Thread by @studentactivism

Weird how you don't use the word in this tweet.

https://twitter.com/AnaKasparian/status/1490030086988259329

"We need to use the n word while quoting racists so people will know how anti-racist we are, and I don't care if you think that's racist" is a seriously strange take.

Like, yes, I understand that there are arguments to be made that articulating that word is sometimes an antiracist practice. I find them far less compelling than I used to, but I understand them. But this ... isn't that.

https://twitter.com/AnaKasparian/status/1490030086988259329

Because the argument for quoting slurs in full is an argument about the relationship between the person doing the quoting and the person hearing them doing it—it's an argument about how to best get across an antiracist argument TO YOUR LISTENER.

If your listener is going to be mad at you for quoting a slur, then you can't claim that you're quoting the slur for the listener's benefit.

And if some of your listeners are going to be mad, and others are going to be grateful (or enlightened, or whatever), then what you're saying is that incurring that anger is a calculated decision—that you think it's worth it to piss some people off in order to assist others.

(Some folks in my mentions are suggesting Kasparian is saying that she thinks it was appropriate to quote the full word when she did it, but that she agrees that it wouldn't be good practice today. I don't see any support for that reading in the tweet.)

"I used to enunciate vicious slurs when quoting bigots, and I considered it antiracist practice when I did it, but I wouldn't do it today" is a pretty straightforward position. But it's not the position she's expressing.

BTW, I phrased the embedded tweet imprecisely. What I should have said was that "We need to use the n word while quoting racists to be effective antiracists, and I don't care if you think that's racist" is a seriously strange take.

https://twitter.com/studentactivism/status/1490400415921410049