I don't defend anyone calling this man names. My point is to say I'd imagine those who are most critical of his being called such things are the same ones who think it's fine to call a black conservative anything they'd like and they do.
I am white and my best friend since first grade is black.
If you could only have heard the names we were called, mostly during junior high, it would have made your hair fall out.
Neither one of us went on a shooting spree and we both turned out somewhat sane. :-)
Being called the N word or anything so general wouldn't have passed muster. Names had to leave a welt or, even better, a scar.
Name calling was an evolving situation wherein when a newer, better, more humiliating name was invented, it replaced the one currently in use.
Names of course were triggered by any apparent physical difference--a diabetic would be "Needles", a person with a missing tooth or smile that showed too much gum would be known as Gums and God forbid if any sort of genital uniqueness became known.
The name sources extended to other family members as well. Alcoholic fathers were easy prey. Bookish older brothers and good-looking sisters too. If a guy had a sister who was "suspected" of being easy...his name was "Slutz" or "Skuzz" or "Crabs" or something much worse.
I had a friend whose father was a judge--this kid was first named "Cash" but that evolved into "Bags "(payoffs thought to be delivered in brown paper bags). The last name I remember for that kid was the truncated name of a rapist who allegedly delivered a bag of cash in return for his freedom. We all thought the judge had to be a crook because the kid was so devastated by the name calling.
Whatever the names, they had to be painfully true such that they were deeply humiliating. Somehow we knew (well I knew anyway) that facing this deep humiliation could lead to strength of character...a kind of psychotic boot camp.
The only triggers off limits for name derivation were mothers...and I think that was because, first, such could get you killed (particularly by some mamma's boy who went wacko under the pressure) and, second, because it might get back to someone's mother and then back to your own...mothers just developed into a kind of DMZ that was understood and accepted by everyone.
Name assignment was also a powerful way for the smart, little kids to level the playing field with the older, bigger guys. It also helped the smaller kids develop their capacity for creativity by inventing names that could cause/demand the big guys to give them respect...and it helped in developing fleetness of foot and agility on the playground (as in fleeing the scene before getting a @sswhupping).
In the final analysis, the Fort Hood shooter must have grown up in a very deprived environment if he thought "camel jockey" was bad. The kids in my neighborhood would have been a great help in his "growth" process.