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Originally Posted by Kuan
This is not about political correctness. Political correctness is about adjectives. It's finding a different way to describe someone's condition. Height challenged, for example, instead of short. What tkamiya is talking about is extending people the courtesy of treating them like they want to be treated. It takes absolutely no effort to not use the N* word. Don't know? Just ask.
When you use an offensive word, a curse word, and direct it at a person, you are commiting a speech act. It's not just a word, it's a purposeful word, with intent, and intension (with an s). They can hurt and be real painful. If you've ever been in a verbal fight with a loved one you should understand.
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These are very astute observations, as are tkamiya's. As I see it, the N* word in particular is distasteful as it has a very charged, hateful history. Far more blacks were chased down and lynched while being called N* than were whites who might have been called a cracker or redneck.
I don't see see how referring to a middle easterner as a rag head/camel jockey, a black a N*, or an asian a gook or jap is akin to calling a white a redneck. The history of hatred is just not there. At the same time, I don't want to dismiss the feelings that originated the widespread use of the word "jap" either... WWII was an ugly, ugly thing, and the Japanese in particular commited some outrageous atrocities in their campaigns. It would be hard to lecture a survivor of the Bataan death march, for instance, on etiquette of this sort.