I feel like the more we continue to label and divide people into these 'groups', the more issues we are going to have with race.
Identifying someone based on their race, gender, etc only serves to heighten the divides between people. Furthermore, it attempts to favor groups in the workplace or in the university simply because of their superficial characteristics, which ultimately means someone else is losing the zero sum game.
Let's begin with the obvious -- it is grossly impolite to use derogatory words about people based upon gender, race, ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation. If you are to call someone a bitch, then make sure that she barks and either has (or has had) the potential to give birth to puppies. Use some of those words in my classroom and you might have some explaining to do to the principal because I will refer you. Those are fighting words as nasty as F--- you (which as I understand it usually means "Get raped!", although I once heard a pair of gays at college using them so gently that I had no objection to them in that context).
That some people still act out of bigotry indicates that we need concern ourselves with basic politeness. I have experienced some nasty anti-gay and anti-Jewish bigotry, and I am neither gay nor Jewish. The Golden Rule still applies, so if you would not be saddled with deprecatory descriptions, then do not saddle others with them.
Oh, yes -- there is much ambiguity about some of these identifications. Is someone with an Irish father and a Mexican-American mother "Hispanic"? I would have never figured that Mariah Carey is black until I was told so and shown a picture of her father. Soledad O'Brien? Much the same.
It is best that we heed the advice of the great Dr. Martin Luther King and judge people by their character instead of by their color. But judgment on the basis of character can be harsh even if well deserved. Use bigoted language and your suspect character is exposed.
