Was the act of deletion for a unlikely Racist slur itself also an act of unintentional racism?

Question

Note: the links below won't work for users without enough reputation points to read deleted answers. I've used '___' to obscure a term the moderator believes to be a slur.

Phillip's comment provides a rationale for deleting guest271314 answer to Why is President Trump ending affirmative action in college admissions so controversial?:

Racist slurs like "Ne__o" and "black students suckle on the teat of western academia" are not tolerated on the Stack Exchange network.

Surely most everyone must agree that racist slurs, (or any slurs for that matter), should have no place here, and would applaud his (or anyone's) intention to expunge any and all such slurs.

But Phillip seems to regard "Ne___o" as a racist slur, rather than as a once formal neutral standard but now obsolescent political term.

He also seems to think comparing Western Academia to a teat should be considered either as a slur or as bad as one. The comparison is self-deprecating academic irony, and a riff of Alma Mater.

I would assume that guest271314 is a black person, (for so says the introduction to his deleted answer), and given the general tenor of guest271314's posts so far, is very probably not a white-supremacist racist prone to racial slurs.

(The answer by guest271314 seems to have argued that the Academic version of '50s US School Desegregation resulted in a general overvaluation of blander mainstream scholarship and with it a corresponding but unmerited deprecation of segregated scholarship.)

This particular deletion seems incorrect.

Answer 1

Allowable words

One might guess that Philipp is white. As far as I know, he (gender inferred from name) is from Germany, which has a small minority population. He probably speaks English as a second language.

It is quite possible that he is not familiar with the difference between the words (at least one of which can be offensive, so read behind the spoiler tag at your own risk)

Negro and nigger.

These words share a lot, four letters out of five or six.

There was a time when the first word was mainstream, the way that African-American is today. For example, see this organization, which is run by and for African-Americans.

Of course, even given all that, it's hard for a white person to say that a particular word is all right over a black person's objection. That the word was being used by a black person doesn't fix it.

The second answer

That said, I would tend to agree that the second posting of the answer, which started

Don't ask about black people if you do not want answers from black people. Or, specify at the question that you only want answers from white people.

was overly hostile and perhaps misdirected. I would be fine with deleting that based on the existence of the first answer, the hostile tone, and its misdirection to be justified.

Why misdirected? Because it seems far more likely that the kind of person complaining about "negro" and "black students suckle on the teat of western academia" is either black or claiming that it would be offensive to black people. And it seems unlikely that Philipp just happened to pick that answer to review. It seems more likely that there was a flag.

Deleting the second posting of the answer was correct in my mind, even if the first deletion was not. That's not how we resolve things here. The correct way to get the answer restored is a meta question.

Selective enforcement

There is also a bit of a problem with allowing certain language by black people and not white people. For one thing, we don't know who is black and who is white here. If a white supremacist came here and posted about the difficulty of being black in the US, we can't really tell the difference from a black person doing the same thing.

Beyond that, even if we could prove blackness, it sets a bad precedent to allow one person to use language that we would not accept from another person. Because then when someone else uses the same language, how do we say that it is now off limits? We should have one standard for posts, not a different standard for each demographic group.

There may be some reason for an exception in certain cases because it is clearly necessary. For example, the text that I put behind spoiler tags is important to the post. Without it, I could just as well be talking about nitro and mentor.

At least the first particular word choice was not necessary. Either black or African-American could be substituted for the one word without loss of understandability.

The phrase

black students suckle on the teat of western academia

is harder to replace, as it carried actual meaning and many replacements would be offensive because of that meaning.

Authenticity

From a comment:

It's possible that it was a non-black troll pretending to be black, but I think that the point of view is one actually held by the poster, because it's too weird to fake.

This point of view is more mainstream than it might first seem. This is essentially the Malcolm X view. Malcolm X wasn't bothered by the concept of "separate but equal" but by the implementation. He argued that it was not in fact equal, only separate. He would have maintained the separation, but in return he wanted a real separation. Black people would have their own place to live under their own laws and would not be subject to white law. Something more like Native American reservations. From the Wikipedia link:

While the civil rights movement fought against racial segregation, Malcolm X advocated the complete separation of African Americans from whites. He proposed that African Americans should return to Africa and that, in the interim, a separate country for black people in America should be created.

It is possible that his views had mellowed later in life, when he was using the name el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz.

It remains possible that this was a fake, a white supremacist or a Russian rabble rouser pretending to be a black separatist. But it's also possible that this was just what it seemed, a post by a black person with heterodox/non-stereotypical views.

Whitesplainin'

I'm a bit troubled by

(The answer by guest271314 seems to have argued that the Academic version of '50s US School Desegregation resulted in a general overvaluation of blander mainstream scholarship and with it a corresponding but unmerited deprecation of segregated scholarship.)

