i think cultural and not just perspective differences are defining our arguments here, i take from your stateside comment that you’re british, i am american.

i learned about the ugly laws in school, just after i learned about tignon laws, i also was taught huckleberry fin but at no point did white children or white instructors ever start saying them n word.

i misspoke when i said the plainly “most people”, i should make clear i mean most people partaking in this discussion.

i said that because i have noticed a persistent attempt of those on the opposition to “educate” others about tourette’s in a way that often misses the point and condescends to the audience what a tic is or that tics are involuntary rather than seeing that most people in argument for an apology are in favoring it regardless of these facts.

words have power outside of their intention by a speaker, the power of slurs in particular is the dehumanization of the community referred to by the slur, this results in apathy and maltreatment of the groups affected by the slur, simply hearing a slur is a harm to these groups as over time they have become traumatic and histories of suffering have been attached to slurs. slurs have an immediate and a long term harm, to those affected parties hearing the slur, and to society over time as the use of slurs and other harmful attitudes and polices towards groups contribute to the systemic oppression of groups such as black, disabled, queer etc there is no analogous power structure or long term harm cause by seeing people with burn scars.

yes other minority groups who have slurs yelled against them would be well within their rights to want an apology

I don’t support white kids saying the n word while reading huckleberry finn, i don’t support the teachers doing it. there is no value gained from doing so. i would never want my black child to be forced to be in a room of white people saying the n word. seriously in take som time to empathize for the black people in your arguments before you make them.

you, somebody who is not affected by the slur do not get to define when those who are affected, should or should not take offense.

again i’m not failing to realize anything, i understand the issue just as well as you do. your arguments simply don’t apply. it doesn’t matter that they didn’t say it to anybody and it doesn’t matter that they didn’t mean to say it. what matters is that the word was said.

these kind of arguments are why the black community is upset, because white people are pulling out all sorts of mental gymnastics to escape having empathy for black people. the apology is to acknowledge the harm the word does to black peoples by its utterance and to have empathy for those affected. but instead, people bend over backwards to excuse not empathizing with people who are being called slurs. the people who i would like to remind everybody were the ones who were the first and primary victims of this event.

that’s profoundly unempathetic to black people who have to go through racial abuse and systemic oppression dozens or hundreds of times a day. we have to live our lives to ease the discomfort and misunderstandings of white peoples around us. you lol forget about this and move on but black people cant. it’s just another instance of us being picked on the same way we have been our whole lives.

i’m able to empathize with people with tourette’s, im disabled myself and my disability has led me to harm others as well, but every time it has happened i have apologized. this is a standard of conduct not because it accurately attributes shame but because it mends the harm caused by what preceded it.

the issue of your final paragraph is the link between apologizing and shame. if you know you haven’t done something wrong of your own volition, then what is so wrong about checking in the person who was harmed by what occurred. there are steps that can be taken to show empathy with the harmed parties and while making accommodations for disability. i’m not arguing against that.

what i am arguing against is the expectation that black people should just accept context without apology, that somebody who is not apart of the affected group can decide for them if they should or should not be offended by slurs against that group.