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Comment by slibhb | Hacker News Reader

> Let's imagine a scenario: as in the example above, an English person says "can I burn a fag" and an American person believes they are casually thinking about hurting a gay man. The English person meant no harm; but, the American person is not at fault for not understanding this.

If you call someone out for "offensive speech" and your offense rests on your own misunderstanding, it is absolutely your fault.

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Yes, but not necessarily your problem. I’m British. I once asked for a glass of water in a restaurant in Virginia, and while I thought the waitress’s response was a little peculiar (no reply, just turned around and walked away), I was astounded when the police showed up five minutes later. Apparently she’d misheard me, and thought “just a glass of water, please” was a threat. It was never revealed to me what the threat I had apparently made was, but it cost me several extremely stressful hours convincing the local PD that there had been a misunderstanding - so while it was her fault, it was my problem. I’ve puzzled for years over what she heard.

As a white guy wearing a suit, I got out of there without being charged. If I weren’t… I can imagine it could have gone very differently.

Maybe is was part your fault for not speaking clearly.

I speak perfectly clearly - in a British accent. If it’s my fault for not being American, then so be it.

Also, “is was part”? So much for being clear.

The major issue with this model is that the offended person has options that are a bit less hostile and assuming of bad intent than "calling somebody out".

Unfortunately, we seem to be in a place where bad intent is taken for granted and merits an aggressive reaction rather than placing any responsibility on the offended party to be civil and open-minded in their response to be perceiving offense.

In the case of "burning a fag", our hypothetical American has the option of inquiring about the meaning of an unfamiliar idiom rather than jumping straight to calling out the speaker.

This is offensive to kerning.

bum is not burn.

This is, hands down, the greatest HN comment I have ever read.

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