My hat is off to this seller

[FlyingDonut]

Hey, I know they used it in the book. Anyone who collects those issues knows it. So, tell me was it necessary to repeat it? It's like vicariously using the word and not expecting anybody who sees it to not think it is Okay to use it. If you saw the N word used in the same context, ebay would yank the auction. People can espouse equality all they want but ebay obviously doesn't believe it. Nor does anybody else, apparently. This is how racism exists. It feeds on attitudes and breeds in ignorance.

 

You're being ridiculous, sorry. There's no racism here - the guy is mentioning what is in the comic. To follow your logic, one could not discuss Twain's works, or Joyce's or, for that matter, the Sopranos.

 

Have you ever read Huck Finn or Tom Sawyer? Please. Give me a break.

[Timulty]

Tell me, do you see a synopsis on most ebay sales? Not very darn often. I am not saying the book should be read. I am saying that it was unnecessary to use that word and that ebay should have yanked it.

[FlyingDonut]

Tell me, do you see a synopsis on most ebay sales? Not very darn often. I am not saying the book should be read. I am saying that it was unnecessary to use that word and that ebay should have yanked it.

 

I see a synopsis on eBay sales all the time. Is the word offensive? Apparently. Is it a quote from the book? Yes. Again, if he had said "This book calls Mexicans wetbacks" I'd see your point, but he's quoting directly from the book.

[Timulty]

Well, at least someone sees the point. I am not saying you shouldn't collect a comic book because it has racial slurs or stereotyping. I would be a hypocrite if I did. Nor that his selling tact was wrong. It worked and worked great. Using a racial slur in any context, in any auction should be grounds for yanking the auction. Ebay would have done it for the N word.

[rjpb]

Man, I'm starting to feel sorry I started this thread. I have to say that I think Timulty both has a point and is being a bit sensetive, but as a gabacho (blanco puro), I don't have the misfortune of having had my ancestors demeaned by the dominant ethnic group in this country. I don't even belong to one of the various European ethnic groups that were looked on with suspicion when they first arrived in the U.S., so I will defer to others as to what terms are seriously offensive. I always thought the term was rather archaic, but as immigration issues have suddenly become topic A for much of the political discourse in this country (hey, just in time for the elections), I guess it still has the power to wound.

 

As a side note, the only time I heard the term in question with any frequency is when I lived in Santa Fe in the early eighties, when native born "hispanics" (a loaded term to some) I worked with used it to refer to Mexicans who had crossed the border.

[LuckyCantor-migration]

I am utterly baffled by the position that stating 'wetbacks' in this auction was offensive (in its historic and factually relevant context of what the printed word reads in the book).

 

Personally, I find this reasoning offensive and an affront to liberty, free-speech, and intellectualism.

 

Whats next, the expungement of words like 'Nazi' from the human lexicon because IT is a 'psychologically charged' word?

 

Oh yeah, but I guess in a world where 'tolerance' (a good idea in principle) is taken to absurd extremes - anything that irks the sensibility of 'those who like to take offense' is a call for censhrship (endorsing ebay to pull the auction in this case, or requesting CGC moderators to remove a posted image of goose stepping Fascists as has been done on this forum).

 

I shudder to think where this line of reasoning will bring man in the future. IMHO, typical of the multi-cultural tolerance pablum being shoved down everyones throats that dulls critical faculties and make us soft targets for real threats.

 

You wanna talk about offensive,..how about jerks like Ward Churchill espousing truly offensive garbage [little Eichmans] and generally not being attacked but supported by the same types of people who take offense to the term 'wetback.

 

[Timulty]

Free Speech isn't the issue here.

[Sal]

look, i for one am not saying burn the book, forbid him from selling it, throw the seller in jail, send angry letters to the seller, or whatever. Timulty thinks the auction should have been pulled, which is where we part ways. i think the fact that the term was in the book and all the seller did was quote it mitigates the severity somewhat.

 

for the record, the "N-word" and the epithet in question aren't really on the same level. they're both derogatory, but the former has a power unequalled by any other ethnic slur.

 

that being said, i'm just saying the seller had a choice between using an historically offensive term - even as a direct quote from the book - or not using said term. he chose to use the term, and that's a shame.

 

i dunno. i think some people need to walk in others' shoes for a while before the get to tell other people at what point they get to be offended

[Comicdey]

This has become quite a long thread.......

 

I've been quiet since my original response to this thread, acknowledging that racial slurs and thing of that nature should not be used to sell comics or anything else for that matter. I didn't at the time know it was a quote from the comic and used in a fairly benign sense. (to some but not others)

 

I understand Timulty's opinion and respect it, but I also realize that there are many people that collect memoriabilia specifically because it has sins of past generations such as racial slurs and characterizations. It is our history, and definately something we need to learn from. I sold a magazine that had a section of Black Memoriability in it, and just by stating that, I was able to achieve a fairly good price for the item. I didn't have to say that the issue had specific racial connotations, or stereotypes, although it did.

 

I guess the seller could have said something like "this book contains illegal immigration contents", but oddly enough that might not find the bidder he was looking for. I really don't think the seller was implying that he agreed with the archaic term or not, he was just stating that the book had the statement in it.

