Why Wog?

I saw this in the feedback and thought it was worth discussing:

Did you know that the word ‘wog’ in Great Britain is an unacceptable racial slur, much favoured by racist stand-up comics of the 1970s? It’s clear that the word/acronym in this case has a vastly different meaning, and that this site has nothing to do with such distasteful things, but it was extremely odd to see it pop up on the wordpress.com list of top sites. Scientologists are dangerous, intolerant lunatics and any attempt to expose their ridiculous cult is to be encouraged, but the title of this site isn’t going to fare well with Brits.

I actually was unaware that the word had a current life outside the Scientology community. Checking out the Wikipedia entry was rather eye-opening so I appreciate the feedback. For those of us following Scientology, we know it as a disparaging term used by Hubbard and his organization, aimed at those not in the group.

My understanding was Wog derived from the term “worthy oriental gentleman” which the British used in the 20’s to dismissively refer to those over whom they ruled in India. “Oh, what do the wogs want today?” I see Wikipedia refers to that as a backronym.

While clearly, patently offensive in those terms, I had rather thought it dead outside of Scientology. It was merely a lost epitaph picked up by a tubby, lunatic charlatan named L. Ron Hubbard and shaped for his own use. Scientology continues to use the word to this day.

We live in a wog world according to Scientology. We can’t understand the transcendent material Hubbard has given mankind because we are mere wogs. It even pops up in ads in Scientology publications touting the latest discovery buried in Hubbard’s material that is destined to save this wog planet from destruction.

So, like many critics of Scientology, I embrace being a wog. Seems to me that the wogs are at cause over Scientology. If you don’t understand that sentence, it’s because it uses Scientology lingo. One of the hallmarks of a cult is the use of “loaded language” which only the group will understand. Scientology has so much of it that they have to publish their own dictionary. While they don’t list wog, I have been told it is one of the first words you’ll learn.

I’m open to debate on the subject but I rather like taking back the word from Scientology. I’m going to keep this thread on the main page so others down the line can reflect on it as well.

I was also surprised to see that this brand new site is already listed as one of the top sites at WordPress.

Not bad for a wog.

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