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@DQuintanaNY: My bad. Thanks for pointing that out--didn't get any sleep last night.
@khia213: it would be a smart idea to hat least have catastrophic health insurance before calling a black man "boy." My dad used to wonder aloud why the "n" word was acceptably used by blacks when talking to each other but was an outrage when used by a white person towards a black one. One good explanation I had for him was something I heard on Tavis Smiley: blacks use that word to take the sting out of it, to appropriate it as part of their own culture and not an insult. When a white person uses that word or "boy" towards a black person, it's not a sign of joshing or teasing friendliness. It's a form of denigration.