>I dated a girl for a couple years who was black. When we were out it meant nothing to say, "Hey, check out the black guy over there talking to the blond girl with the pony tail." Not a big deal. Ever. I'm still great friends with her, and she is very proud of her heritage, but sees nothing wrong with using color as a description. The same would hold true when we would attend her church and I would be one of three non-blacks in attendence. I learned a lot about the subtleties of racism while we were together, but never was describing someone by their color an issue. Well, maybe once in awhile, but at those times it was obvious that it wasn't being used just to describe someone. I think the ones who have a great problem with it are the ones harboring the issues and are over cautious because they are afraid of being labeled themselves. We're all just people. Some are black, some are white, some have long hair, some dress like idiots, some are hot and sexy, some are short, some are fat,
>some are deaf, some are... Well, I hope you get my point. Not sure why this got to me today, but we have reached an absurd point of sensitivity in today's world of sappy, Flanderesk political correctness. Not everything is bad.

Using "black" or "white" or "tall" or "short" to describe someone so others can find them or visualize them isn't insulting. But combining those descriptive words with pejorative words, in my view, makes the pejorative stronger and more offensive, especially if the pejorative word is part of a stereotype about the group identified by the descriptive word. So, for example (trying to choose one that's less inflammatory than some others), describing someone as a "blonde airhead" is offensive to blondes generally, while describing someone as an "airhead" is about only the individual so described.

Tamar