Birk and Genevieve B. Birk discuss how the way we use words can have a huge effect on people simply by saying them a certain way or by adding emphasis to the word itself. As Birk and Birk point out, words that are highly charged for one person may be less so for another person (230). By adding affection to a word when describing someone's ethnicity, people can easily take it as rude or as a joke. If a Caucasian person calls another Caucasian person the n-word, for him it is a friendly gesture, but for an African American it can be harsh. Communication problems often occur when biased or loaded language is used, because nowadays one word can have different meanings (230). Ethnic discrimination plays a huge role in Birk and Birk