Great post Mayo. You are a word artist.

While your heart is in the right place RegGuy, and your arguments eloquent, you remind me of the kid who informed the teacher on Friday afternoon at 3:45 that she hadn't assigned weekend homework yet.

When i lived in the US south in the early 1960s, I was too young to understand why the colored kids couldn't go to the same school as us. They had to ride a bus instead.

Later on in the late 1960s negroes in urban areas, Detroit and Watts, rioted. By 1970 Negro was offensive, now we were to refer to them as "black".

In the early 1990s we were introduced to the term "African-American", even tho most who choose to call themselves that have never ventured past the Eastern Seaboard. And "black" was added to the offensive list.

Well, screw that. I know too many white Africans to ever use the term unless the person actually moved to the US from Africa; and skin color will have nothing to do with it.

As for "darky", "colored", and the n-word which i dare not even type in full: Black people will never get the power and justice they want and deserve as long as they allow themselves to be controlled by a stupid word.

Please rent the movie Lenny, starring Dustin Hoffman. The best scene revolves around Lenny Bruce’s use of the n-word, and explains how easy it would be for blacks to take it back. The GLB community learned the lesson and now possesses the q-word.

But what do I know? I'm merely a redneck honkey cracker.