How do I reference a racially charged term without it getting deleted as a "racist slur"?

Question

For reference, I'm old enough to have been a child in the casually, obliviously racist period in the United States -- many terms that are now considered "racist slurs" were in common usage, among otherwise decent adults as well as children, and to people of my generation they mean certain things that are largely independent of their racist label. While I agree that we should no longer use these terms without thought, I believe there are situations in which one of them gets the thought across more effectively and with far fewer words than beating around the bush.

For instance, in a recent question (now deleted, because it was apparently more of a Worldbuilding.SE question than about role playing), I said that my town has, among other threats that aren't there, no "injuns" -- with the term in quotes, just as here. The post was edited almost before I'd finished rechecking for typos, to "remove racist slur".

Now, to me, use of that term, in quotes as I did, is a case of referencing a specific past usage: the 1950s-1960s TV Western usage, as in "The only good injun is a dead injun." There was no indication in the question of an actual culture; what I was trying to say was that there is no culture subject to that sort of prejudice -- without writing an entire paragraph to do so.

This is in part a linquistic distinction: I haven't referred to Native Americans as "Indians" in decades, nor used the term "injuns" to reference a race in somewhat longer. None the less, I wouldn't go so far as to change Tom Sawyer by editing the character name of Injun Joe -- and it doesn't seem quite right to call referencing such a cultural artifact a "racist slur."

So, the question is, how should I go about including an old meaning, without having the entire idea deleted and potentially getting Code of Conduct strikes?

Answer 1

Just explain what you mean. Slurs like that are lazy and harmful.

You've done a fine enough job explaining the idea you intended to communicate here in this question. Just give clear exposition on the idea without resorting to harmful words and phrases. It isn't hard to do this, as you have already demonstrated here.

I am of Native American descent, and to be transparent, I was the one who made the edit. Using the word "injun" to communicate the concept of a group of barbaric people who harass civilized people serves to perpetuate the idea that Native Americans are somehow less civilized than others and denigrates the important cultural traditions they maintain today.

I read the post. It was a good world building question. If you've got the mind to organize everything else in that post, you've got the mind to do it without using derogatory phrases.

Context for 10k+ users.

Answer 2

You don't use racial slurs

Thomas Markov's answer is excellent and worth a checkmark.

Racial and ethnic slurs have a singular purpose and that's to denigrate an entire group of people by painting them with a single brush. More often than not, these are negative. Even when they're not, they're intellectually lazy because again they are promoting the notion that it's ok to make broad assumptions about communities of people and cultures.

Furthermore, the reason they are slurs is because historically we've absolutely used these words to create a social structure that permits real harm to those communities. We don't work to undo that harm by deciding those words are ok again, especially when those communities are still suffering.

Sticks and stones may break someone's bones, but words are what make breaking those bones legal.

As an aside, I support you asking the question at all as opposed to just stewing on things alone. In doing so, you've created the chance for yourself to hear others and begin to learn how to combat your own internalized biases which are inherent in all of us whether we like it or not.