Thanks. Personally, I think it can be a problem, but that the reality is often very complicated. Context and perception always matter. I have heard white people use the word nigger in ways that I found offensive and in ways that I did not. I have also heard black people use the word nigger in ways that I found offensive, and in ways that I did not. The crux of the matter lies in that there is a difference in how I am offended by the use of the word based upon who is saying it, and why they are saying it. Black people are able to use the word nigger in a way that I cannot, simply because part of the meaning that any word carries comes from the speaker. For that reason, black people using the word nigger does not imply acquiescence of white teenage boys to using it in any manner they see fit; it is not the word alone that carries the meaning. Therein lies the intellectual dishonesty about avoiding the word nigger in an educational setting that makes us uncomfortable. The word nigger in a class reading of Mark Twain is not the word nigger at a frat party, nor is it the word nigger in this comment. I have a friend that has a clothing store. In describing the style of her clothing, I have used the term 'gypsy punk'. You know what that means, and you know how I used it, much like Stevie Nicks. No doubt there are contexts where the word might carry other meanings, but as I use it in that context, as myself who grew up hearing Fleetwood Mac's song on the radio and hearing the word and using it in similar ways, the term gypsy is not a slur. To say that my use of the term gypsy is dehumanizing is similar to saying that the literature professor's use of the word nigger in readings and discussion of Huckleberry Finn is dehumanizing. But that isn’t to say that the word gypsy cannot be dehumanizing, or that some words have very narrow contexts in which they are not. We need to be comfortable with such nuance, because that nuance is intrinsic to communication. It is also what makes language powerful. As much as the speaker must be conscientious of the context and the meaning the word carries as it is spoken, the listener must be conscientious of the same. The listener has responsibility in their own interpretation. Words are not words alone, and the same sound does not always provoke the same meaning. We must be honest about this, because it is a truth of language that we cannot escape. My use of the term gypsy is not implicit approval of use of the word in a dehumanizing manner. A black person’s use of the word nigger is not an implicit approval of my use of the word in a similar way; although I can make the same sound, I cannot project the same meaning with that sound.Saying "I don't want them calling me out" or "I'm going to continue saying these things because free speech" is like saying "I know I'm saying the wrong thing, and I don't care that it's used for dehumanization", and that is a fucking problem.
You're right on all points, context is extremely important. What we have to be aware of, us as mostly white males aged 18-45, is that the oppressed groups get to dictate the usage of the words and their direction in our society. That's why black people can decide to reclaim that word if they want to, and that's why Eugene Hutz of Gogol Bordello is able to use the term 'gypsy punk' as he pleases. If these groups want to transform the word as they see fit, make it every day usage, that's their prerogative. And I think that's the direction the term gypsy is taking overall. However, it's very different than white people making light of the word. If a white group of people decide to open a store and say they're selling "gypsy clothing" and they live "in the gypsy mindset", it's very different than a Roma person selling clothing inspired by their experiences and culture for a multitude of reasons. I personally used the term gypsy for years, because of Fleetwood Mac. I had no idea the term had racist connotations attached to it, because that was simply the term that was used my whole life. And realistically, that's exactly how all racist terms enter the popular lexicon. Now when my Hungarian Roma friends moved here, they were appalled at how everyone asked them if they were gypsies. It was an absolute slap in the face, and for a while they were hesitant to talk about their heritage because they thought maybe America also wasn't receptive to Roma people. Their parents lived in fear of what that meant until realizing that Americans simply don't have that exposure to the word, the culture, the history. My friend explaining it to people was one where the user of the word usually blushed, apologized, learned something, and maybe walked away humbled and happy to know something., and made their parents feel more at ease over time. This is the power of call out culture. On the other side of that, when my step mother's family moved here from Romania, her hearing the usage of gypsy made her also believe that Americans were in opposition to Roma culture, which led her to spew racist vitriol about them to everyone around her, convincing many people that Roma were criminals and dirty and deserved to be kicked out of countries. Now there are people, including my horrible father, who've never had any experience with Roma people, who believe these things, because there's no voice in their lives calling out these things as racist or complicit in dehumanization. Stevie Nicks is a wonderful person by all accounts, and I wouldn't doubt if when writing that song, someone were to come up to her and say "hey, the usage of the word gypsy is fairly offensive. Many governments use it as a buzzword to incite hatred against our people", I believe she would have gladly revised the song, and something like that can shift public usage and understanding very well. Framing it purely as "it's violating free speech, it's a danger to society" is looking at it from the wrong perspective, seeing calling out as from a place of hate. And sadly a lot of it can be from hate and pitchforks. Ideally, I'd live in the world where calling out can be understood and purely educational; realistically, I'd prefer living in the world where calling out is around, if feared, because it causes people to watch their statements better, and we can work on collectively bringing people to understand a racist tweet someone made when they were 19 shouldn't spell their end of their careers. Also speaking realistically, I feel that the problem is being confounded with that of accessibility of dirt of people due to the internet age. I don't think there would be much of a difference in reaction of the people if a public figure in the 80's were found to have made racist tweets 8 years earlier if the technology existed back then. We can all collectively accept that people said stupid things in the past when they were young, but this is the first time in our history where we're forced to confront exactly what they said when they said it and physically seeing it with the name attached. It's just a matter of re-learning and re-evaluating forgiveness and privacy.
I agree with all of that. It's probably also worth considering that language is often more symptom than disease. Where language is hurtful, we are likely to find ignorance. Ultimately, we aren't after reducing hurtful language as an end to itself, we are after reducing the ignorance from which it manifests. The truth is, sometimes the greater ignorance exists on the part of the listener. IMHO this is why there is often a disconnect between older and younger generations on this issue. Often younger people see hurtful language as evidence of powerful ignorance, and while this is often the case, it isn't always so. It is a difficult and complicated matter that previous generations navigated a different culture, not only with different norms, but with different manifestations of language, even from those that actively sought to minimize their own ignorance (and that exercise wasn't even the same as it is today). Culture can have the same effect as time. Culture changes the context, the definitions of ignorance, and the meaning of words. It's an aspect of language that almost any word can be hurtful in context. In the end, we are interested in whether or not individuals are hurtful, and whether or not they are interested in being less so. However, the onus does not only fall upon the speaker to consider all contexts and the associated potential for harm. It is also the listener's responsibility to understand the context of the speaker, and to consider the meaning of the words within that context. To take the words that someone said and to obfuscate or modify the context so that it becomes harmful, or more harmful, is a hurtful thing to do.