pub crawler said:
Yes, I find the quote offensive, but then again, this is the same jick who some time ago in one thread wrote the word "******" several times just to get a rise out of people like some kind of fucking eight-year-old. Jick needs to grow up.
If you look at my profile you will realize I am from the Philippines. We aren't exposed to the black versus white problems in the USA. Sometimes you make a comment, you don't realize it is "offensive" to the Americans. I don't live in America - just to set the record straight.
So I used the word "******" in the past - what's wrong with that? Didn't Bono call Elvis the white ******? Or in the Boston DVD didn't he say "pull the trigger, rock 'n' roll ******"? When someone told me it was offensive, I never used it again.
Now, this innocent observation about the choice of language of the blacks is now misconstrued as offensive? If I say the British love to use the word "bloody" and spell it "colour" instead of "color" - is that offensive to? It is my own personal observation (not backed by statistics, but hey I can observe can't I?) that black musicians, especially the rap and r&b crowd, prefer to use "ain't" instead of "don't" - so what's offensive about that? It is also my observation that they convert their English nouns to plural with a "z" instead of an "s". Of course this is just a generalization, there are exceptions to the rule. Can't I just state an observation?
It is also true that U2 have not spelled song titles with "2" or pluralized their nouns with "z" (i.e. boyz) or used the word "ain't" often. So I just ad 1+1 together then my conclusion is that U2's music isn't designed to appeal to the other colors, just the predominantly the whites.
U2 have had their own black fan base - BB King loves U2, Michael Jackson loves U2, even Tiger Woods was spotted in the San Diego Popmart concert -so U2 have a black fan base. But these fans are incidental and are not the primary target market of U2.
So if there is anything offensive about what I am saying, please help me know why. Being from the Philippines, I am more exposed to the social struggles and Muslim/Christian conflicts around here than I am in-the-know about the sensitivity and what innocent statements about the American black vs. white conflicts are offensive of not. I just state my observations and generalizations, and I don't see anyting wrong with that. And every generalization does have its own exceptions to the rule.
Cheers,
J