i've thought of some further points to either clarify things more, or expand the position.
what you guys are saying about it being insensitive, i agree with this. it is insensitive. i actually am more sensative to these kinds of things than i'm letting on, i have been somewhat feigning a position for the purposes of discussion (it helped i was tipsy to start with). another way to say it is "playing devil's advocate", although from my perspective that expression is too dramatised to give an accurate representation - it's not quite that bad.
i would instinctively respect personal or cultural scarring, as you guys are suggesting i do.
i've often been in loud fun rowdy situations where various form of politeness and social convention are tossed out the window - if for a moment. and i find it interesting how spirits are kept high, and teh whole process is even felt as a significant RELEASE for all involved. building trust and bringing the group closer together.
the theory i'm bouncing around is that it has to do with respect. these kinds of rowdy social situations develop as the group gets more and more comfortable with eachother, trusting eachother more. trusting that when someone reveals something intimite - others will not attack - or if they do it is quite lighthearted. once ppl see that others respect them, and everyone in the group is on a similar level of respect, that's when these bonding sessions can break out - re/affirming or testing everyone's equality and the respect they all show for one another with social games as they play amongst themselves with the concept of respect - sometimes calling eachother names, attacking eachother, it may seem malicious to an outsider looking in.
this kindof thing is only partaken in people who trust eachother, good friends if you will.
if people just automatically respect eachother - as fellow human beings - then this changes the dynamics. this may the unspoken heart of be what i've been trying to explain. when you meet someone, you'd have to be an a**hole to attack them personally straight off the bat - "hi, i hate you"
.
when we are meeting new people we try to guage them, test them out, compare them to ourselves perhaps. and most importantly - we are testing to see how much respect they will give us (as much as we are perhaps summing them up to see how much respect we will give THEM). we all have our own guages, our values, that we sum people up with: inteligence, competence, money, beauty, aspects of their personality, how much affection they show us, etc. it's all relatively relevant to how much respect we will show them.
in america, most of us will no doubt loose A LOT of respect for someone who uses racial slurs. we automatically see it as showing someone who has a completely fucked up value system compared to our own. if someone would not respect someone just because of the colour of their skin and their heritage, it's just wrong, shallow, and offensive.
in america, this is what it means. if you use certain racial words - it is safe to assume that you will be a racist biggot and an ★■◆●. or is it? these days you can't deny the possability that whoever is using the slur is just an MTV watcher, perhaps ignorant, or perhaps trying to help erase stigma from the word. not nessesarily racist in the slightest. so these days it is NOT so safe to label people as racist. i'd even go as far as to say that you are being insensative to your own evolving culture if you believe that these words are SOLELY racist slurs anymore, you may even be a biggot yourself - refusing to give up your hateful views in the face of a changing environment.
so perhaps when someone says "wassup ★■◆●", thesedays you should be thinking less that "this person is a racist". because is he really?
leave your country, and the chances are pretty high that someone saying "wassup ★■◆●" is not a racist. you're not going to change the culture of the world, wiggers are everywhere, it will take some getting used to. eventually when people get more used to it, and stop getting the knee jerk "you ★■◆●ing racist!" reaction to hearing certain words, i imagine we'll also stop the labeling of these perhaps nieve kids as "wiggers". it may start with nieveity, but it may end up completely disarming a previously hateful word. you can feel the resistance.