Uhm, ****** comes from negro.
Also, I have never seen the word ****** be used for anything but for the derogatory meaning, or else somebody being stupid and making a cigarette / piece of wood pun.
If you're going to make one of them bleeped, the other should to. It just makes sense. Personally I would censor neither, but if people be scoping these forums, it may be for the best.
Also, that's pretty lame that South Park switched foot on the "fag" thing. I thought they were right on with the "******guy" episode.
They weren't saying it wasn't derogatory. In fact they went out of their way to say it was. They were saying it was derogatory, but detached from homosexuality at this point.[/QUOTE]
Oh, well, good on them for still saying it's derogatory. But the whole detached from homosexuality is kind of flimsy. Here's why: homophobia, and those words regarding homosexuality is based on a way of psychologically affirming one's non-homosexuality by proving the homosexuality of an other.
So, let's culturally remove some other derogatory terms, shall we? Did you know ****** (the n-word, for the censors) now means chipmunk?
It's funny to assume that just because SOMEBODY doesn't use the word in a denigrating way, that suddenly everybody isn't using it in a denigrating way. And it's really funny to see people cloying to straws about using a word and covering up in faulty rationalizations than just accepting that a word is offensive.
You can be a good person and understand cultural diversity and still use that word--but if you really understood its implications, it would be in the sarcastic or absurd sense every time.