Last year, I had the opportunity to meet and enjoy the company of an Aframerican poet. But, when she was standing in front of a small group of interested people while giving a poetry reading, she made mention that her great grandmother had been a slave in Kentucky. I was stunned, because I never 'saw' her as a descendent of a slave. They raised her as one of their own in a small prairie town in Minnesota. Still, the episode was hurtful, disheartening, distasteful, unnecessary, and it touched the feelings of an innocent child who had no personal grievances, and was not a whiner.
History IS personal.
And I feel no discomfort in suggesting that humanity stands a better chance of expanding and extending its reach through kindness and understanding than from use of unpleasant epithets. No reason to ban Huck Finn or Little Black Sambo, but certainly we can do better. I now leave the topic.