Conservative editor backtracks after seeming to use n word regarding Haitian migrants

Flying Squid@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 511 points –
Conservative editor backtracks after seeming to use n word regarding Haitian migrants
advocate.com

My thoughts: this was not an accident. This was testing the waters.

I wonder what the person who absolutely insisted to me yesterday that this wasn't about black people in general would have to say about this...

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If it's in your regular enough vocabulary to "come out accidentally" you are a racist.

You also can't 'unsay' a racial slur as much as my ex can't 'unfuck' someone.

What's also neat is that it also shows one's intelligence. If you give him a pass "oh he said he was sorry" you're a racist AND dumb.

(...) you're a racist AND dumb.

To a large extent you're racist because you're dumb.

For the last few months they've traded their dog whistles for blow horns. More and more hatred is being normalized.

Important caveat. It’s become a common word in some varieties of black-american english and black people aren’t racist for using it.

Not really, because he wasn't a Black guy talking to Black people. He knew what he did.

It's a racial slur. That's it. Don't use it, don't think it, don't think you can say it with your Black friends.

Obviously it’s fucked up how it was used in the above article.

And obviously if you’re not black you should never use it. But you’re assuming I’m not black with your comment.

I'm assuming no one needs that explained to them.

They you could have ignored my comment as it was not intended towards you

Who was it intended toward?

Someone that hasn’t watched TV since the 1980’s? ChatGPT, for when someone invariably turns it loose on the fediverse?

It’s not niche as a concept. Your explanation is known worldwide.
Its inclusion in the discourse is unwarranted.

Next time you feel the need to add a disclaimer that justifies/explains/adds caveats to racist language: fucking don’t.

There's a reason a distinction is made between how black people use it and when the "hard r" is in the pronunciation

"I didn't say anything of the sort (unless the audience liked it)"

That's exactly what happened in my opinion.

I don't know. I mean, he does sound like he catches himself, and he isn't that good of an actor. But then, who the hell has that just... ready to go to the point where it just blurts out by itself? Like, how often do you have to say that out loud for it to just hijack your train of thought? It's almost less damning if he did it on purpose, honestly.

It is never an accident.

I meant an accident in the sense of "I said something racist out loud when I meant to only say it in my head." But I don't think that was the case here.

They hide behind “its only racism when im actively in the process of saying the n word out loud” but now i guess even that get’s an asterisk

I think it was an accident. And this fuck uses the word too much.

Well it's some very interesting timing for such an accident.

I changed my mind after putting in earphones and listening to it more clearly

The video also looks like he's making an M sound (closed lips) than an N sound (open lips). Grammatically, I also don't think including "Haitian" makes sense if the next word is a slur.

I'm all for calling out the actual content on the conversation as the absolute nonsense that it is, but this specific headline seems like a bit of a reach.

u/flyingsquid won't look at this because of the dopamine hit he's getting from manufactured outrage

Oh, he said it.

Wow.

Yeah, sometimes there's something else outside could have been saying but not here.

Here it's clear as day. And the host says nothing at all, which says a ton about her.

“Guys the party switch is a myth we’re the party that abolished slavery”

Even during the Reconstruction Era, Indiana was both staunchly Republican and full of the KKK. And there was no shortage of racism irrespective of party in Congress during the height of the Civil War. The myth is that the Radical Republicans of the 1860s and 70s represented the party population as a whole, rather than a vocal minority within an ascendant movement that managed to squeeze in a few good reforms before Hayes sold it all down the river.

Republicans barely abolished slavery even with half the country in Time-Out. And they were crucified for it in elections to come.

Even if this was just an "innocent" slip up it's not like what he said wouldn't have been racist otherwise. The dude is defending the false claims about Haitian immigrants. It's still racist.

Haitian mig-r? Lol. Clearly the man is too used to saying the N word off public broadcast.

My thoughts: this was not an accident. This was testing the waters.

The staff at the National Review have always been neo-confederate trash and I have no trouble believing Lowry simply uses this word on such a routine basis that it slipped out during an interview with another arch-conservative media figure.

These folks are racists and it shouldn't be seen as surprising when they show all the symptoms of a bigoted mind.

Really sounds like it starts with an N and not an M so I don’t buy the mispronunciation story.

Also there is the fact that neither immigrants nor migrants ends in ‘gger’

He prolly had a bet with a friend that he would slip in an N word.

