Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I think it's natural and human to look for ways to differentiate/separate ourselves from people whom we are angry at. If it had been a young punk with souped up car, or teen girl on the phone, or little old man driving obliviously, or a dressed up man in a $150,000 Beemer, we seem to almost automatically extrapolate their actions to whatever group they represent to us..."teens have no respect anymore! Rich people think they don't have to obey the rules! Old people should have their licenses taken away!" I don't think it means you are racist.
I think that this is more the case rather than genuine race prejudice. In a situation as described by the OP, racial differences just give the most obvious way to differentiate the person who has caused offense from the offended person, allowing the offended person to use that difference as the basis for an insult aimed at the offender. If both people involved were of the same race and sex, they'd just have to look a bit closer to find a difference.
But they'd certainly find one eventually, and use it.
Hahahahahaha!!!!!
When I read the subject line but hadn't yet looked at the thread, I thought to myself, "That's what I do when I'm driving!!"
I don't feel bad about it, though.
It does NOT mean that I hate a whole group or a specific race.
I just get really angry at someone who through their own reckless and thoughtless (bad) behavior threaten my well-being and possibly my very life!!!
And I react to that by mentally calling them the worst thing I can think of!!!!
If I can tell your race, that's what I'll diss!!!
When it comes to insulting my own race, which is caucasian, I have to resort to 'A$$hole'. 'Honky' just doesn't cut it. Even when it was in popular usage, it didn't carry much weight.
(If anyone knows of a better slur, feel free to share!!! I'm open to all suggestions!!)
Sometimes, my choice of name-calling is dependent on gender.
Having said that, I would like to add that I am so not into road rage. Or getting into altercations with strangers while out in public.
I have never taken any action because some moron scared the bejeebers out of me by almost crashing into my car.
I don't yell. I don't follow them. I don't give them the finger. I only honk in order to warn someone when they're about to unknowingly back into me or something like that. I never do it in anger.
I am 'happy' enough just to think something nasty about whoever endangers me.
The things I think, I'd never say out loud. And they are not indicative of how I feel about about any specific group!!
I feel very much at one with everyone in the world!! I like people!! I'm a people person!!
I just reserve the right to mentally hurl insults at people who don't care about putting others at risk. Especially when one of those 'others' is ME!!!!
(I have levels of insults, depending on the seriousness of the offense. People who 'steal' my parking spot are just 'jerks', no matter what race, color, creed, or gender they are. You have to really upset me to make my haul out the big guns!!)
The 'internal name-calling' I indulge in is just my way of dispensing with the anger and fear that I feel.
If I stop and imagine myself actually calling them that (whatever 'that' happens to apply) out loud, the very thought of it horrifies me!! I would NEVER do that!!
But, oh boy!!! What I'd call you in my head!!!! LOL!!!
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
