Talk:Cotton picker

message: My image is WAY too big.  How do I downsize it? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Verdad (talk • contribs) 15:18, 20 May 2006  (UTC)
:Done. Please see Wikipedia:Picture tutorial for a guide on including images in articles. Cheers, Tangotango 15:20, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: I must take issue, purely on the grounds of logic, with the inclusion of the statement in this article that "cotton picker" is somehow a derogatory term for African-American slaves. I can't deny that "cotton picker" could be used in a derogatory manner, and I wouldn't doubt that it has, by someone, somewhere, been used in such a manner before. But:
1.) My parents and grandparents are Caucasians from the American South. Like at least 99% of the Southern families present in the area during and before the Civil War, and seemingly contrary to popular belief throughout the American North and West, our ancestors never owned slaves and worked their comparatively small farms themselves, farms that were passed down through the family as far as my parents (I am 25 years old presently). Although machinery had replaced virtually all hand labor in the enterprise of cotton picking by the time I had come into the world, hand picking cotton before, during, and after school was a big part of life for my immediate ancestors, including my parents. They often speak of picking cotton or of being 'cotton pickers' in a manner that is much more proud that derogatory. To say that someone--black, white, red, or yellow as his skin may be--is a "cotton picker" can hardly be derogatory unless hard labor is something to be made fun of. 
2.) While this doesn't mean that 'cotton picker' has never been used as a derogatory term--I'm sure that it has--does the inclusion of this statement really contribute anything other than confusion to an encyclopedic article about cotton pickers? 
3.) Furthermore, when the term "cotton picker" is referenced in our modern culture, I find it extremely difficult to believe that most people wouldn't conjure up the image of...well, a cotton picker, a big machine moving through the cotton fields. How does including, in an encyclopedia, the usage of the term as a racial derogative accomplish anything other than encouraging its future use as such?
I am going to remove the statement in question, or at least alter it to indicate that it is academically questionable. 
--Curtlindsay 23:28, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I removed the slur section, because it was written something like an essay, and was inadequately cited. Superm401 - Talk 22:50, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Derogatory Term?

message: Why are people blanking the page and inserting inflamatory phrases? Verdad 21:55, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think this is one of a number of farming-related articles (eg reaper, plough, John Deere) which are accessed by school children for homework research. Vandalism to these pages seems to be very childish and comes in waves! EdJogg 11:54, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I do wish they'd think of cleverer things to insert though, e.g. a mechanical nose picker, rather than just inserting rude words. Danack (talk) 22:15, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Vandalism

message: I went to the Huffington Post site that is used as a reference to say Lou Dobbs was calling Sec of State Rice a cotton picker.  I watched the entire video.  It looks like he's just using the idiom as his Texas-raised version of "gosh darn" to express frustration on TV without FCC-banned profanity.  
He says "cotton" and arrests his speech mid-sentence, probably recognizing that his statement could be misconstrued.  In fact, his whole point in the segment was about the misconstruing of comments in terms of branding someone as racist.
I would be hesitant in using such a political website (one that is described in its opening sentence by wikipedia as liberal) as a trustworthy reference.  And I feel it is unfair to Mr Dobbs, or anyone for that matter, to use this forum to cast blame as a racist or to make similar accusations.  I would encourage a future editor or Wikipedia VIP to remove the statement about Lou Dobbs.
Verdad (talk) 04:28, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lou Dobbs 

message: The whole section on Rust's invention of the cotton picker was cut and pasted from .  Now we need a rewrite. John Nagle (talk) 06:57, 13 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Big copyvio 

message: Prior content in this article duplicated one or more previously published sources. The material was copied from: [https://books.google.com/books?id=1kjzTpa3hpQC&pg=PA252&lpg=PA252&dq=%22Though+bankruptcy+left+Rust+nothing+but+his+drafting+board%22&source=bl&ots=0c0Cd54Xd2&sig=dRKZAV-wiHqwrrS9duR9WN_ttk8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=_uCLVN7pBISxogT36oDYBg&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=%22Though%20bankruptcy%20left%20Rust%20nothing%20but%20his%20drafting%20board%22&f=false Arkansas Biography: A Collection of Notable Lives. Copied or closely paraphrased material has been rewritten or removed and must not be restored, unless it is duly released under a compatible license. (For more information, please see "using copyrighted works from others" if you are not the copyright holder of this material, or "donating copyrighted materials" if you are.) For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or published material; such additions will be deleted. Contributors may use copyrighted publications as a source of information, and according to fair use may copy sentences and phrases, provided they are included in quotation marks and referenced properly. The material may also be rewritten, but only if it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Therefore such paraphrased portions must provide their source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously, and persistent violators will be blocked from editing. While we appreciate contributions, we must require all contributors to understand and comply with these policies. Thank you.  Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:06, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Copyright problem removed