Sheesh, he said '***.' Big ******* deal.
If he'd have said they had a bunch of big ole redneck boys in the lineup, nobody would have batted an eye.
Now, if we swap 'redneck boys' for '******** you get a whole different context. All of a sudden it's negative. Very negative. He'd be lynched. Mostly by white people, too. A few prominent bl;ack leaders who like to play the race card for publicity would get in their licks, but the people who would actually ruin the man for life....they'd be white.
It's easy to whip out an example relating black to white; that's my only reason for doing so.
Bill's allusion to Pearl Harbor in this case was complimentary. The Japanese DID pull off a coup at Pearl Harbor. He saw nothing wrong or insulting with the usage of the word, I'm sure. I bet no one who lives in Japan would, either.
*** is short for japanse, ****** is based on the mispronunciation of 'negro' by southern whites during the days of slavery.
Most racial slurs have their origins in innocent abbreviations or mispronunciantions of other words. It's the intent behind the usage that can make these words hurtful. By refusing to use the words ever or applying a negative connotation to every usage of them, you only grant the words themselves power. Making the words taboo won't make the bad thoughts so often linked with their usage go away. Nor does using such a word make one a bad person or unworthy of respect.
If you lost a lot respect for Bill Parcels over the use of a word ina non-negative context....well, he probably didn't want or ask for that respect anyway. He's just a coach trying to doa coaching job. Take his *** out from under the magnifying glass and consider him to be...a normal human being who may not necessarily hold the same views you do. And as long as he's not trying to push his views on you, why worry about his views?
My $.02,