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Is the Term "Farang" Racist?

Transcript of the above video:

In this video today we are talking about the term "Farang". 

I have read in correspondence directed to me, and I have actually talked to clients in the past couple of weeks and there was a confluence of this issue coming up over multiple different people that I have been dealing with which basically involved the term "Farang".

There is a contingent of expats here in Thailand that believes that the term "Farang" is somehow racist or is a pejorative term for foreigners here in Thailand. I guess I am not going to get into what I think of their opinion particularly, I can simply give mine. I don't believe that that is the case. I don't believe that that is its usage. I think if anything "Farang" is being used as a descriptor. I look at it as much the same as somebody using the term immigrant or expat. Depending on the context in which it is used, I guess it could be used in a negative light but I don't think the word itself is intended to be a racial slur or some sort of ethnic slur. I simply think it is supposed to be descriptive of a foreigner in Thailand. Specifically it is generally used to describe a Caucasian foreigner here in Thailand. I don't think that it is particularly accurate to presume that it is a pejorative term or a slur of any kind. It is simply a term of description really; not to get too much into sort of the etymology of the word or the history of the language or anything because I am definitely not an authority on that.  I was talking with another colleague here recently and we were discussing the word sort of generally in a lead up to making this video and that person noted that they believed it stemmed from a different word in the Indo-European lexicon than the word I was thinking. I was thinking there was a term that I believe the Eastern Roman emperors, the Byzantine emperors used to describe Norse mercenaries that they used as bodyguards which was "varang",  to use Romanized lettering, so English I guess I should say. At the same time he brought up that "ferengi" is similar, is the term for that that has been applied in Thailand and throughout various parts of the middle East and the subcontinent area for folks of foreign extraction, often times a more Caucasian extraction. On top of that specifically the word for the French in Thailand, so when you are describing someone of French nationality, is "farangset". That is the term you use to describe French people. I suspect they all have the same root word and I don't believe that this particular word is being used in a derogatory manner when Thais are using it just sort of colloquially. I think they are using a descriptive term to describe a person who is a foreigner in Thailand; generally speaking of Caucasian descent.