Daniel, who gives a shit about giving assholes another epithet? They were assholes before the vocabulary increase, and it doesn't increase their assholeness, it increases their vocab.

The school play when I was in 8th grade (1978) was West Side Story. I had to ask what Mick, Spic, and Wop meant.

What do Mick and Wop mean?

I just learned spic last year, when there was a "racial incident" on my campus. (And it wasn't even a real incident - the guy made up the story himself to get attention or something.)

I learned mulatto and mesquito (sp?) in elementary school history. So I'm pretty sure those aren't negative ones, cuz we were even tested on knowing those terms.

I never realized "gypped" came from that context (or even that it was spelled with a "y").

Hmm...Racial slurs are strangely interesting.

I learned mulatto and mesquito (sp?) in elementary school history. So I'm pretty sure those aren't negative ones, cuz we were even tested on knowing those terms.

Hahaha! Sorry. I still remember how the American History textbook at my high school referred "sun-basking Spanish Americans", and to Native Americans as "near-naked savages." We and the teachers were smart enough to know it was offensive and to discuss it in that context, but I strongly suspect many other schools let it slip by. Which is to say, just because a teacher was ignorant doesn't mean it's not offensive.

Oh, Mick = Irish
Wop = Italian

Mick = Irish

Wop = Italian

Neither are very nice, though I'd say that wop carries a greater blow. I might joke with an Irish person about being a mick - I wouldn't go there with wop.

Mulatto is more negative in what it implies (along with quadroon, octoroon, etc.) that there's something meaningful about your percentage of white blood. I'm not sure I'd call these outright offensive (though I'm not someone likely to hear them directed at me, so take that for what it's worth) but insensitive? Yeah. Harking back to a perception of race that would be better left behind? Oh yeah.

mesquito (sp?)

I think you mean mestizo.

From Dictionary.com: A person of mixed racial ancestry, especially of mixed European and Native American ancestry.

FWIW, I've mostly know mestizo to be used in Mexico/ Central America, and it doesn't seem to have the same negative overtones. IME, anyway. That might have something to do with being applicable to a fair majority of the population, so it seems more descriptinve than perjorative.

And the French/Amerind version is "Métis."

To me it is.

Then I'm happy for you. However, in the rest of the world, it's not necessarily the same -- including for actual mulattoes.

It is used, and often not nicely, and just because you haven't heard it, doesn't mean it isn't real and rude.

What do you want to reclaim next? Nigger? Cunt? Spic? Fat slob? Republican? Retard? Shylock?

If there's going to be a movement to dull the edge of "mulatto," DCJ, it's not going to be led by you, and I don't think you get to pick when it starts.

Doing my best to reclaim cunt.

Doing my best to reclaim cunt.

Seeing as you have one? You get to go to the front of the line on that one. Or ahead of DCJ, anyway.