and over time, their use desensitizes us to the condition or pain of that population. We might use these words with our friends, and even call our friends and relatives "you dumb ______" because we are so close, we actually share positive regard through a shared history with the word (such is the case of the "taking back" of the N word by black Americans, who managed to finally take the POWER of that word back and negate it with in-group use, tho personally I think it's time to put that one to bed). I call my best friend a dumb guinea and he loves it. But don't let a non-initiatee try it. It means something threatening then, not confirming.
This is nothing new. Enough research has been done correlating the relationship between ethnic and racial violence, crime, and abuse and the use of racial slurs and epithets. And just as it is far easier to imagine a man who would use the words "B**CH" and "ho" as synonyms for "woman" mistreating a female than a man who would never allow those words to pass his lips, then its not hard to imagine the guy who calls someone a F*G at the drop of a hat, doing some physical gay bashing. Acceptance of the word sets up a climate where escalation is not just possible, but probable. Which is why every enlightened society enforces it own brand of political correctness. Minority populations everywhere are at special risk, always, be it Rwanda, or Sri Lanka, Iraq, or the USA.
History has PROVEN that.
As for the Tuna thing. Bill's habit of entertaining his press audience is a great show for us, but this is twice now he let a "term" he uses with his players slip out in public, and twice he's been burned for it. Just as the Marine drill sgts call raw recruits "ladies" , so we know some football coaches use similar "female" name calling to promote some idea of male toughness, and build esprit de corps. So Bill and Sean call them "Jap" plays. I think they'd do better to call them "Trojans", but whatever they call them, Bill has to keep it to himself. That little isolated universe of the football team has its own lingo, and so be it. The use of the term "Jap" plays is not a threat to broadening of racial dehumanization, because it stays solely within the context of that football use. (and that is what that Japanese football journalist present yesterday obviously understood... that man understands the sports vernacular and how it differs from much more dangerous generalized racist slurs.)
But the public is not going to take such a narrow view of the very narrowly used teminology. And probably won't try to understand the difference either.
Poor BILL!