This seems to be a whitewash (see what I did there?) of the original post, which argued that school desegregation led to black children being predominantly taught by white teachers. This increases alienation, as it produces weird white explanations like "blander mainstream scholarship" that seem to miss the point.

I don't want to get too much into that, as two white people arguing over what a black person meant is itself a microaggression. Presumably the black person is better capable of clarifying what was meant than we are. But until that, I didn't want to leave so egregious a rewriting unchallenged.

Original, potentially offensive, first paragraph for those who want to consider for themselves whose interpretation is closer:

Some black people consider Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954) to be the worst decision as to Negro education that ever occurred, the reason being that Negro children would no longer being educated by Negro teachers from a Negro perspective, but would instead by educated by white teachers from a white perspective.

Answer 2

The Stack exchange policy is not No Slurs, it is Be Nice.

Obviously, all use of slurs is unnice. But many things that are not slurs are also unnice. There is no need to debate exactly whether an unnice thing was a slur or not, because it is already unnice.

Answer 3

No individual person or group owns or controls the meaning of the word Negro. As with any word within the equivocal language english, there can be more than a single definition applied to the term.

It is preposterous for anyone on a political board to actually state that Negro is a "Racial slurs"; such a statement is incredibly narrow minded and out of touch with the reality of Negro culture, history, literature and politics in the United States

• Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League
• United Negro College Fund
• The Awakening of the Negro
• Strivings of the Negro People
• The Case of the Negro
• Negro Leagues Legacy
• Negro Leagues Team Histories by MLB.com

• "Letter from a Birmingham Jail [King, Jr.]"
  
  16 April 1963 My Dear Fellow Clergymen:

  ...

  You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham. But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations. I am sure that none of you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes. It is unfortunate that demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham, but it is even more unfortunate that the city's white power structure left the Negro community with no alternative.

  In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self purification; and direct action. We have gone through all these steps in Birmingham. There can be no gainsaying the fact that racial injustice engulfs this community. Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. Its ugly record of brutality is widely known. Negroes have experienced grossly unjust treatment in the courts. There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than in any other city in the nation. These are the hard, brutal facts of the case. On the basis of these conditions, Negro leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers. But the latter consistently refused to engage in good faith negotiation.

  ...

  We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."

  We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse and buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five year old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness"--then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience. You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may well ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all."

  ...

  Let us consider a more concrete example of just and unjust laws. An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal. Let me give another explanation. A law is unjust if it is inflicted on a minority that, as a result of being denied the right to vote, had no part in enacting or devising the law. Who can say that the legislature of Alabama which set up that state's segregation laws was democratically elected? Throughout Alabama all sorts of devious methods are used to prevent Negroes from becoming registered voters, and there are some counties in which, even though Negroes constitute a majority of the population, not a single Negro is registered. Can any law enacted under such circumstances be considered democratically structured?

  ...

  You speak of our activity in Birmingham as extreme. At first I was rather disappointed that fellow clergymen would see my nonviolent efforts as those of an extremist. I began thinking about the fact that I stand in the middle of two opposing forces in the Negro community. One is a force of complacency, made up in part of Negroes who, as a result of long years of oppression, are so drained of self respect and a sense of "somebodiness" that they have adjusted to segregation; and in part of a few middle-class Negroes who, because of a degree of academic and economic security and because in some ways they profit by segregation, have become insensitive to the problems of the masses. The other force is one of bitterness and hatred, and it comes perilously close to advocating violence. It is expressed in the various black nationalist groups that are springing up across the nation, the largest and best known being Elijah Muhammad's Muslim movement. Nourished by the Negro's frustration over the continued existence of racial discrimination, this movement is made up of people who have lost faith in America, who have absolutely repudiated Christianity, and who have concluded that the white man is an incorrigible "devil."

  I have tried to stand between these two forces, saying that we need emulate neither the "do nothingism" of the complacent nor the hatred and despair of the black nationalist. For there is the more excellent way of love and nonviolent protest. I am grateful to God that, through the influence of the Negro church, the way of nonviolence became an integral part of our struggle. If this philosophy had not emerged, by now many streets of the South would, I am convinced, be flowing with blood. And I am further convinced that if our white brothers dismiss as "rabble rousers" and "outside agitators" those of us who employ nonviolent direct action, and if they refuse to support our nonviolent efforts, millions of Negroes will, out of frustration and despair, seek solace and security in black nationalist ideologies--a development that would inevitably lead to a frightening racial nightmare.

  Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself, and that is what has happened to the American Negro. Something within has reminded him of his birthright of freedom, and something without has reminded him that it can be gained. Consciously or unconsciously, he has been caught up by the Zeitgeist, and with his black brothers of Africa and his brown and yellow brothers of Asia, South America and the Caribbean, the United States Negro is moving with a sense of great urgency toward the promised land of racial justice. If one recognizes this vital urge that has engulfed the Negro community, one should readily understand why public demonstrations are taking place. The Negro has many pent up resentments and latent frustrations, and he must release them. So let him march; let him make prayer pilgrimages to the city hall; let him go on freedom rides -and try to understand why he must do so. If his repressed emotions are not released in nonviolent ways, they will seek expression through violence; this is not a threat but a fact of history. So I have not said to my people: "Get rid of your discontent." Rather, I have tried to say that this normal and healthy discontent can be channeled into the creative outlet of nonviolent direct action. And now this approach is being termed extremist. But though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist for love: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." Was not Amos an extremist for justice: "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream." Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel: "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." Was not Martin Luther an extremist: "Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God." And John Bunyan: "I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience." And Abraham Lincoln: "This nation cannot survive half slave and half free." And Thomas Jefferson: "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal . . ." So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice? In that dramatic scene on Calvary's hill three men were crucified. We must never forget that all three were crucified for the same crime--the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality, and thus fell below their environment. The other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment. Perhaps the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.

It is very unlikely that the culture of censorship at SE has dramatically changed within the span of this users' 7 day account suspension for previously answering this question and being censored by Politics SE moderator - twice. It is more than likely that the fervor for censorship has, if anything, increased, during that 7 day span.

The answer critics will undoubtedly ask: "How is the above paragraph related to the question?"

The answer to the house answer critics is that there is controversy related to every political decision. The decision by SE to delete this users' valid answers and suspend this users' account for using the word Negro within answers was a political decision by SE moderators and the organization itself, the evidence points to the ignorance of the individuals whom had the audacity to assert that upvote

Racist slurs like "Negro" and "black students suckle on the teat of western academia" are not tolerated on the Stack Exchange network..

when, in fact, the U.S. Government provides guidance for Federal agencies as to the fact of Negro people actually self-identifying as Negro at

Revisions to the Standards for the Classification of Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity, Executive Office of the President, Office of Management and Budget, Washington, D.C. 20503

(13) OMB accepts the following recommendations concerning the term or terms to be used for the name of the Black category:
The name of the Black category should be changed to "Black or African American."

The category definition should remain unchanged.

Additional terms, such as Haitian or Negro, can be used if desired.

Thus, SE is technically potentially violating Federal regulations by attempting to censor an individual from self-identifying as Negro. Ironic, though possibly not ironic, at a question dealing with "scrap" of "affirmative action" policies by the U.S.

As to the concept of "black students suckle on the teat of western academia", that is a fact for groups such as Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity also known as the Boulé, who adopt a Greek identity in colleges, rather than an African one. In effect, being a guard for western academia against Negro/Black/African academia for their own political advantages within western academia and institutions, as is evident by their seal and description of themselves; the Boule thrive on suckling at the teat of western academia for nourishment, e.g., almer mater ("nourishing/kind" "mother"), both economically and politically

Sigma Pi Phi fraternity was formed in 1904 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by a group of six African American professional men. The fraternity founders included; Henry McKee Minton, Dr. Algernon B. Jackson, Dr. Edwin C. Howard, Dr. Richard J. Warrick, Robert J. Abele, and Eugene T. Hinson.

The fraternity was established so that educated African American men, who were accomplished in their professions, could have a social, spiritual and communial gathering space. Within the group, members are referred to as arcons and wives as archousai.

The group's second member Boule "Beta Boule" was formed in 1907 in Chicago followed by it's third member Boule in Baltimore in 1908. The organization gradually became nationwide and has included many prominent men including Martin Luther King, Jr. WEB Dubois, Arthur Ashe, Ron Brown, Earl Graves of Black Enterprise Magazine, and John Johnson of Ebony Magazine. Most prominent African Americans are members including college presidents, congressmen, cabinet members, and nationally prominent figures. The fraternity is currently comprised of 112 member Boules or chapters.

The fraternity is often referred to as the Boule, which in fraternity parlance means "a council of noblemen".

The meaning of the words Sigma Pi Phi, the titles given to its members and their wives, its officers and the names of its local units are derived from Greek history and tradition as well.

In Charles H. Wesley's History of Sigma Pi Phi, First of the Negro-American Greek-letter Fraternities at page 28:

"Minton wanted to create an organization which would partake in the tenants (basis, or root) of Skull & Bones at Yale."

what some would refer "American Black Upper Class", others sell-outs, or worse.

Controversy cannot be avoided within the realm of politics, so-called "affirmative action" is no exception.

The answer should not have been deleted and this user account should not have been suspended.