Context and audience matters
Just wanted to say, that context and audience matter.
What can be said to close friends or associates in a private setting is different from what can be said in public, and different from what can be said in a semi-public controlled environment (like a workplace). (This site is a semi-public controlled environment: It has public access, but is privately owned and operated, and folks posting are required to keep to the rules.)
Where (geographically) a comment is made matters, too. Having traveled, not a lot, but quite far, there are conversations I would distinctly not have in certain locales. I suspect that "Ginger" as a term has a different enough meaning in different locales that no single rule applies.
In my experience, lots of folks will overlook unfriendly speech in a public place -- to a point. After which, they will move elsewhere, or ask you to take your conversation elsewhere, or invoke an authority.
A work environment is entirely another matter. I can't speak to a lot of work environments, but where I work I almost never hear "unfriendly talk" (which very clearly disallowed). Here "unfriendly talk" means anything disruptive to the work environment, and usually includes politics or social issues, and always covers anything rude, demeaning, or hateful. That's unfortunately vague, but the entire guidelines would not fit into this note. I understand that to be more-or-less the rule for most work places, but, I also suspect that a lot of environments stray from the rule.
What all that says is that, at least for the current topic, generalization is rather less than useful.
Thx!
TomB
