Chuck,
See comments below:

wrote in message
oups.com...
Depends on context and intent.

Example: Two African American teenagers meet on the street and one
greets the other with, "What's up, ******?" They'll laugh and joke and
go on their respective ways.....

I (older white guy) meet either one of the same two teenagers on the
street and say,
"What's up, ******?" and all hell is likely to break loose.

To take the position that anybody should be able to say anything about
a group that certain members of that group say about themselves and
that doing so is not racist would be like stating that because you have
sex with your wife I should be free to do so as well.

No, I did not say any such thing. I stated the expression "HO" is used by
people of all ethnic background and is racially nuetral. It is an
expression used by people of a certain age, so if anything it was an age
related joke. ; ) Harry jumping on the joke was his feeble attempt to
appear superior to JohnH.

When Harry was joking about the double entendre concerning his boat "YO HO"
no one thought it was racist, no should they.





Some of that trash talk is culturally proprietary. Blacks use the word
"******" with one another, IMO, because it was a reasonably effective
way to take the sting out of a word that has always meant, "inferior,
subhuman, ignorant slave". IMO, the use of this word between two blacks
is an attempt to change its meaning over a period of time to "brother
of common heritage." (This is somewhat the same concept that
Christians applied when they turned the cross- the structure upon which
Jesus was executed- into the main symbol for the religion and a
positive, rather than a fearful, sign). When a white says "******", he
can't mean "brother of common heritage" and so the original,spiteful
meaning is always assumed to apply.

Was the joke racist? Possibly. Almost any time a white guy needs to
shift into the feigned, stereotypical accent of an African American,
Asian, Mexican, etc to get a laugh there is a strong liklihood that the
humor is racist in nature. I'd be surprised if JohnH could tell that
joke to a classroom of schoolkids in Baltimore.

I would hope that teachers are not making jokes about HO's or whores, but I
doubt if anyone would think the joke about white potatoes was racially
motivated.