Profanity goes well with racism, at least from where I come from. But I've found the use of traditionally unacceptable words quite helpful in defusing tense situations, and so I actually think profanities, if used appropriately and in context can bring much good.
It especially helps when you have a bunch of multi-racial friends whom you know well. When I was in high school, I had friends from at least three different races. Sometimes, there are situations that just get awkward, and race comes into issue. For instance, people from my country are very passionate about soccer (though our national team has a tendency to suck), and emotions usually run very high. There was once when an Indian player missed a sitter and my Chinese and Malay friends got angry. So they were like "Pela india tuh, sng2 pon xbley score, balik estet la!" Now you see what he's basically saying is 'That Indian guy can't play, he should go back to his estate" which is offensive since Indian immigrants came to Malaysia initially to work in rubber estates (conditions were terrible, no water etc). But instead of overreacting and getting into a fist-fight, profanities really can save the day. So I said "Eleh korg, td cina sepet tuh xnmpk bola sepak angin, pastuh korg Melayu bkn nk pass bola bikin belacan ke?". I was racially abusing the Chinese players by saying that they have such slant eyes that they cannot see the ball, and the Malays were not passing the ball, implying they were making belacan (a pungent smelling Malay dish). We laughed at each other. That was that
So you see, while generally profanities are bad, no one should be extreme as to say that its COMPLETELY bad. There are always two sides to each story, as there is to this one.
No comments:
Post a Comment