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_refugee_  ·  3711 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Alec Baldwin: Good-bye, Public Life

I purposefully used both a very relevant example, and a hyperbolic example. However, even in simple traffic accidents, we don't live in a society where not intending to do something is considered a valid defense for having actually done it. That point still stands.

Baldwin used a word or word(s) that groups that have historically been discriminated against find inflammatory. Regardless of why he used that word, he still offended those people. You're basically saying "Oh, he hurt these people's feelings, but that's okay because he didn't mean to, and on top of that they're just being sensitive people."

I think that it is up to the marginalized group to determine what is offensive to them, not members of the dominant culture.

    Nigger is not a word that get's thrown around very frequently by white people except by those who are actually racist or are intentionally use it to cause harm

Yeah, but what if Baldwin had just, you know, like grown up in the south and people around him used that word all the time so he was raised to believe it's okay? So he just used it because he was raised always hearing it, and he didn't realize it was a slur?

That doesn't make it okay.