It's a word. One that has different meanings to different people; sometimes it's toxic (and again, that tends to be more from the extremes) and oftentimes it's a colloquial term whose meaning depends on context. IME it's usually imbued with significant overtones relating to culture, ethnicity and so on rather than any (pseudo-)scientific meaning and the difficulties often come not from the application of the word itself but the insistence, overt or otherwise, that one person's definition is the One True Meaning. Which ultimately results in people talking cross purposes. During my time online I've seen endless arguments about this and similar issues where a disproportionate amount of time is devoted to semantics and asserting what someone else is trying to say rather than the actual communication of ideas. Which I think tends to be the problem.
Sure. We're pretty much in agreement. I use the word / metaphor construction because it also refers to an architecture of social practices. Where you get to live, how you are treated by police etc.
