[redwitch]

Being of a liberal bent, I do believe in political correctness. I do believe that someone should never be called a derogatory name because of their race, religion, sexual preference. If it will hurt someone and I know it, I will not use a word or phrase around that person. Period.

However, that is today. My parents were both born and raised as bigots. My father was a Southerner. My mother was German. By the time I was born in 1950 neither of them would dream of using the words they did of their youth. Dad learned that the color of a man's skin had nothing to do with his intellect or courage. My mother learned that a person's religion did not make that person better or worse. They both learned this in WWII. While my father would occasionally slip and use the N word, he made sure his kids never did. Both of my parents worked hard to teach my brother and me to judge a person by their words and actions, not anything else.

I lived all over the world as a child. More than once, my brother and I were the minority in class. I still remember living in the Congo and actually have kids come up and touch me just to make sure I wasn't a ghost -- some had never seen a white person before. There were two nations that I saw and heard bigotry used in everyday language and behavior in my travels (up to and including a lynching in the late 50s) -- England and the USA.

There is no excuse for bigotry and perpetualizing any thing by words or deeds that denigrates another because of their differences.

However, Ms. Deen made her derogatory comments many years ago, at a time when the use of those words was acceptable. She does not use them today (I can't comment on how she feels today, I'm not in her skin) and that is what should matter. If she still uses or thinks those words, then shame on her. If not, it was an act of the past and should be treated as such -- something that was accepted at the time and something that we, as a nation, and, hopefully, individually, regret today. She does not deserve the issue made of her admission that she did in fact use those words in the past. If she did in fact treat her restaurant employees as alleged, she does pretty much deserve all the negative publicity and the results thereof.