Slurs and derogatory terms

Proposal

Hi, everyone. Forgive the slightly choppy words of a guy who has never had to write an opening post before, but let's get right into it. When I first became an active editor here at the Wiki, it was in the midst of a first discussion on the matter of pages in the Category of Derogatory names and insults from the real world. During that Forum discussion, we were able to immediately tackle a number of terms that we agreed were in no need of a page & for which, the contents of which could instead be properly funnelled into the pages of Racism and Homophobia - where they'd sit with the appropriate and very much needed context of their usage. (Pending the now-at-last ongoing thread regarding Content Warnings, these two pages might also end up with very helpful signposting that would warn users of the presence of said slurs.)

At the time, it was very clearly said by myself that the pages I outlined solutions for in my proposal (as an onlooker, not as thread-opener) was based solely on my immediate feelings & thoughts regarding what could be readily and easily handled. And that we would come back and deal with many of the others at a later date. In-fact, I considered it one of the most important matters for us to deal with. Though it has - just by unfortunate circumstance - taken until now that we'd be in a position to handle this... I'm glad to finally get to outline these further terms/pages I would like to handle & how I would like to handle them. For the purposes of clarity, I will use all the terms as they were written in this list just this once.

• Blackamoor (used in The Shakespeare Code and Renaissance of the Daleks) - I'll say that I left off this one before despite personal discomfort with the usage in-story because I didn't feel I could put forward a robust comment on it. However, now having had discussions with others, I feel I can confidently say there is a general 'uncomfortability' to the term among fans. Though archaic, it is still a particularly strong term (leaning towards the heights of the n-word we removed before) for black people. And once that often has a strong attachment towards the real-life matter of the atlantic slave trade. I know that's a heavy point to illustrate... but tTSC itself does - regardless of whatever writer, editor & showrunner intentions may have been - handle this term rather flippantly. And thus, it would be easy to misunderstand the seriousness of it. As such, I feel that the mitigation for this would be to move the TSC statements on this page to the Racism page: where they can properly be contextualised in a way that even the show was unable to manage. I would also hope to do so with the Renaissance remark too; but that will need further examination to see what more we can add to that as context in making such a move. (Does Floyd get surprised by this? Correct him? It feels a little surprising that we don't have any elaboration on this.)
• Cocksucker (used in The Man Who Destroyed Torchwood) - milder, but honestly for a single sentence: it feels like it could be much better contextualised if shifted into the Homophobia page. It's a remark that comes along in the imagination of a man with such prejudices.
• Coloured (used in Rosa and Remembrance of the Daleks) - The Remembrance comment is already on the Racism page... and we've put plenty other stuff related to Rosa into the page that the remaining stuff on this could be added into. Having had some insightful conversations with US fans of colour, and baring in mind, the real-world usage of this term... I think we need to handle this. Albeit it will be a bit tricky to reword the Rosa stuff to be more illustrative of the confusing nature of 1950s bigotry & how that put Yaz in a difficult position regarding how she should act within that system of discrimination: I'm sure we'll be able to think of some way to word it.
• Coolie (used in Ghosts of India) - Mild but historical. And again, it would be better served to illustrate that as a point of 1947 on the Racism pages, alongside Donna's objection to the Major's use of the term.
• Ladyboy (used in Orr) - this is perhaps a more difficult one to handle, as we don't currently have an 'umbrella' page to handle transphobic terms in context like we do racism and homophobia... but it's something we should discuss, as moreso than many of the other terms in the cate, this one is in current frequent real-world use.
• Mongrel (used in The End of the World and Rosa) - both of these should be moved to Racism. Again, the Rosa remark will fit in with the rest of what we've covered there about that story. The End of the World... well, given that Cassandra is referring to the fact that other humans have 'mixed', it is a form of species-based racism. And we already readily allow for such things to be covered when it is done by other species, so I'd say it's a fair move to make.
• Poof (used in multiple stories) - During the first discussion, I recall that as well as myself, another long-standing member of the Wiki also indicated their strong disapproval of keeping this page around. Not only do I still think all this content should be moved to Homophobia... but it also needs much more context in general. Does Death and Diplomacy give any more specifics about how individuals were termed as such and courtmartialled? What are the usages in Endgame and Interference - Book One? Does it get used against Eight in 1938 or 2003 in Timeless, as we'd need to know where to place it in the history of usage? In general, there's a lot of work to be done there.
• Uncle Tom (used in Torchwood: Believe) - right, this one is complicated. Historically, we're in a bit of a minefield. The name is that of a fictional character who was devised by an abolitionist woman as part of a story to show the suffering of slavery. BUT the name became a term that has racial usage and connotations; particularly tied to slavery and minstrel/blackface shows. Essentially, others reimagined the character into some that fit racial stereotypes. As if to make matters here worse off, in the story, it is instead used by a white man against a white man in a moment of betrayal... Meaning this one isn't just a simple move to the Racism page, because it's not actually being used in that sense - despite being a term of that origin. Honestly, I don't quite know how we should best handle this one. (But if I may be excused a slight personal comment for a moment: Oh, why why why did this story have to choose to do this?)

Sidepoints for discussion:

1. Should Straight be in the Derogatory terms RW cate.? Nothing there seems to be as such...?
2. Queer - should we subsection the page and distinguish identity-usage from derogatory? Should we completely split that into two pages? Queer and Queer (derogatory term)? This matter is particularly in mind as queer is the term we use for titling Queer representation in Doctor Who.

JDPManjoume ☎ 20:56, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

Queer is not a slur anymore, it was derogatory 30 years ago not today. Straight is not derogatory at all, at least in the US straight is just a normal term that is completely neautral, though "straight cis man" and "straight cis white man" are considered derogatory in general. As a white straight cis-gender man I can say that "straight cis man"/"straight cis white man" doesnt carry quite the same weight as litterally any other derogatory term used against other people because we were never oppressed, we were the ones who oppressed everyone who wasnt the same as us, but these are just american social conditions im talking about so I dont know about how it is in other countries. Tellymustard ☎ 21:13, 12 March 2023 (UTC)