Bingowings said:
The Tuskens and The Jawas were there first but do they have a say in local government?
Do they hold any position of authority or privilege?
All we see them do is serving the oppressors by tidying up and recycling unsightly mechanical litter dropped by the invaders and hanging around outside booze dens and mixing with the criminal fraternity.
Who are the oppressors/invaders? The Empire? The only reason there are Stormtroopers on Tantooine at that point is to find the droids.
You obviously know a great deal more about the EU than I do, I hypothesized that Jawas may have been the original inhabitants of the planet for all we know, and you confirmed that they were along with the Tuskens. I really don't know anything about any of that to comment on it, nor do I really care to know. I have no idea who runs the local Tantooine government or if the Jawas get a say or not, and again, I don't really care to know.
But, lets just pretend for a moment that the Jawas are the planets majority, and while there are a lot of them around doing menial crummy jobs, there are also Jawas living like kings in other parts of the planet and that they do, in fact, make the laws and call the shots in the planet's government.
Given the above, suddenly Threepio's lines are no longer racist?
I honestly think you are mixing up the attitude of bigotry/racism/classism/intolerance/etc. with cultural perceptions of what is appropriate or acceptable. In the 90's I could have called my friend a "spaz" or a "retard" in front of my teacher and she probably wouldn't have thought much of it (beyond "Hey, stop name calling!"), now if a kid uses "retard" or "spaz" in school, he is going to at least get reproached for it, maybe worse. This is because we have grown more sensitive toward disabilities as a culture. In reality, it was no better (or worse) to belittle people with cognitive limitations in the 90's by using the term "retard" as an insult than it is today. Cultural perception on the issue has shifted, and it is no longer as acceptable.
It would always be racist to make a belittling comment about black people, no matter which way history had turned, but given a "history or repression" it has become taboo. But that is something entirely different. This line of thinking is the only way I can make a modicum of sense out of your argument. Otherwise it is just ridiculous to say that looking down on someone of a different race than you isn't racism sans a history of repression. It always is by definition, regardless of the cultural context. Racism, bigotry, etc. is an attitude and a state of mind that can exist anywhere.