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It is so unbelievably foolish (IMO) that we have a first amendment that guarantees free speech, and we are at the same time trying to pass laws, er..."resolutions" that prohibit epitaphs like "nigger", "kike", "spic","wop",etc.
Even dumber is the fact that people are so uptight about it that we're expected to remove all similar sounding words from the English language, I mean, God forbid you should refer to a stingy fellow as "niggardly".
Pleeease. I want to run up to Rev. Al Sharpton with a box of Saltines and say, "What's in the friggin' box, Al??" and when he replies "crackers" then I want to haul him up in front of the media and hold him accountable for slurring me racially.
Yeah, OK, maybe I'm white and that has a little to do with my perspective- but then how exactly are you supposed to identify a race of people, or a person of a specific race?
Don't call them "colored" or you'll get the "Ain't nodody COLORED me, Honky!" or "African-American" "I'm not from AFRICA, FOOL!"
"Black" is the flavor of the week, but what about the poeple that are just kind of, like, brown?
Likewise don't call an Asian "Oriental". That was what they were called 20 years ago when I grew up and now it's a racial epitaph.
Now, I'm not so insenstive I would go around referring to somebody who was black as a "nigger", i.e. "I saw my neighbors the niggers at the grocery store"
but.... I think when we start outlawing words we are on a very slippery slope, and when we contextualize how the word may be used, all of the interpretations of that are not going to be in agreement.
I think we need to be tolerant of people calling us by any name they choose, I'm not keen on getting referred to as "Cracker" or "Whitey" and it won't make that person my friend, but I wouldn't think of litigating the usage of the term out of the language!?
How could anyone even consider this appropriate? Or, more to the point, LEGAL??
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