TSGlider

Listen, there's a bit of a semantic loophole in this whole argument. Black vs. White.

Black people in America define themselves as African Americans because many of them can trace their routes back to Africa. The same way an Irish American traces his routes back to Ireland.

The difference of course is that black people are summarily defined, labeled, identified as "black," pejoritively or not. African American and Black are pretty much viewed as interchangable terms defining one particular group of people.

This does not happen to anyone else. The Irish American stays Irish. the Italian American remains Italian. They are both caucasian, or white, but it does not define them. Italian and/or Irish is not synonymous with the word, white. If I say, "She's white," you're not going to immediatlely picture an Irish girl or an Italian girl or a Russian girl, or whatever.

So if you ask me, don't compare this to Chris Rock's 10-year-old Cracker bit. Compare it to slurs that really hit home for specific "white" people on the terms that they really define themselves: A lot of Italians don't like being called a Guinea or a WOP. A lot of Irishmen don't take kindly to being called a Mick. The Polish don't always like being called Polocks. Jews don't really dig being called Kikes. Call any of them a cracker...well, of course they're not going to give two shits.

Just food for thought. Personally, I think this whole Imus thing is BS to begin with. There are a lot more important things going on in the world. And if this whole issue was about "being sensitive," the most sensitive thing would have been to ignore it altogether. None of these Rutger chicks could possibly be listening to 65-year-old Imus on a regular basis. The most offensive thing was calling it to their attention in the first place, and then parading them out in front of the world on every major news channel to comment on it.

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