If someone called you a racist slur to you..what would you do?

[Dug]

Go about my day as I won't give a racist the time of day. If they're persistent and harassing me I may knock em down a peg or two.

[Dread Pirate Phayde]

While my skin is pretty thick, being a white male there aren't really any things that someone could call me based on race that I'd even notice

[Flutterguy]

Return the favor.

[Jayburner]

Probably would be meaningless to me, though I've been lucky. What I try to remind myself is that they only have power if you let them, since their meaning is largely constructed by your interpretation. To some degree, you hold the power over your mind. Getting frazzled by it means you've given them some real estate in your head for rock-bottom prices. Not a trivial thing to accomplish, as humans don't have complete control over their psychology or physiology, but possible. I suspect people who do have an intense emotional reaction to it have had a history of the word used against them in association with something punishing (e.g. gays being called fag is associated with being ostracized or physically beaten), so in one way it's a matter of psychological and somatic conditioning.

I read thru that whole spiel. My head hurts but my heart sings.

[Kraenen]

Ethnic slurs...against whites..really don't have the historical "punch" behind them to warrant anything more that a chuckle from me.

How could a kid growing up feel a "historical punch" though? To him it's just a guy calling him a bad name. He hasn't and can't have felt the weight of hundreds of years of racism unless that was taught to him as well. In short - ignorance may well be a virtue or at least a useful tool.

[Deleted]

How could a kid growing up feel a "historical punch" though? To him it's just a guy calling him a bad name. He hasn't and can't have felt the weight of hundreds of years of racism unless that was taught to him as well. In short - ignorance may well be a virtue or at least a useful tool.

You understand very little about this.

[Kraenen]

My head hurts

Well you are an alcoholic after all.

- - - Updated - - -

You understand very little about this.

What's wrong about what i said?

[Underverse]

Laugh at them. If they're using insults it means that they have nothing tangible to make a judgement on.

[Vightnic]

Depends on the context? Is this an aggressive and/or accusatory use of the slur? Or just a random rude joke kind of slur? I'm white, so either way it's hard to take seriously. The racial slurs for white people sound really stupid when said out loud. Honky... cracker... I mean it seems like just random shit that sounds funny.

[Maruka]

probably call them a filthy nigga and toss a couple at them

[Daws001]

How could a kid growing up feel a "historical punch" though? To him it's just a guy calling him a bad name. He hasn't and can't have felt the weight of hundreds of years of racism unless that was taught to him as well. In short - ignorance may well be a virtue or at least a useful tool.

Well, take me for example. Biracial kid growing up in the U.S. and frequently being asked what I was. You kind of go from there. Being told that I can't be black AND white and that I had to choose one, being called racial slurs, etc. I remember being called a racial slur by an adult when I was 11 and it was a gut check. Needless to say by the time I was a teenager I was already pretty sour about race and how it was viewed by others. I was very aware of the historical significance at a young age.

Keep in mind that the culture in some minority communities has adapted to navigating a white hegemony that undervalues them. This is passed on to kids as part of their rearing.

[Crayola Memes]

I was called a kike a couple times, but it didn't really affect me. I'm pretty proud of my Jewish heritage, so that pride might have just over written that statement. One time someone actually told me "I'm gonna become the new Hitler just for you" which was pretty jarring, I don't know if they understood the gravity of that statement or not, but they must have really hated me because that's probably the worst comment I've heard.

[May90]

I would comment on their race.

[Aeula]

Reply with an even more racist retort.

I'm white, we've got all the best racist remarks, anything they can call me is laughable.

[Frogguh]

I'm a straight white cisgender Christian male. I would accept the insult with humiliation and self-flagellation as the multi-phobic, oppressive, patriarchal purveyor of white privilege that I am.

[Alydael]

I would laugh at it. My friends and family routinely joke about our race/s etc, we aren't all uptight and PC. Who cares really?

[Doctor Deanster]

Nothing if it's just words but if it was something else, that's another box of apples.

[Raging Penguin]

Squirt them in the face with a water pistol and walk off laughing at how pathetic they are.

[vindicatorx]

I'm white. What harrowingly hurtful slur could they possibly use? Cracker?

Please.

Pretty much this I wouldn't really give a shit.

[Denkou]

I wouldn't really care.

I'm a first-generation Asian-American born in California. A few years ago I was in the midwest attending a football game. Pretty much 99% of the fans in the stadium were Caucasian, other than my dad and I. 99% of them were also very nice and pleasant, except for two guys (probably around 21-23 years of age or so) sitting not too far away from us. They kept turning to us and asked if we had any fried rice; not a racial slur per se, but still blatantly poking fun at our ethnicity. I just ignored them because they were obviously drunk and being obnoxious and nobody around us laughed or found it funny other than them. I had a blast at the game.