She puts the 'chic' in Schicksah ( שיקסע )

Sarcasm ?
often pejor. non-Jewish girl; peasant girl

I think whenever Americans (who are fans of the SEINFELD cult) hear the word, they think of the episode where the term was borrowed and turned into schicksa-(p)peal. I wasn't raised around folks who used the terms (schaygitz, schicksa, shkutzim, goy, goyim) in our family circles. They weren't pejoratives to my way of thinking... they were just not used. My soulmate and I would simply use a term that loosely translates as 'not one of ours' or 'not our Tribe'.

I live in a world of diversity; with the exception of a year in Austria, I pretty much always have. These days I am surrounded by people who speak languages I can't even identify. It's never been an issue for me to live around folks who don't speak English as their first language. It is horrifying to me, however, that some such persons are now being carted away by agents of my own government.

My spiritual direction has led me to a small, local, Unitarian-Universalist church. The minister (a female) was raised Methodist. When I had met her, she was divorcée who was engaged to a rabbi. She has since divorced the rabbi for reasons unspoken. "Please respect our privacy," was the request. And the request was certainly granted. What I found most odd about her (and to a parallel extent to him) is that she got involved with a gay synagogue. She even made bat mitzvah there. I cannot imagine belonging to a religion that meets in a church, being the leader of said church, and then participating in rituals of a religion that seeks its own.

I don't really have much more to write about the subject. I still refrain from using the term. In fact, I pretty much never use Yiddish terms in daily parlance unless I am speaking to a member of my Tribe. And even with that, I tend to be somewhat careful, because I would be heartbroken if one of my Tribesmen were to ask me what the word meant.