Buckrageous wrote:emunney wrote:MadBlue wrote:A friend of mine just told me that they read a quote from Jabari saying that he might not declare for the draft because he doesn't like the teams that will likely be picking at the top. Did anyone else see/hear this anywhere? I couldn't find anything myself.
That sounds extremely out of character for him and I really doubt he said it.
That said, Marcus Smart pushed a fan for calling him a piece of crap, so who really knows any more.
What I love about the whole Marcus Smart incident was so many people justicied it if the fan said "_______" but when it was shown the fan said, "__________" Smart was clearly wrong. Either way what the fan said was derogatory. I think its funny that we are now determining what insulting comments people should be insulted by. Words are only as powerful as you make them. Just because the fan didnt say a word that many are overpowered by this guy has no right to be overpowered by a different word? A human talked sht and another human pushed him to let him know his displeasure with the insult, ho hum.
Yes, I think it's pretty silly to be emotionally overwhelmed by a fat nobody calling you a piece of crap. Not sure what to tell you if you don't perceive a difference between that and what Smart had reportedly claimed.
If you want to get into a semiotic discussion, that's a discussion I'd be happy to have. I agree in principle that we culturally spend way too much time on the signifier while largely ignoring the signified, and this leads to a cascade of new signifiers that consistently bleed back to the old, undesirable sign. Something can start out as a medical term, take on a vulgar or mean-spirited usage, then the medical community changes the signifier to something that hasn't yet attained that stigma, only to see the new term appropriated for the same usage because nothing has been done about the stigma tied to the signified.
Still, in a practical sense, some signs are a lot more complex than others. If I called you a **** nitwit, for example, you would know what I was saying (just an example -- I am NOT calling you a **** nitwit) and maybe be annoyed even if you were uncertain of the etymology of the word. On the other hand, if I called you a blue chair, you'd be like, "huh?" even if I said it with really malicious intent, because that sign is not typically used in that way. Obviously those examples are
more different than 'piece of crap' and 'n----', but the point is just to draw out the fact that we both agree that there are differences we almost universally agree upon, and while language is alive and fluid, it's not
that alive and fluid. Unless you're super into dada.
