** THE RETURN OF STANRY ROO HAS RETURNED **

Yeah none of the people in that article had much of a negative reaction beyond a mild dislike of the effect. Hell one of them even sought it out to get an A on his project, the other was a social experiment.

I also think it's disingenuous to lump being a meme with going viral. The two are related, but not the same. The worst example of that article, the Interior Semiotics I would argue is not a meme. It went viral and went through the 4chan grinder. Internet infamous yes, meme no. There is also a difference between private individuals who get their photos/videos leaked online and torn to shreds in the hands of the darker parts of the internet (which BSN at its worst never even scratched the surface of, let's be honest) and public figures who get satirized based on their actions. Despite the racist filter, Woo was not attacked personally, or if he was, that's entirely separate from the meme which deals primarily with his frivolous banning. Even though Woo used his real name as it was his job at the time, the meme is a reflection of an online persona, not the man himself. Similarly, the "shiva kid" or the "scumbag guy" or similar image memes that use somebody's likeness use that specific image at their core, and are not about that individual person. Unless the individual is specifically being targeted for harassment, I do not agree that it should have any negative impact on the subject of the meme.

Actually that's exactly what it means. I trust you saw the mention of polls as recent as this year that suggest the majority of people, including a majority of polled Native Americans aren't bothered by it. I'm not going to get into whether they were conducted properly. But why is that I wonder? Is it because Native Americans identify as "redskins" or consider that a negative term? Personally I'm not even sure why "redskin" is a term for Native Americans as outside of cartoons, none of the Native Americans I've seen on TV or real life have been particularly red. Same with you Asians actually. You don't look yellow to me at all. Come to think of it white people aren't white either. What's going on here?

But the real point is words are arbitrary. One word is not inherently better or worse than another and a word by itself doesn't matter. It's just sound. It's the meaning behind words that matter and the meaning comes from people. And the assignment of meaning to specific words is also arbitrary, assigned by convention. We just decided one day that the sound "red" meant lightwaves of length ~ 700–635 nm being reflected at ~ 430–480 THz off of stuff (apologies to linguist and etymologists for butchering the evolution of language to make my point). It'd be weird but if we collectively really wanted to, we could change our convention so that "red" now refers to lightwaves of length ~ 635–590 nm being reflected at ~ 480–510 THz off of stuff (orange btw). Who's to say we're wrong? Now say "red" didn't mean red but meant something bad. And over time, or as the result of some major change, we forgot what the bad thing red used to refer to was but now thought it'd make a smashing word to use for light at 700-635 nm and all that jazz? Why shouldn't we use it? It's just sound. The meaning behind it, what made it bad would be gone gone. It's a net positive that we have a neat new word for a frequency of light instead of whatever bad thing it denoted before. So it can only be a net positive if "redskin" denotes a kickass football team instead of an ethnic slur (OK, I don't football at all but even if the Redskins suck, the point stands)

No, forgetting the original meaning of a currently negative word isn't just OK, it may be the only way to remove that negativity for good. Existing ethnic slurs were created because racists wanted words to denote and espouse all the hate they felt towards those that were different. If we're working to decrease and eventually remove that hate from our people, it makes no sense to keep the words, even walled off alive. Because by telling someone "you can't say redskin, or chink or " you're keeping the bad meaning associated with that sound and thus the concept endures.

And far be it from me to argue with the noble G'Kar, but there's a difference between being kind and being PC. Being kind is a matter of intent. Political correctness denies or ignores intent altogether and is a slippery slope that is already going too far in certain places.