Clarification/Follow-up by ETWolverine on 08/01/06 5:34 pm:
With all due respect, Jack, I have been on the receiving end of more bias and anti-semitism than I can possibly count. I had 90% of my family wiped out in the Holocaust. I've been fighting against racism for over 30 years. Jews are, in fact, the only minority that is not treated as a minority in the USA... we are fewer than the Blacks or the Hispanics at less than 1/2 of 1% of the US population, but we are not granted minority status. So anti-Jewish racism in the USA is rampant, and there is no group that advocates on our behalf as minorities, unlike the Black and Hispanic communities. And I've been dealing with it since I was a kid.

That said, if someone said that they were being "jewed" (as in "cheated") I would not take direct offense and the term, because I know that the person in question is NOT using the term in a racist manner. He is simply stating that he is being cheated. I MIGHT let the person know that the term "jewed" was taken from "Jew" and that it has a derogatory connotation, but I certainly wouldn't take offense since it is a common usage.

Similarly "tarbaby" as used by Romney, was NOT a racist usage, and I think that is fairly obvious. Would it have been right for someone to point out that the usage might have a derogatory connotation? Yes. But the endless calls of racism are unfounded because the term was not intended as a racist term, but rather in its ORIGINAL NON-RACIST usage.

Another example: if I said I was feeling "gay" today because it is a beautiful day, and so I feel happy, would that have homosexual connonations? Not the way I used it. Would gays have the right to call me homophobic for it? Again, not the way I used it.

If I was feeling so "gay" that I decided to visit "Queens" but ended up seeing something "queer" occur during the trip, and stopped off to buy a "fag" to smoke on the way, I still wouldn't be homophobic, because I was using each of those terms in thei ORIGINAL USAGES and had no intent to use them as racial epithets. Same with Romney's usage of the words "tar baby" to mean "a sticky problem".

Intent is important... that is why black people can call themselves "nigga" and not be called racists: they don't have intent for the term to be racist.

Elliot

Clarification/Follow-up by tomder55 on 08/07/06 11:36 am:
but he was not making talking about anyone . it was used as the equivalent of a quagmire which apply accurately to the literary reference .

No I would not be upset about being called wop . I have been called worse even on AW . People have to lose their sensitivity especially where as I suspect ,most of it is contrived .