I saw the dumb defender say he was conflating immigrant and migrant but I replayed that part a dozen times. It really, really sounds like an 'N' as the first letter. It definitely was not him beginning to pronounce 'immgr'. You can plainly hear it.

But even if we gave him the benefit of the doubt, the fact that Megyn Kelly completely ignored it and the fact that he didn't apologize immediately and explain it says volumes about both of them. Why didn't Kelly even say anything? Maybe she's so used to hearing it in her circles, maybe even saying it, that it didn't even register as something unusual to her and she didn't notice it.

I wondered if this might turn out to be somebody reading something into something, but Nope, he said it clear as a bell. You don't accidentally say that unless you're thinking it. This is obviously a word this guy uses frequently, and he even seems proud of himself for it.

Is there an audio clip?

Even better, there is a video of it. He definitely said it.

I was all but bending over backwards trying to hear how it might have been just a slip, bringing to bear the fact that both words have a nasal consonant and hard 'g' sounds, but... nope. He enunciates an 'n' again, clearly after he's done saying "Haitian" and therefore where it doesn't belong, and then he gets all the way to the hard '-er', a “murmur diphthong” that simply doesn't exist in 'immigrant' or 'migrant'. The most charitable explanation with any plausibility whatsoever is that the n-word is a part of his spoken vocabulary and he failed to censor himself quickly enough.

Fuckin' gross.

Yeah I have Threads in my uBlock filters. Watched the clip and, yeah, that's a hard N if I've ever heard one.

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I'm gonna be honest, this is a stretch. I watched the clip. Whatever he was about to say definitely sounds like it was starting with an M, not an N. His lips are in a closed shape at that moment, which you'd see with an M sound and not an N. With the context of what he's saying, it really sounds like he was trying to say "migrant" and "immigrant" at the same time.

Don't get me wrong, this dude's a dipshit for dozens of other reasons. But there's nothing here this time. This really doesn't seem to be worth any amount of energy.

we all watched the same video, and you're wrong

There's so many real examples of conservative racism out there. You don't need to make up fake ones.

This is the exact same sort of shit conservatives do whenever Biden drops some elderly language. It's gross, and needlessly desperate.

You mean like perpetuating the myth that immigrants are eating pets?

This is the exact same sort of shit conservatives do whenever Biden drops some elderly language. It's gross, and needlessly desperate.

BINGO. the most frustrating part of dealing with these types of commenters is that they always lack the awareness to see that they're operating in the same way that the bad-faith repubs do.

There's so many real examples of conservative racism out there. You don't need to make up fake ones.

Yep. Like, goddamn. Vance admitted he made up the story. Theres so much racism baked into this ENTIRE news story, that focusing on someone misspeaking is missing the forest for the trees.

I don't sympathize with this dudes rhetoric at all, just adding that from his mouth movements he does seem to be making an "m" sound not an "n" sound with his mouth.

He's probably still really racist, but I've got racist family and if they ever decide to drop a "hard r" you can see it in their face. I do think it was a case of trying to say "immigrants", flubbing it, then just saying "migrants" because he realizes what it sounds like. Even the forced laughter afterwards has a sort of "oh shit that didn't sound good" vibe to it.

Again, not defending this guy. But we have to remember, all sides of politics can spin stuff to fit their agenda, so we have to be discreet in our decisions and judgements, that's how we stand apart from all the people just sucking down the news as gospel truth.

"... calling in about Haitian [Full-ass-hard-R-N-words] I mean migrants." No you don't.

Gonna invoke the hivemind rage and say that, upon listening w headphones, it does kinda sound like he's saying "migr -" with a short "i" sound.

Now queue the downvotes, calling me racist, dumb, etc.

Yes, I often say "mihgr-" instead of "migrants" and then cut myself off. Plausible.

I think you're hearing what you want to hear and getting a hit of the righteous outrage. Misspeaking is a thing, dude. You say "plausible" sarcastically, as if it weren't actually 100% plausible lol

Sounds like everyone here is “hearing what they want to hear” except you. What does that suggest to you?

"everyone in my echo chamber thinks the same as me" isn't the own you think it is

You can also claim anything you want if you simply dismiss everything you don't agree with as biased and worthless, which you appear to be doing here.

Yes, you're definitely the objective one here lol

What am I not being objective about?

