All of these racial slurs mentioned in this thread were first heard by me coming from Archie Bunker’s mouth. Growing up in Georgia where everything was just defined as black or white, I had never heard anything except the n-word, a bunch of other colorful racial insults towards black people, and honky, cracker and peckerwood. I learned what a Polack was from Archie’s insults to Mike, and that made me aware of Polack jokes. It took me a little bit to catch on when he would say “We don’t want no 'Ski’s in here.” I didn’t know about words that referred to Italians, Irish, Mexicans and Jews.
I remember being about 12 and asking my mother, “What is a Hebe?”
She said, “You aren’t allowed to watch that show anymore!”
I was a grown-ass woman before I realized it was short (and derogatory) for Hebrew.
The whole concept of “offensive” is far too ill-defined or variable to have a singular answer.
To some people, the definition of “offensive” is simply “something that offends”. So, if I decide that I am offended by the word ‘yacht’, then (by definition) the word yacht is offensive. With this attitude, the only difference between “mick” and “yacht” is that if you surveyed everyone on Earth, there may be millions who are offended by mick, but only one who is offended by yacht. And thus (if you would argue, as most do, that yacht isn’t offensive) it all comes down to a popularity vote.
To me, no word is offensive. Only ideas are offensive. Thus, if you call someone a ‘mick’ with the intent to ridicule, belittle or subjugate, then I consider your intent offensive. However, if you call someone a ‘mick’ with no ill-intent behind it (as in, you simply believe it’s a fun nickname for Irish people in the same way that ‘kiwi’ is a fun nickname for New Zealanders), then there is nothing offensive about it.
When I was much younger and times were much different I would tell Polish jokes. If someone identified themselves as Polish, I would apologize and then start retelling the joke…only…more…slowly.
Yes, they’re offensive words. But they seem rather old-fashioned to me. If I heard someone use them in earnest hostility today in the United States, I would be distracted from the offense by wondering if they were perhaps bigoted time travelers.
Both are slurs against people for their ethnicity and/or country of origin. Maybe they’ve been reclaimed, but the default is that such slurs are offensive.
