conuly

I apologize if I sounded insensitive with my "ghetto-ness" phrase. I was searching for something to contrast the racism of the past with something that was an almost polar opposite from our current frame of reference.

Keep in mind that I grew up and went all the way through public school in a place where being WASP put me in the minority, and I have spent several stretches of years at a time in my life since when I lived in places where I was in the small minority of 20% or less. My high school graduating class was approximately 70% Black, and the area where I grew up was statistically 40% Catholic although many of the Catholic kids went to the parochial school. When I speak of the "ghetto" I speak more in terms of places where American Urban culture is in the majority. There are members of the Caucasian, Latino, Asian, and other ethnic groups as well as some Blacks who are a part of the American Urban culture.

I'm not sure I agree with you about changing unintended racism in historical literature. First, one must be certain of the author's original intent and second, it's a rather slippery slope to apply current understanding of what is offensive and what isn't offensive to historical literature. If we sanitize it and then another generation applies their own standards in 50 years then soon we will lose our historical perspective.

Thank you, and again I hope I don't come across as insensitive or offensive.