It brings to the fore a legitimate question: are words such as 'nigger', 'spic', 'gook', 'harp', 'nip', 'chink', 'fag' or 'gook' simply that, words, or are they more?
I've heard this argument made any number of times, that these are just words, and if people are going to keep getting offended by words like 'nigger' then they are setting themselves up for a lifetime of taking offense.
True enough in that any discussion on this issue, be it in the local newspapers, at the office water cooler, in an interview room at a police facility, on the internet, or in the halls of Congress or the United Nations is not going to change people's habits. It is not going to stop people from using these words, either in their most benign sense or their most derogatory.
I have also heard the argument as a question why, for instance, black people are so offended by the word 'nigger' when uttered by a white man or anyone from any other race, and yet are willing to toss it around with ease amongst one another?
