That is so sad. I think it is much worse in the USA than here in the UK though.

Well, certainly in London its quite common for we are such a melting pot. Although I do have white pal of long-standing who don't understand the hurt that some of their so-called tongue-in -cheek humour can cause.

I get called a woke loony lefty often by those of my age group, but the youth are generally far more accepting of all. I know some parts of the north of England are stuck in a time warp though.

I learnt my lesson that some of the expressions you use unwittingly have consequences when I had a Nigerian girlfriend living with me on my travels. When playing around one day, tickling as lovers do, I blurted out "get off you little monkey." She laughed but her response affected me; "That's what the big white bwana's used to say back in Africa, get away you black monkey!" I was mortified that I had used an expression so offensive to my beautiful girlfriend. We had just been brought up with it, my father used to call us little monkeys, so it was just a natural expression in my development.

I was always colourblind anyhow but that opened my senses to how careful we must be with our words. That was 25 years ago, and I pull my old friends about it regularly, but they, despite being generally not racist themselves, see my pointing that out as being far too touchy.

We still have a long way to go.