 

I don't think it added anything to his description and I think he would have received the same bidders either way with the rest of his description. Something to think about when we list up our classic GA books.

[CW]

I can understand Timulty's objection to the word. I thought though I would raise a hypothetical,,, Does it make any difference to those offended if the seller were Mexican American?

Dave Chapel and Carlos Mencia use racist terms respective to their own racial background to the cheers and laughter of people of the races being degraded. I noticed that if the same jokes were used by a white comedian they would be highly inappropriate so again my question is... If the Seller of the book were Mexican American or even an immigrant Him or Herself would that make a difference. If not then I think that the direction of anger against the use of terms like these falls squarely at the feet of those perpetuating the terms into the American vocabulary still. In my opinion this book is a piece of history and nothing more. It uses a term that reflects feelings toward ilegal immigration of the time which coincecentally still stands to some degree. The issue of the seller using the term can be interpreted many different ways but if he is in fact a Mexican American(I don't know this, just hypothetical) using a term which doesn't bother him as it doesn't bother Carlos Mencia( for example sake) or any of the Mexican American viewers who laugh at the word evey week then does that change any minds?

-CW

[Timulty]

Are you saying that Carlos Mencia should be the standard to which all Latinos are held? Sorry, um.... no. He also makes fun of every frickin minority around for his own personal gain. Nope, he is nobody's standard. And no, I don't find him all that funny. So, if the seller were Latino, Hispanic, Mexican-American etc. it doesn't get him or her off the hook. Auction should have pulled. End of story.

[otherworldsj33]

Maybe if the seller would have said something like, "...insensitive and offensive racial sterotypes and language used in this comic'" ? Or "Typical of 1950's America, the story in this comic uses off color language to describe Mexicans trying to come into the USA illegally."? I would have accepted that if I were Mexican. But I agree, if the N word were used, it would have been pulled. Double standard.

To get into another related topic, how come blacks can call each other the N word? Isn't it a insulting term, no matter who is using it? Doesn't it perpetuate a sterotype and drudge up bad feeling from our American past?

[LuckyCantor-migration]

Free Speech isn't the issue here.

 

Seems to be as far as I see it. You are requesting an auction be pulled because you dont like 'the 'words' being used as it offends your sensibility.

[otherworldsj33]

Yeah, but when free speech incites and insults, due to either ignorance, hatred and/or stupidity (they are usually brother and sister), then generally one can expect to be crticized for it. Can TOO much freedom, without discipline and love be good?

[LuckyCantor-migration]

Yeah, but when free speech incites and insults, due to either ignorance, hatred and/or stupidity (they are usually brother and sister), then generally one can expect to be crticized for it. Can TOO much freedom, without discipline and love be good?

 

Intelligent people should be able to look at THE CONTEXT of words/images and not formulate simple strict rules such as 'you cant use the word 'X' ever' or 'you cant post images of Nazi's goose-stepping'. If people are that 'incitable' and cant think critically about THE CONTEXT of words,as wholly and obviously relevant than we are truly dumbing down linguistics and communication.

[bye-migration]

You are missing the point. This argument has no resolution. Just like the pressing debate. So, I respectfully respond " you with a wooden whilst being tickled with a and being slapped by a midget(or wee person)"

 

Timulty this is one of your posts above. Do we see the double standard ? The term Midget or wee person is offensive too many...Practice what you preach eh ?

[otherworldsj33]

Thats true about the context, but wouldn't it generally be better to just be on the side of being conservative when approaching these things

[Timulty]

You are missing the point. This argument has no resolution. Just like the pressing debate. So, I respectfully respond " you with a wooden whilst being tickled with a and being slapped by a midget(or wee person)"

 

Timulty this is one of your posts above. Do we see the double standard ? The term Midget or wee person is offensive too many...Practice what you preach eh ?

 

But if we take it from your point of the argument, you have to look at the context. Also my apologies to those people, who I might have offended with that statement, who fit that category.

[bye-migration]

What ? The guy on ebay was quoting from a book, you used the term in a derogatory manner. The only comparison is both words are "offensive" to some but you used your word in a mean spriited manner.

 

If the ebay seller had had said...

This is a Jan-Feb 1954 issue of Headline Comics that features the US Boarder Patrol and illegal Mexican workers in boats and on the back of a truck. I found this book to be rather timely when you think of current events. Inside, this book refers to Mexicans as "Wetbacks"(or Latinos).

 

By your standards then this would have been preferable...right???

[the blob]

"He could have done without the dirogatory language name for Mexicans."

 

But that's half of what makes it an interesting historical piece and would appeal to someone who is interested in the history of discrimination in America, etc.

 

I have something from the 20s put together by the same people who did Captain Billy's Whiz bang and the have a whole friggin' story on "Dago Mary"

 

Frigging Time or Life Magazine did a story on Joe Dimaggio in like 1941 and had something along the lines of "unlike many other young italian men, Joe Dimaggio doesn't smell of olive oil"

 

so, by the 1950s they've probably stopped with italian slurs, but they still have no problems with slurring mexicans and lord knows the racist charicatures in those books then.