well, i guess i'm not done defending myself. i have an hour more to kill at work.

i spent a few years being captain pc myself, calling people out for using "***" in whatever context, explaining that, even if they didn't have anything against *****exuals, that the pejorative nature of the term is rooted in homophobia, being mr. activism whenever i heard a slur in any way, shape, or form. i still do call out my elder relatives when they pull out the term "coloured" or about how they locked their car doors when they saw a black man in their suburban part of town or whathaveyou, because they actually have systematic insecurities and deeply-rooted suppositions about non-white people. i've never been able to get my WWII relatives to stop calling the japanese "nips," but i've brought it up with them on more than one occasion. hell, i still wear my dickies jacket with my aus-rotten "**** nazi sympathy" backpatch. oh, the good old days of being ultrapunkrock. however, to get to the point, i've found that, among friends, not all of whom are white, heterosexual, males (i surprise, i know), there is harmless fun to be had in exploiting bigotry. i know that this might seem impossible to you, but, once everyone (in a group of friends, people you know) agrees that racism is totally ridiculous, and are in a non-hostile environment, racism can be funny -- not because it denigrates people, at all, but because it's so ridiculous that people actually believe that black people are all thieves, or <pick your stereotype>. being white, male, and heterosexual, i am perhaps on suspect territory by default, but, frankly, i see no disanalogy between me finding stereotyping and racism funny and any comic making his or her career on exploiting stereotypes about their ethnicity and those of anyone else. hell, nothing, not even "mongoloids" (ha... ha... ha...), are funnier than honkey-ass nascar white trash and middle-aged white flight suburban parents who are afraid of their kids listening to rap music. i do happen to be part of the most privileged class in american society (and arguably, the world), but typing me as their "poster child" based on a single comment that i've made is no better than any other type of stereotyping.

believe it or not, it really is okay to jokingly make fun of other people, especially when it is non-malicious. every group of friends that i know (not just mine) engages in this to varying degrees. my jewish-vietnamese girlfriend and i enjoy joking about her being a submissive "oriental," and me being some lecherous asian fetishist sketchball, or whatnot. it's funny, because that sort of thing is hilarious. it's hilarious when people see us together and give me looks like "that guy is a ****ing pervert." i take everything with a grain (or three) of salt. the world is too damn funny to get pissed at everything. that said, you have to "fight the fight" when it needs to be fought. i suppose we draw different lines. i guess there need to be hardliners out there, but i am not one of them.

what i will concede to you, mcatano, is that i may have incorrectly assumed that the people on this forum were familiar, and lax enough, to take things in stride and be able to have a little fun at giving each other ****. alas.

eddiebrannan -- i am a total ****ing hipster, based on some definition or another. i'm sure that you are, too. i mean in that in the best of ways. and, yeah, i definitely know that you're not giving me **** directly. just to speak to your point, and i have emphasized this several times, but i really do think that there is a lot to be said about context and intentionality, which is where you are likely to see someone arguing a difference between the construction worker and mr. hipster. whether or not the hipster's prattle crosses over and ends up producing truely racist attitudes, i don't know. that's what we'll find out when people my age are 40 and 50, running, blech, the country.