Freudlyuchenko said:
Well I am a Jew and I reffer to us 'Spurs' as the Yids, but if we were to drop the name I'd be fine with it as long as we got another one syllable name
Have you ever discussed the term with your family?
I think I'm perhaps sensitive to it for a number of reasons. Firstly, I am old enough that my grandparents were of wartime age and my grandfather's family left Eastern Europe just before the age of Nazism. However, many extended family members remained behind and ended up in the concentration camps, so I don't take any ethic profiling easily. Plus, I am actually, some would say, only half Jewish. I am Jewish on my maternal side. As you know, if the blood runs through the mother's side than that makes you fully Jewish, irrespective of your father. My father is of Scottish Christian origin. It was actually this mixed marriage that caused offensive names to be said towards each side of the family, which was not pleasant. I do not often refer to myself as a Jew because I do not practice the faith itself (as I am an agnostic) but racially I am.
In addition to this, with some irony, my most recent long term relationship was to an Iranian (non-practicing) muslim. Plus, after 15 years in immigration law I have seen many different types of people and many different racial mixes.
So, you see, the potential impact of any sorts of racial slurs or profiling is very, very real to me. I take it very seriously. In the modern age there is no place for it. Making a racial slur that still causes offence socially acceptable is the first step towards segregation IMO. We need to move beyond that and all live together as human beings, not seperated and degraded groups.