Here is an interesting conversation, on LinkedIn regarding the use of racist words. This started off on the use of the N word in the USA and goes much deeper. There is a lot of really good input and some inevitable conflict.
It starts like this
“Dear Colleagues,
I am needing a bit of support after a challenging class (cross-cultural) and wanted to ask you all if you have you ever had the n-word (full word) used in your class ? If so how did you handle it? what was the racial/ethnic background of the students? And if yes, how many times in how many years teaching?
I am doing a social experiment as I have had it spoken (by non-black students) four times in the year and about ten times in papers, in a half that I have been teaching at ciis….and am needing to understand it in context….” More
And it has a fair amount of South African input too!
It makes a good read!
http://www.linkedin.com/groupItem?view=&gid=68078&item=ANET%3AS%3A115349406&trk=NUS_RITM-title