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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

> > but I noticed that when she herself 
> spoke she was talking about "the negro people". 
> 

A good number of people on this list are old enough to remember when the 
common term was "colored" people.  From this era we have the National 
Association 
for Advancement of Colored People.  When it was time to make an issue of that 
word in order to demonstrate our underlying racism, the accepted term became 
"negro" and hence we have the United Negro College Fund.  Then for a time the 
correct term was Afro-American.  Jesse Jackson in a fit of utter ignorance 
protested that we call people Italian Americans and and German Americans and 
so he 
made a non-existent racist connection with Afro-Americans and insisted that 
it be African-Americans.  Ignorant, I say, because it has long been 
Franco-American, Sino-American, Russo-American, etc.  

A business associate from England was telling me once how he hardly 
recognized his native hamlet.  After being un the US for a few years, he 
returned there 
and went ot a local restaurant and ordered black coffee.  There was silence 
and stares.  He learned that (and I am not making this up) the proper term 
was 
non-white coffee.

I'm only willing to take this silliness so far.  I've got a big chip on my 
own shoulder when it comes to Southern and Mountain culture, so I try to take 
a 
deep breath and listen.  Real offense I'm willing to be corrected over.  But 
I 
draw the line at silliness.