As far as I understand, VC is an organisation, not a race. Having VC parents does not make her a VC, and there are no “VC babies.”
By that logic, a Christian (for example) isn’t a Christian until they are an adult and make a conscious action to affirm that. From age 0 until 18 they are just “nothing”.
Hey, that’s a fine definition too. Just saying it’s not exactly realistic to expect that to always be recognized as being so.
It does seem weird though.
Peace corp babies?
Nazi babies?
Salvation army babies?
Red diaper babies…though I’ve mostly heard it as descriptive, not pejorative.
Any ostensibly innocent word can become an offensive epithet, depending on the intent of the speaker and the sensitivity of the target.
Even offensive epithets can become affectionate terms of endearment, depending on the same. The “Smile when you say that, pardner” effect.
I’ve heard of people signing up their kid to their soccer team as soon as the kid is born, but never of doing so with a political organization. Most of them have a minimum age in the double figures.
Growing up in the DC area, I always heard “JAP” used a slur, but in a totally different way. It was an acronym for Jewish American Princess. I prefer to say, “Potomac Princess” since the stereotype is really a function of the local culture than any particular ethnicity.
I think Archie Bunker really did a lot to popularize jap as a put-down, along with spic, fag and ay-rab.
All of those people are, you know! 
J.A. Prestwich made a damn fine motorcycle engine, however.
It started out (probably) as a derogatory term, and is still used sometimes in a snide manner. We just own it. Or we’re too dumb to know better.
Novelist James Michener in a “Playboy” interviewed said he used to use the word because he thought it was a short, easy to pronounce word that someone could easily know what it meant. His wife Mari Yoriko Sabusawa told him not to use the word. He used it again and she said more crossly that William Randolph Hearst used that word to demonize her people. He used it a third time and she said “one more time and I will shove this glass cup down your throat.” That convinced him not to use it.
Those terms were already widely used as put-downs.
Given that Michener served in the Pacific during World War II, he should have been a little more sensitive to the word’s connotation.
My wife’s parents were interned in the same detention center (Amache, in Colorado) as Mari Yoriko Sabusawa. If I were ever to say “Jap” around my wife, she would not stop at shoving stuff down my throat.
“Paki” absolutely is a serious ethnic slur. In the UK. It is not a serious ethnic slur in Pakistan. So a Pakistani who lives in Pakistan or America isn’t offended, but a Pakistani who lives in London would be.
I’m sure that if you went to Japan and asked Japanese people if they were offended if you called them “Japs” or “Nips”, they’d say no because the term is only an ethnic slur against the Nipponese in America.
Likewise, “nigger” just means “negro” which means “black”. Feel free to use the word “nigger” in your everyday conversation, and when people get upset just explain the etymology of the word to them and that is sure to defuse the situation.
An ethnic slur or an insult requires two parties, the person making the slur and the person hearing the slur. A term that is insulting in one context for one person might not be insulting to another person in the same context, or to the same person in another context. Different people in different context find words differently insulting, and it doesn’t make sense to complain about it.
I hope my Austrailian heeler doesn’t start calling my Welsh corgi a pommy. That could cause dissension in the pack.
Yes, you should be offended. It is not meant as an endearment.
The only people I ever hear referring to Americans as Yanks are people I know do not like Americans.
My grandmother for example. She will say Yank instead of American and when she says it, it sounds like she’s spitting.
I don’t think the word Yank is ever used in the UK or Australia by people who like or are indifferent to Americans - only by those who are bigoted.
Tragically, there are very many people who dislike Americans for no real reason at all. My sister for example holidays in Hawaii every year. She loves it over there, except that “there’s so many bloody yanks”. Bizarrely, she is a huge consumer of US culture, as are most Australian and British anti-American types.
i have heard many Australians in particular say that ‘yanks’ are big headed and loud mouthed. The thing they don’t realize is that they only notice the loud, obnoxious Americans, and not the quiet polite ones. The real irony is that Australians have become increasingly loud mouthed and jingoistic over the past couple of decades.
Honestly, there are a lot of words (Bum, Fag) which can be offensive in one version of English but not the other.
But no-one should castigate a Brit for using fag or a Yank for using bum.
In the end, this is a American board. True it has a lot of International members, so if “Paki” was offensive everywhere BUT America, you’d have a point. But to think that the whole rest of the world has to conform to one tiny island is unresonable. If you think “Paki” is a slur, you should not use it.
Dont try and foist your slang on the rest of the world, dont bring your prejudices here.
Imasquare; many Southerners here in the USA use “yank” as a slur also. In fact to some of than “Damnyankee” is all one word.
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Dopers said it isn’t regarded as being offensive in Australia. It may be in Canada, but I’m not sure. It probably is in India, but then, so is ‘Pakistani’. What’re you gonna do? 
And while I’m not sure what your point here is, I feel I should point out that it isn’t, at all, an exact parallel to nigger. That word had no context or reason for existence outside of a racial slur, although I believe it has been reclaimed to some extent by black people. ‘Paki’ is an exact parallel to ‘Jap’. It is also something of an exact parallel to ‘Brit’ and ‘Aussie’, with the (very) slight difference that those haven’t been used as slurs in your tiny corner of the world.
It also doesn’t make sense to take a word that is insulting only in a certain very limited context (either the person being referred to or the person making the reference is a brit) and insist that its usage be moderated in all contexts. I’m not saying you’re doing that, but that was certainly the position of a large number of people on the previous thread where this issue was debated threadbare.
Just like trekkers don’t like to be called trekkies and bikers don’t like to be called bikies I guess. Though of course they are not remotely on the same level as certain racial slurs. This Aussie thinks it’s all a bit silly.
I’ve not reacted negatively to being called a Yank, since it’s not an insult in my (American) culture. The word has no “charge” for me. I have reacted to being treated rudely in London, though. Not the warmest people.
Now, being pegged as a rosbif when I was in France? That stung.