Originally Posted by Izzibeth

I think you are way overgeneralizing here. Way. If I am in my office and I walk up to an Asian person and say "Hey, chink!" you think I won't be fired because I have darker skin? If I said to a coworker, "How you doing, honkey?" (which doesn't have anywhere NEAR the same connotation as 'nigger' or 'gook' or 'kike', by the way) you think I would be able to get away with that? No.

There is a difference between a majority group (who, at one point in time has exercised some form of major discrimination and/or violence against EVERY OTHER minority group in the area) calling minorities derogatory names and minority groups calling majority groups names. Neither side should do it. But there is a difference. Dehumanizing through name-calling is a way to exercise authority and superiority over a group of people. Whites in this country have most of the control and have had it since this countries inception. Minorities do not. A LOT more goes along with words like "nigger" and "gook" (think violence and oppression) than goes along with words like "cracker" and "honkey" (think... what do those words even mean? and could you tell me where they came from without looking it up on the internet right now? cuz i could tell you where the words used against whites came from).

In the end, the solution is not for minorities to use "slurs" against whites. But, #1. claiming that non-white people can get away with racism is a laugh and, #2. claiming that "slurs" directed towards whites carry the same weight as slurs directed towards non-whites is also ridiculous. The history of words is important and the word "nigger" is a lot more violent, vicious, and intentionally hurtful than the word "honkey" ever could be. When a white person calls a black person a "nigger" they are essentially saying what Richards said all those months ago,... that the black person is not worthy of speaking to that white person and is equal to the worth of a slave... perhaps they may even believe that the black person should be a slave and dream of "better days" when black people didn't even have the 'privilege' of speaking to whites. That is where the word comes from and, even though black people have tried (and failed in my opinion) to "reclaim" the word.. that is what it means. Slave. Worthless. When a black person calls a white person a "cracker"... I don't even know what that means (from what I understand it is derived from the sound of the whip when whites used to beat blacks during slavery in America - and also the word was actually worn like a badge of honor for a time and white people called THEMSELVES 'crackers' out of pride... then the word slipped back down to simply referring to all whites... so unlike the word 'nigger' which has ALWAYS been racial... the word 'cracker' originated from slave speech and had less to do with race than with the instrument used by slave owners to beat the slaves and morphed into a racial term)). But I certainly don't think of violence and hatred directed towards whites when I hear it. If anything, you'd think of more violent imagery towards slaves, knowing where the word came from.

So yeah... non-whites in the real world can't go around saying racist isht and not get in trouble, believe it or not.