lol, blingmaster.

Being directly (at that person) and intentionally cruel to someone based on a physical or mental condition is absolutely unacceptable.

But beyond that, what with being a Polish, fair-haired, meat- eating, unaffiliated political party, frugal, working mother in an IT job who wears leather shoes, if anybody wants to call me a dumb-Pollack-bubble-headed-blond-daycare-dwellin-kids-TJmaxx/Walmart-shopping-CZ/moissy-wearing-99-percenter-PETA hating-chicken-murderer-Independent-computer-geek, well, sisters, have at it. Oops, the thought police are at my door, gotta go....

Ahahahahahahahahaha, LOL!!


True. That's the other side of it. There's so much over which to keep abreast, perhaps we will all resemble robots!

That's why I try to take it all in stride and try not to get overworked (unless someone is deliberately mean and offensive). If I make a faux pas, I will apologize and learn, teach it to my kids. I will also gently correct people in a humorous, polite way. If they don't get it, hey, I did my part. I'll still go my merry way in either scenario. I realize to err is human and you'll usually get another chance from me, and I hope the same is accorded in return.

Hey, I was 15 at the time. A silly, little spitfire who always shot first and apologized afterwards. But really, I can learn in this ever changing PC world. It's something I wouldn't do today at 44.

I get the "Mexican" thing but don't at the same time. When I lived in Japan people called me American all the time. Canadians are obviously ont America, but I hardly took offense or even really cared. They saw a foreign person and picked a country. They were wrong, I said actually, I am Canadian and we moved on. I certainly didn't expect people to say "she is North American".

What is wrong with being Mexican? I went to school with people from Mexico and they called themselves Mexicans.

I'm not sure jcent. I grew up around many mexicans, Haitians, puerto ricans, jamaicans,, and cubans and they all wanted to be identitified as such. I think it's a culture pride thing and there is nothing wrong with that. when you're around all the different cultures, it gets easy to identify.

I can understand that, like I want to be identified as Canadian. But if someone calls me American, I am not upset. I just correct and move on. Like is it "bad" to a Mexican, within the Latin community? In Canada, we don't have a large Latin American community for the most part, so we generally say Latin American because we don't know. Or we would say Asian, because we don't know if Japanese, Chinese, Korean etc.... But making a mistake with those things doesn't seem like the same type of offence to me, as some of those unPC words.

I actually have a problem with this line of thought. Are we really not intelligent enough to use language without putting someone down? Can we not discard phrases born of hate, intolerance or ridicule and find more eloquent ways to express ourselves?

Yes, it can be taken to an extreme, but what I am talking about is being conscious of what's coming out of your mouth and actively assessing the situation. When I witnessed someone telling a friend of mine in line at a store that they hated bargaining but they were going to try to "Jew this guy down" I had a reaction. When kids talk about "Indian giving" my kids and I are having a chat afterwards. There are other ways to express ourselves that don't diminish others. That's all.

I agree. I used go never be able to tell culturally the difference for Asians or should I say nationally? I have since know many people who are taiwanese, Mongolian, Vietnamese, Japanese, and Chinese, and laotian. My friends sister who is Taiwanese, is convinced it's because of racism that people always call her Chinese, I say it's just complete ignorance and not in a nasty red neck way either, when you're not around different nationalities and cultures, how would you know? Heck some of her family even think "Taiwanese" is a
Racist term, they want to be called of Taiwan. That's a little much for me. It's my brothers ex fiancé and she thinks it's ridiculous too.

I agree e.Taylor, for nationalities I don't say nothing. I wait for the person to identify what nationality or culture they are. I think of myself as American but genetically I'm mostly native American, Irish, and polish. I have more
Polish and Irish pride because I know more about the customs and tradition than my native American roots. I was raised in a very polish area.

As far as words and not identifying people, yes I think it's just plain ignorant and rude and some people find nothing wrong with that. My own mom still says "coloreds," I try telling her it's really bad to some folk to say that but she just shrugs. It's a generational and ignorance issue I think more than anything. My own MIL thinks it's cute to say "Jew down" all the time and my FIL says "n" too, it's most definately a racism thing with them as they know no one who is jewish or black so they don't care and they believe all the stereo types too.
It's a big sore spot in my family right now, we're moving to Houston area soon and they are always saying "n's" do this, do that and not very nice things either, nevermind my husbands boss is black. But he just hasn't tried to do x,y, and z to me yet as they claim. Irritating!!