Originally Posted by Nightshade
OK let me break this down to simple english...
Your personal feelings don't mean shit nor does the way you said it or intended it. If the person hearing it takes offense they can cause problems for you by reporting it to your employer...if your employer does not take action and it happens again the person hearing it has a case for "hostile work environment" which can make for quite a large lawsuit. The company becomes responsible for it once it has been reported.
Again, regardless of how you said it or meant it doesn't mean jack shit.
This is one of the first things you learn when entering the proffesional workplace, especially when dealing in office type jobs.
...I'm in a professional workplace right now. Do I say whatever I want? Of course not. I don't think I've ever said anything remotely racist or made any racial jokes. We have like 10 asians in my office out of 50-60 employees. But I think we should be able to live in a society where people can joke around and some moron who's having a bad day doesn't call his lawyer sue him for making a racially inflammatory comment. I obviously understand restrictions on speech, but only up to a point. I think it's horrible to call a black person the N word because of the history of that word, even though technically the word originated as a slur for any lazy person of any race. I think 'wetback' is horrible or 'gouk' or 'cracker' or any of those are pretty shitty for a person to use, but just joking around and trying to have fun is totally different.