Each generation changes the words that are acceptable and the words that aren't.
The reason negro became offensive, is because of how that word was used, and what it it meant - not just a simple description of skin colour, but a delineation of racial status. That was replaced by a new word - which then became offensive because of how it was used.
It's about being sensitive to how words are and have been used.
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Yet this generation is not supposed to call ANYONE red skin because it was used as a derogatory comment how long ago?
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Not so long ago. Only just out of living memory. And used to describe a people who were the victims of an appalling genocide, by the people who committed that genocide.
Words have power.
@ Monster: I did not know that.