my mother made, to me anyway, a stupid comment about... "japs" taking over our (USA) country. I got rather annoyed by it because i don't like racist comments..

was i over reacting?

I don't think so...I don't like when people comment like that either. But you know you mother better then any of us...so I suppose it's your decision on whether she is truthfully being racist or not.

For example..my grandpa used to make cracks constantly about..well everything. Different races, homosexuality...a lot of people were really offended. But it was the way he was brought up and he was used to joking around like that. However, he had a big black guy as his doctor and absolutly loved him. He never made a racist comment except when we were alone...so we always just brushed it off after a while.

I don't think that saying something to a stupid comment is ever wrong though

I, personally, dont think its racist to say "japs". It is a little inappropriate cause they arent "japs", they are Japanese, but I wouldnt go as far as considering it racist.

If someone called me a rican, I'd be ok with it. Let someone call me a sp*c...

You know, while living in Japan, I heard it alot from the guys on base, and nobody seemed to mind. I never personally referred to them that way, my girlfriend at the time would have killed me. My biggest problem with those little nicknames is, while I was deployed to the mideast, everyone calls the local nationals "hajis or hajjs" and not in a referring to their trip to mecca way, but in a derogative way. I just say Arabs, cause it is a description of who they are and where they come from.

Luis, my best friend is PR and he despises that word. But then at the drop of a hat he will talk about his dislike for mexicans. I guess there is some real bad blood there eh?

Rican? he hates it? really? hrm guess its more of an opinionated thing then cause i dont care.

It can, of course, be made to sound derogatory. Like, when seeing a hispanic do something wrong, saying "dam* ricans" or something like that.

In school, my friends used to call me "brown man". Became my nickname for a while.

I hate when someone calls an arab a "haji" or something of that sort. That IS derogatory and unessessary.

No he doesnt like sp*c. But he will quickly start saying the same about mexicans, well the derogatory terms used towards them. When I was over there, I wouldnt let the troops in my shop use the word haj or haji cause it was a derogatory term, and I didnt want to hear it. I told them "They refer to us as Americans, you refer to them as Arabs or Qats, or Kuwaites, how would you like being referred as some bad name from someone while in your own country? You are a guest of theirs, treat em with respect"

kudos to you dude.

Lets just say I didnt win. hehe. The first commanders call we had, our commander popped out the word haji, and then they were like "well it seems to be the normal referrence here" I atleast tried to teach them some respect for others while in their country. After being a guest in over 20 countries in my time, I just have learned a thing or 2 about respect towards foreigners. My biggest pet peeve was those that lived or visited the other countries and were soo ignorant of their language. They made fun of it or made ZERO attempt to try to atleast learn a hint of their language. I figure it is the least we could do while in their country, you know, english isnt the main language in every country!! While in japan, I learned ALOT of japanese, just so I could dive into their culture a bit more, and you know what, I loved it even more. Because of my attempt to try to understand them, I was invited to be on the northern Japan weightlifting team, and was the FIRST American to ever do so. It was pretty cool being on the news.. hehe.. The certificates and titles I earned there are some of the proudest items I own, eventough I never learned how to fully read the language, I could atleast speak it. hehe.. Their language is sooooooooo very difficult to learn how to read. There are 3 types of lettering they use, kanji, hirigana, katakana. The last 2 are a bit easy as there are like 26 characters each, but the kanji there is over 2000. Forget about it!! Damn just thinking about it makes me miss it more! hehe.. That is the most important thing I believe we need to express though, is respect for others while in their country, its the least we can do. Soo many people take for granted what we have at home, that we dont even take the time out to realize how good we actually have it. I believe every American should take a trip sometime to a lesser off country and really soak in what we have access to in our lives.....

I agree 100% with that statement

It is just soo sad that there are soo many people here that dont even have an inkling of what goes on outside of our friendly confines of the borders here. !!!!, they dont even know what goes on in some parts of our own country! I want them to see what goes on in the market place in any Arabian country, see the immigrants to that country stacked up living in a 1 or 2 bedroom apartment just to try to make a living to support their family back home in their home country. It really opens up your eyes..