Warren,
Probably it's safe to say that teasing/joking aren't the concern so much as whether one intends to hurt with the jokes.
There you go.
My buddy Gee, who is gay, calls himself a fag or a queer all the time. I'm not sure that someone who didn't know him *really* well would mean the same thing, exactly. I've known Gee for close to 10 years, and even *I* don't go there, even though he prods me (hey, now!) to be more playful with him (hey, now!) on the subject.
Try going down to Compton (CA, a tough mainly-black neighborhood south of LA) and yelling the N-word out your car window. You might get a reply along the lines of "Yo, what up, N____r?" You might get a reply along the lines of a huge can of whoop-ass. A lot of it will depend on whether you'd use that word to describe yourself.
Dave
Cultural Relativism Maru
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