[drc]

Observation rather than judgment: My experience is that the people who get really offended over a un-PC term are a vocal minority with the 'offended' minority. The press likes to report on the people who scream the loudest and are the most obnoxious from either side of the political spectrum, and who is the loudest and most obnoxious is usually is an aberration not the norm.

Two stories:

My sister is a biologist and worked on an archeological dig at a Native American reservation. The honkey archeologists from the big city would refer to the Native Americans there as Native Americans. Finally, one of the Native Americans said (politely) "We don't like to be to called Native Americans. We call ourselves Indians."

My second story is I had a new friend who is Mexican-American. Being worried about offending, I timidly asked "Do I refer to you as a Latina or Hispanic?" She replied, "I don't care."

So, what we assume a group thinks and what they think are often not, well, what we assume. Often times PC terms are our creations for them, and not something a minority group ever signed on to. As the Indians at the archeological dig would say "Native American is your term, not ours."

In general for these types of symbols, I think it's important to poll the group. If they are universally offended by it, then I wouldn't use it. If they aren't offended then they are aren't. But notice that both these instances involving looking into what the group thinks and not assuming to know what they think.

And, as I've said more than once, all you have to know about the worth and accuracy of human labels is that black people aren't black and white people aren't white. As for me, I'm sort of a pinkish tan.