For your consideration.

In a speech he gave at Georgetown University on February 12 FBI Director James Comey addressed what he called some “hard truths” about race and policing. He said among other things that, “Much research points to the widespread existence of unconscious bias.” and that, “we all, white and black, carry various biases around with us’’

He is mistaken.

What the research shows is not that our biases are unconscious and widespread but that they are deliberate and universal. And to limit discussion to black and white does not serve us well. In fact, it is disservice.

I’m 69 years old and I’ve spent time on 5 of the 7 continents. In the U. S. alone, I’ve been exposed to life in more than 300 towns in 31 states. And I’ve said before that we are all racists because it’s built into our language.

Let’s now go beyond racism and see what I mean by deliberate and universal. Below are many of the racial, ethnic, gender, and origin slurs I’ve become familiar with over those years and miles. Of the sixty some-odd in the list, how many do you NOT know the meaning of?

jungle bunny, lightnin’, shine, rastus, spear chucker, tar baby, jigaboo, nigger, spook, spade, coon, kaffer, monkey, pickaninny, spic, greaser, wop, guido, mick, kraut, frog, kyke, hebe, hymie, slope, coolie, chink, cracker, haole, honky, gringo, white bread, peckerwood, gator bait, Christ Killer, grease ball, bosche, sambo, jemima, paki, wog, beaner, bohunk, camel jockey, raghead, coon-ass, coolie, dago, darky, dot, gook, flip, guinea, nip, paddy, polack, wetback, twink, fairy, faggot, queer, fruit, dyke, hun, yid, fag.

2/13/15