So this has been exploding on my Facebook feed, and it's sparking enough discussion I figure I might as well have one here too.

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This was my response I made previously.

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I think people are over reacting to Oprah. Her initial "woah" reaction to me seemed to be in jest/humor, she wasn't actually freaking out against it. And then simply warned Raven "You do know how others will react right?". Which, if any of our friends ever came out as something like that we'd probably warn them the same just so they know.

As for what Raven said? I think people need to remember we have terms like 'Gay' 'Homosexual' 'African American' etc. to act as ways to easily reference. So instead of going into long details it can be said easily, people already know what you mean. Her point was fine, but there is a difference between having a name for something, and not seeing something as human. Which is something a lot of people seem to have trouble telling the difference of.

I mean for a random example, Ketchup. Ketchup is a condiment even though has it's own name of Ketchup. Calling it Ketchup doesn't mean it's no longer a condiment, or less of a condiment. It simply means I can say "Pass me the Ketchup" rather than say "Pass me the red tomato condiment stuff".

(But then one someone replied with "The issue comes from using "African" as a qualifier to American, which many use as a means of discrimination on both sides" I answered with).

 I was going to say "I think that's just people reading too much into it".

But then it dawned on me we have nothing like african canadian, so you do have a point there. So if her criticism was strictly african american this would be the point I simply go "never mind, she's right" and be on my way.

But she mixed it in with LGBT, where there are terms like that for a reason. I mean for example Gay bars, LGBT community is in the minority. So they normally need specific bars to help find potential mates. A gay bar would be much harder if they were simply called 'people bars' or just sound really odd if it was called "Men who like dick bar".
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So that's my current stance/view on the matter.
Thoughts?