Well this clip from a UK tv show in Alabama may change your mind.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYQy9qm8sGk

The reason atheists do not get this treatment is because they are (most of the time) intelligent enough not to do daft things (hey! maybe that is why we are freethinkers) and fortunately we might think we know what someone is thinking but we can’t see it. Not like skin colour to a racist. But why not go down south with your “I’m an atheist and proud of it” -shirt on and see how you get on. Go to an open air rally and start quoting from Dawkins. I dare you.

The usual theocrats and opponents of secularism are stunningly silent on this incident–and you can’t say that this hasn’t hit the mainstream media. The fact that they haven’t embraced, or at least defended her may mean there is a place of bigotry where even they won’t go.

I’ve written more on this here.

Something about Sherman’s words struck me as offensive the first time I read them. There’s something …well, something made me uneasy when a white man referred to a black woman as a Negro, whilst comparing his situation to that of Rosa Parks, whilst saying that the black woman should understand what it’s like to be discriminated against.

My first reaction was that he was basically calling Davis what white males called Rosa Parks in her time: an uppity, uh, to censor for today, Negro.

Now I see it differently: it was a hasty attempt to appeal to her status as a minority to understand the quashing of the rights of a minority outside of her own.

That said… black Americans were brought here in chains and forced to work under bondage for over 200 years, and then when freed still were treated as second-class (or worse) citizens for another 100 years, and now 40 years later there’s still enormous gaps between white America and black America. We atheists try to compare ourselves to other minority groups in America in order to build understanding, but, seriously… when was the last time a guy was dragged behind a truck for not praying? Or beaten, tied to a fence, and left to die because he was caught reading Dawkins?

So, yeah, Sherman said something that was worded pretty badly, and if we pretended that it had instead read:

Now that queers like Representative Monique Davis have political power

We probably would kindly ask Sherman to reconsider his words. …right?

That all being said, he used a non-neutral racial word after being told by a state representative that his people were destroying America. Everyone involved had a bad day, and cooler heads a week and a half later are thankfully calling for beneficial dialogue.

Signed, an Albino Limey.
Funny. I’ve never considered limey a slur, but it’s in that database. Now lobsterback on the other hand….

If you ask Wikipedia, “negro” is totally an ethnic slur (there are 3 citations!)

Wikipedia is scarcely an authoritative source, and this is one of the times when it really wasn’t a good choice at all to prove a point. If you actually check out those Wikipedia citations, they don’t hold up very well.

The first citation links to an online dictionary which says the word ‘Negro’ is sometimes offensive, which means it isn’t always. Then it refers the reader to the usage notes under ‘black’, and those usage notes don’t say it’s offensive at all, just outdated.

The second citation is to an article about changing place names in Florida, and it makes it clear that in the names they are changing, it was used as a substitute for the other ‘n’ word.

The third citation links to a ‘database’ of ethnic slurs that includes a lot of words that are not really slurs at all, except when used as intentionally as such, for example: Canadian(?), coalminer(??), and sputnik(???). It’s far from an authoritative source, since the original database basically consists of everyone contributing anything they think is a slur, which is hardly a rigorous criteria for inclusion.

I’m with Karen, Mriana, Laurie et al – it’s not necessarily offensive, just outmoded (I’m 52, for what it’s worth). I don’t use it, because I move with the times, but neither would I automatically think that anyone using it meant it as a slur.

You especially need be conscious of these things if you are a civil rights activist who is working towards consciousness-raising.

In all honesty, I view this man as a throw back to a different generation, who in the heat of the moment went back to old words, which were acceptable for his time

I agree with this. The word is outdated but it’s clearly not pejorative, and I don’t know why people think it is, unless they’re confused about language.