#perjorative

Wonderful study from 2022 on the use of compound pejoratives on Reddit as well as some discussion of the grammar rules, politics and usage of these flexible little insults. Comes with a great 20x20 matrix of some of the prefixes and suffixes and how common the results are used on Reddit.

Mehdi Hasan is upset. 

He tweeted, "Trump just throwing around 'Palestinian' as a pejorative. Brazen anti-Palestinian racism has been normalized in America."

Here's what Trump said: "As far as Israel and Hamas, Israel is the one that wants to go. He said the only one who wants to keep going is Hamas. Actually, Israel is the one, and you should them go and let them finish the job. He doesn’t want to do it. He has become like a Palestinian. But, they don’t like him because he is a very bad Palestinian. He is a weak one."

Trump is saying that Biden is taking the Palestinian side in the conflict. This is presumably what Hasan wants as well.

Assuming that Trump used the word in a negative way, he's right. And this is part of the story about Palestinians that no one wants to say.

70-80%  of Palestinians support specific terror attacks against Jewish civilians, after the fact,  during the last 20 years of polling. These include some of the most horrific attacks like the slaughter of rabbis in Har Nof in 2014, with axes and cleavers. 

80% of Palestinians surveyed, in a poll done by Palestinians, said they supported the attack. 

In 2008, a terrorist entered the Mercaz Harav yeshiva and started mowing down students. 8 were killed, including 4 children. When Palestinians were asked if they supported that attack,  84% said they did.

In 2003, when asked about the Maxim restaurant suicide bombing in Haifa that murdered 21 including a two month old baby, 75% of Palestinians said they supported it. 

And more recent polls show that over 75% of Palestinians supported the October 7 pogrom.

75% isn't 100%, but no one can deny that as a society, Palestinians support murdering innocent Jewish civilians, no matter where they live. Many of them openly cheer those murders. 

What kind of people cheer terror attacks? Of course they should be vilified and insulted for their attitudes. Using the word "Palestinian" as a pejorative is quite reasonable without there being any significant Palestinian pushback against the cult of death that their society promotes. 

And there isn't any pushback, certainly not in Arabic. I've been following Palestinian media for years and I cannot recall a single article or op-ed that took other Palestinians to task for cheering murders of Jews. Not once.

“Shit hole” controversy: Haiti and the hypocrisy of our moral outrage

Despite its many setbacks the Haitian people are a proud people they nurse something in their bosom that can never be taken away, “we freed ourselves.” Folks should save their outrage. President Donald Trump referring to Africans and Haitians as coming from “shit hole” countries is consistent with US policy, US attitudes and treatment of countries filled with People of Color in general and Black…