U Maryland: Birthday Cake Pic on Instagram

[DrPhil]

^^ From a website for angry white people

[Low D Flat]

If the language is offensive, maybe don't put it out there so flippantly in public.

I'm pretty sure Dr Phil, Senusret, etc. haven't been using it in public. So I'm not sure why other people doing so is being imputed to them. The people using it and the people saying it's inappropriate aren't the same people.

[DrPhil]

Sometimes it is the same people. I will use the word in certain environments if I choose. Confused, deflecting white people are no deterrent.

I certainly will never do what some white people do around me which is use words like "honky" and "cracker" to attempt to amuse or relate to the Black person. I have no interest in amusing or relating to white people in that manner.

[Low D Flat]

I think you can make an innocent-confusion argument if the person is from another country and speaks English as a second language.

Someone raised in America? No. No, you can't.

[DrPhil]

"Confused white people" is extremely kind, considering.

[irishpipes]

Originally Posted by DrPhil

"Confused white people" is extremely kind, considering.

Your restraint is admirable, but unnecessary.

[MathMom]

I'm of Italian descent.

When I was in college (in the dark ages), my father was helping me move out one year and a male friend was helping me carry some heavy items out to the car. He was Romanian and we called each other Wop and Gypsy.

He was carrying a box and he yelled to me (paraphrasing), "Wop, wtf is in this g-d thing?!? Did you pick up every effing rock from the yard and put the MF-er in here?"

The point being that almost every other word out of his mouth was an expletive, but my dad only heard one-Wop. I've only seen my father come unglued on a few occasions in my life and that was one.

While I knew the history of the word (same with dago), it didn't have the emotional resonance to my generation that it did to my father's. His end point, "He doesn't get to use that word. And you don't get to call him Gypsy. Neither of you have the right."

There are things that simply require belonging to the group in question in order to have the right to say them, no matter how innocuous the intent.

[Sen's Revenge]

Originally Posted by MathMom

I'm of Italian descent.

When I was in college (in the dark ages), my father was helping me move out one year and a male friend was helping me carry some heavy items out to the car. He was Romanian and we called each other Wop and Gypsy.

He was carrying a box and he yelled to me (paraphrasing), "Wop, wtf is in this g-d thing?!? Did you pick up every effing rock from the yard and put the MF-er in here?"

The point being that almost every other word out of his mouth was an expletive, but my dad only heard one-Wop. I've only seen my father come unglued on a few occasions in my life and that was one.

While I knew the history of the word (same with dago), it didn't have the emotional resonance to my generation that it did to my father's. His end point, "He doesn't get to use that word. And you don't get to call him Gypsy. Neither of you have the right."

There are things that simply require belonging to the group in question in order to have the right to say them, no matter how innocuous the intent.

Amen.

[33girl]

In the fashion of Joanie on Happy Days, when we were 9 -10 years old we called cute boys "hunks." My mother came UNGLUED the first time she heard that. She thought we meant "hunky" which was a pejorative for people of Hungarian descent.

[MathMom]

I'm not familiar with that term as used for Hungarians but I am very well acquainted with Joanie and Chachi.

Now I'm feeling some classic tv nostalgia. Off to Netflix!

[33girl]

Originally Posted by MathMom

I'm not familiar with that term as used for Hungarians but I am very well acquainted with Joanie and Chachi.

Now I'm feeling some classic tv nostalgia. Off to Netflix!

Yup. Linked is another classic case of "duh, I didn't know I was being offensive."

http://www.apnewsarchive.com/1990/Ar...8aade8c4a913b1

[DubaiSis]

There are some ethnic slurs that have been allowed to die in my lifetime. I think it's worth contemplating why this particular one hasn't.

[DrPhil]

Words don't die.

[PiKA2001]

Originally Posted by DrPhil

Words don't die.

That's mullock! When was the last time you suffered from a febricula or partaken in a pannychis with a yoke-mate or a fopdoodle? There are also "dead words" which are words so over used they have lost significance. Cool, nice, good, bad, etc come to mind.

[DrPhil]

Words don't die. My unfamiliarity with words doesn't mean no human uses those words or that humans will never again use the word.

As for words that are considered racial slurs, there is a difference between outsiders wanting a word to "die" and expecting the word to not be used by people within the group. Outsiders can grapple with that on their own.