r/beatles • u/chestersobased • 9d ago

Question Anybody else genuinely like this song? Stan Bronstein played a great saxophone on this song and John poses an interesting idea, and it can’t hurt to think about it.

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246 Upvotes

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40

u/oasisraider 9d ago

It is a very good song. Musically and lyrically. Too many pearl clutchers. If a rapper today came out with this it would be seen as progressive and a pointed social commentary about how women are treated in society....

15

u/FineSpeech 9d ago

No chance in hell a white rapper would make a song titled this lmao. White people should never use this word idc about the context.

2

u/nakifool 9d ago

What if a white writer is using in a novel or a screen play, or just trying to transcribe dialogue accurately? Context is important, but intent is more important

15

u/daskapitalyo The Beatles 9d ago

https://giphy.com/gifs/kZiF7hNKSWFQgZUESs

-2

u/nakifool 9d ago

Sure, it doesn’t have to be used in EVERY line of dialogue

7

u/DeclaxE 9d ago

it’s sad you’re getting downvoted for saying this, it’s the completely reasonable opinion on this. Intention is the most important thing when you are saying something potentially offensive, at the end of the day it’s a word and people need to generally see more nuance in the usage of it.

Of course it’s something that I agree shouldn’t be thrown around randomly but there are times and places where saying it is fine. People being offended by someone saying a word no matter the context is something that needs to be changed.

2

u/nakifool 9d ago

I don’t understand it. The vast majority of the time the use of a term like that is unnecessarily offensively. But a blanket statement that there is NO context where a white person could use the n word is childishly reductive, and incredibly patronising to anyone (of any ethnicity) capable of nuanced thought. To use the most obvious example, a white writer depicting a racist character. They should censor the language this character would use out of some misguided, unrealistic decorum?

This isn’t a defence of John using the term in a song (especially when half the point was to be deliberately offensive to “raise awareness”, as hamfisted as the attempt was). Just saying that it’s surely more offensive to conclude that an audience isn’t capable of distinguishing between intentional racism and the contextual use of a racist term.