Give me a break!!! I have been on construction crews where this makes no difference whatsoever! It's all in who thinks they are being offended! In my opinion, you have to be racist in order to be offended.
Among our crew, it was no big deal! Especially since my black friends use it without even thinking. Hell they even called me "******" on occasion because I was part of the crew! That's the thing, we were each others "keeper", ya know, like it says in "the book"?
Should I have fired them, or would that have been discrimination?
Offence is when the remark hits the target.
People know who and what they are be it skin color, or body shape. They also know if they are smart, stupid, moral or a down right scallywag.
That person hurt my feelings, A very fat lady eating Twinkies taking up the whole park bench can be an interesting sight until some 3 year old in their squeaky voice yells " Look at the fat lady" Kids bless them can cause embarrassment to the parents, may even get them a poke in the nose.
I have never experienced hate speech toward myself, I cannot tell what my reaction would be to having a stranger call me any kind of name meant to humiliate me. Most likely I would laugh it off unless the stranger got in my face and spewed curse words at me. Then I would consider the stranger either drunk or on drugs,
This reminds me of John Wayne in one of his movies made the remark "You better smile when you say that stranger".
