What is a SLUR?

I have been told I used a slur. I've been puzzled ever since. What is a slur anyway?

Defined it is:

• Terms of disparagement are pejorative terms such as yid, kike, nigger, whore, slut, fag and queer whose use usually arouses painful feelings in the target, members of the targeted group or sympathizers. They may also signify derision for people of specific geographic areas, such as Mick, Kraut and Jafa.
  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_slur

My opinion, a slur is any word or words used to intentionally demean or designed to make another person feel less than they are.

What about words used in a context that had no such intention? If another was offended was that a slur? I've been thinking of that and have come to the unpopular conclusion that it is NOT. That doesn't take away from the pain. It just may be word in the language.

When I grew up we hauled rocks off the fields. There were big round balsat stones we called Niggerheads. I never knew what that meant. It's just what we called them. It's not good language in today's culture. But that's what they were to us in rural 1950's North Dakota.

And Brazil nuts. I didn't know they were called Brazilnuts until I was in college. I thought if you went to the store to buy them you would ask for Niggertoes.

If I offended people then I had no idea. I was free to love anyone because there wasn't any constraint placed on how I could love them.

I'm being a little rough there because I think there is a drift that has taken place in our culture to have become so sensitive and so over careful it has the net effect of stifling and stilting relationships.

Peggy and I lived with a negro, (or black, or maybe I'm supposed to say African American today) family for a long time. We loved them. They loved us. We were very close and today I miss seeing them.

There was one thorn in our relationship. This was during the 60's. Words and their meanings were changing. BOY was the wrong way to address people who were black. I had grown up saying things like, "Boy did you see that?". Boy was a way of giving emphasis.

It was a long time ago.

With Ike I had a hard time because I wanted to be natural around him. I loved his wife Dot. I would never do anything to harm or hurt them. Oyemun and Atu their boys were both born when we were there. But when I would say BOY he didn't react but I found myself controlled and unnatural. It was a barrier in our relationship.

I think we may have pushed the envelope on forbidden language too far. I'm all for taking the N word out of circulation. There are some others we can do without. But how far do we go before the language is denuded of all capacity for free expression between people?

If we are going to go that far perhaps we need to eliminate Bald, Fat, Old and Pale. Yea, now I feel better.

OR

Maybe as Larry the Cable Guy said in one of his monologues, "We need to get the thumb out of our mouths, grow up and get over our old prickly sensitive bad self".

I don't usually cite Larry the Cable Guy as the paradigm of sensitivity but isn't there some allowance for just being clumsy sometimes. Maybe our culture has become thumb suckers who need to grow up and get over it.

If I'm going to be in relationship with you do I have to get new eggs to walk on? Or maybe I'll just skip the relationship.