At its heart, it’s a ridiculous image.

A battle droid from “Star Wars” sits on the ground, clutching its aluminum knees (hinges?) to its chest. The droid doesn’t have a face, just that George Lucas-designed chrome head that looks like a drawing of a Borzoi from memory. Still, it’s obviously dejected. The air around the droid is bullying it with colorful insults: tin skin, sparky, oil slurper, and, the lone jeer that’s canon, clanker.

The drawing was posted on X over the weekend by a user claiming their son was the original artist. They couldn’t have known that their post would kick off a debate about racial slurs and the rush to adopt new epithets for outgroups.

Many social media users accused the slang term, which has grown in popularity on apps like TikTok, of being thinly veiled raci

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