Can't say it often enough: Ethnic "slurs" without structual violence to back them up are MEANINGLESS

[Smith_3]

I post this in response to some of the post I have read, stating, for instance, that calling the people that run the USA "stupid white men" or americans in mexico "Gringo" is a racist slur, comparable to "N**ger".

No, it isn't. One cannot be "racist" towards white people in a society that is dominated by white people in any way that matters. One can have an irrational (or sometimes a justified) hate towards white people out of a feeling of victimization, and that may certainly be objectible sometimes, but it is not "racism", in the sense of one group of people, per structual conditions, being worth less than another group of people.

In the same sense, it makes no damn difference how many times someone throws the word "honky" or "gringo" or whatever around. It will never be the same as "n**ger" or similar words for jews or asian people.

There was never a "gringo" in chains being legally sold to a non-gringo.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

1. Relax

Don't feed the drama queens.

[Indenturedebtor]

2. What if you grew up in a black neighborhood

Or went to majority black schools and had to defend yourself physically because of it as you were growing up? Do the words have meaning then?

Not mad at you, but it's easy to forget that in different communities there are different circumstances.

[yella_dawg]

3. So who hired you as the linguistic semantics Sheriff?

Look up racist. You're setting the bar awfully high there friend.

Are some racist words more hateful and painful than others? Sure. You're just pushing it too far.

[texasleo]

4. Women and minorities are born into victimhood. Didn't you get the memo?

:nopity:

[TahitiNut]

5. There is nothing "meaningless" about individual morality or ethics.

Just because INSTITUTIONALIZED bias and bigotry is the greater harm is no reason to trivialize or even condone the moral, ethical, and intellectual failing of bigotry.

Virtually every form of bigotry is merely another 'flavor' of objectification of human beings. Treating human beings, and our labor, as commodities is a fundamental corruption no matter which 'flavor' is being peddled. Treating human beings, including ourselves, as a means to an end rather than an end in themselves is morally corrupt.

[nomorenomore08]

6. Certainly, bigotry stings a lot more when practiced by those who can back it up with more than words

But I can't help but feel that some of this semantic parsing out of what is or isn't "racism," is an attempt to make distinctions between "bad prejudice" and "good prejudice." There's no such thing as good prejudice - some forms may be more or less understandable, or more or less harmful, but that doesn't make any of it morally right.