Discussion MisaimedFandom / Literature

• ""The White Man's Burden" by Rudyard Kipling is a case of Misaimed Fandom and Misaimed Hatedom. This point-missing is aggravated by the prints forgetting its "dedication" line. That's like forgetting to supply dynamite with a detonator, because this was "An Address to the United States" published on the heels of the Philippine War. If you don't see the trouble yet, read Mark Twain's articles about it. Or imagine that Joseph Heller with his reputation lived to 2006, and dropped in a big conference with "DRM and laws" in the middle of its order paper... to read his new poem with "Sony Rootkit" in the dedication and "I think Microsoft is a Pretty Cool Guy" in the text. Some could take it seriously, more as vicious irony, some like, some not — but no chance this would not provoke an untold riot then and there. The author of Stalky and Pig should have know what he did was trolleriffic. But just in case it wasn't enough, he also did publically "bequeath" The British Empire's role to the people looking for contrasts with it and still remembering The American Revolution."

I have no idea what this is trying to say.

I removed a misplaced reference to the the LA Dodgers from the entry for "Oliver Twist". The baseball team's name is taken from their original home of Brooklyn, New York. The earliest incarnation of the team played in a park that had trolley lines running on two sides of it. There were many trolley lines in Brooklyn from the late 19th- through the mid-20th century. Manhattanites contemptuously referred to Brooklyn residents as "trolley-dodgers". (Manhattanites seem to have a contemptuous nickname, or at least contempt, for anyone who doesn't live in Manhattan, come to think of it. Anyhoo...) As happens, Brooklynites embraced the pejorative nickname and made it their own, and named the local baseball team thre Dodgers with pride.

The Artful Dodger got his nickname because of his ability to dodge responsibility of any sort, especially for the consequences of his actions.

• There's also a certain amount of the fandom that tries to say that the term "Muggles" is equivalent to the real world's "chinks" or "niggers"; ethnic slurs. This despite the fact the canon very has a word that is explicitly stated to be a slur against those of Muggle descent; "Mudblood," though "Muggle" is used in a derisive way by certain characters as well.
  • Except that "Mudblood" doesn't mean "Muggle," it refers to a wizard or witch born from muggle parents. Second, just because there is another word that is equivalent to a racial slur doesn't mean that there can't be another.

Deleting the second bit, because Muggle is a descriptive term, like "Gentile". If I meet some bigoted Jewish person who invests said word with scorn when he refers to me, that doesn't mean the word itself is a slur. I cannot find any sources stating that it is a slur, barring the members of the Misaimed Fandom in question.

http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Muggle

See? The word itself is not a slur, but bigots occasionally use it like it is, which can be true of any ethnic descriptor (See also "Black People", "White people", "Chinese People", etc.). Can we stop adding the Justifying Edits?