3 ms·

interesting question: if you've genuinely _never_ heard that X is a slur, and you innocently use X, is it offensive? I for instance never had heard anything ne

• genuineresponse 1y ago
  The answer to your question is "yes, but typically only very mildly". Offense is not some Boolean, and intent matters in determining how offense something is. For example, a kid reading Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn might unknowingly repeat a word they learned from that book that we consider extremely offensive today. We'd probably all pause that conversation and explain that they should not use that word. Ideally, most folks upon learning that a word is offensive go, "oh, apologies, I had no idea" and the other party goes, "No problem, now you know" and everyone moves on. Doesn't have to escalate, doesn't need to be bigger than that.