Sorry, thought you were the squid man. Regardless, on its face (without examining the video), his explanation makes more sense than a practiced media person blurting out the n-word on camera. Examining the audio, i'd say that I'm more confident that he's making an "m" sound than an "n". Examining the video, it appears his lips close when making the m/n sound, indicating an "m" over an "n".

That seems to be pretty objective. Most of the comments in this thread are getting high off of righteous indignation instead of thinking that, possibly, the conservative asshole didn't blurt out the n-word on camera.

I appreciate. You trying to chase what's real instead of going straight to pitchforks. I think that's important, and it's a problem because people are so outrage-addicted.

In this case, though., I don't agree at all. It absolutely sounds and looks like an N to me. And I think it's plausible that it really was either a slipup or a really intentionally bad dogwhistle. It's EXTREMELY plausible to me that he is very racist.

But I'm not an expert.

Maybe he's racist, I have no idea. But wouldn't the far simpler route for a racist be to just keep engaging with the bullshit story and encourage the despicable racist acts that are already happening? A dog whistle by definition is subtle, coded. This isn't that.

Sometimes I hear an m, sometimes an n. Not gonna shit on you. BUT he doesn't say migr- as if he's going to say migrants with the short I like he claims he did, he says -IGGER. You have to simultaneously fuck up two different ways to say it that way. It would be mig-rants, not migger-ants.

Sure. I'd still say that he just fumbled his words, as people do everyday. Importantly, it's incredibly stupid to hyper focus on someone possibly saying a naughty word when the whole Haitian migrants story is full of real, undeniable, tangible racism. Missing the forest for the trees.

Your headphones suck because he definitely lead with the "n" and not the "m". I know the difference in sound between n and m and it was an n. In fact around the 0:35 mark he said, "complaining about Haitian nigge-mngr-migrants". I don't know how to spell him correcting himself.

Nah man, you're hearing what you want to hear. Just look at his lips - they come together as they would with an "m" sound. The exact same way they come together shortly thereafter to say "migrants" properly.

Compare his mouth movement to when he says "in", his lips do not move together.

Or keep hearing what you want to hear, I don't care. Nothing I say will change your mind.

No. Just no. You're getting downvoted because it's clear as day.

Lol ok buddy. Everyone closes their lips when they pronounce an "m", right? CLEAR AS DAY. keep fighting the good fight, hive mind

The video is right there in the comments. We can see you're lying.

Did you ...watch the video? His lips move together at the consonant in question. Lol but sure, you're not just hearing what you want to hear.

No they don't. Stop lying.

Honestly I think it's incredibly pathetic that you're so dug in on this stranger saying a naughty word that you won't even look at it objectively. In response to my detailed, objective breakdown, your only rebuttal was "gaslighter". K. The embedded video player in the link above has a playback speed option, feel free to use it to slow the video down and see the truth of his mouth shape. Compare it to the "n" shape he uses when he says "in" several times. Or keep sticking your head in the sand and yelling "NUH UH GASLIGHTER", idc. I think we're clearly done here.

Edit:.honestly the slowed playback pretty much proves it's an "m" in both sound and mouth shape.

I have looked at it. Multiple times. His mouth does do the m thing. After he says the N word. That's how you can tell it's different.

Your detailed breakdown is just a bunch of bullshit designed to make people doubt themselves. Which is gaslighting. It's the exact definition of gaslighting.

Lol jesus christ, did you just learn the term "gaslighting" or something? Someone disagreeing with you isn't gaslighting.

I've literally voted in every election since I turned 18 in 2004 and I've only voted dem, even though my state has gone red every single time. I think the Haitian story is a clear-cut indication of the racist rot in middle America. I'm not the scarecrow you've constructed in your head.

Safe to assume that you have partisan blinders on and will ignore all the circumstantial and tangible evidence in favor of your reality where 50% of voters are outright racists who wouldn't bat an eye at openly saying the n-word.

Keep buying into the ragebait, anyone who disagrees with you is a racist gaslighter.

I spent way too much energy on you, have a good life.

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No. I assumed it was actually something like thag. Then listened to it a bunch of times. I don't find that plausible at all.

Yeah, I'm not 100% convinced either. It doesn't sound like he used the n-word, nor that he caught himself halfway through saying it. People screw up speaking all the time, and on rare occasions it can sound like something offensive.

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