People who were benevolent, whether rascist or not, used “negro” or “colored,” while haters used “nigger,” “jig” (“jigaboo”), “coon,” or “shine.” Rational people don’t need any word of racial disparagement, much less four or more of them.

“Colored” was a common term among my parent’s generation for non-whites, of a similar age to Kowalski — it was one of the earlier PC terms before it was swapped out for “black” and now “African-American”. I’ve always associated it with the vestigial race-consciousness of a generation whose parents were often openly racist, but were themselves much more familiar with genuine American liberalism and its antipathy to collectivism. It thusly fits the context of a Korean War veteran — “colored” was a common term for blacks, but having fought Asians, he’d likely have greater motive to use the nastier epithets for them.

Interestingly, Carribean blacks who have immigrated here also typically have higher incomes than whites. Don’t expect the multiculturalists to sing that statistic from the rooftops though–it might explode their discrimination-is-dominant worldview. Viewing the world through the lens of racial injustice renders everyone guilty of behavior motivated by the magnitude of melanin content–while filtering out inconvenient statistics such as that one. Some of the more absurd b.s. I’ve been hearing spun out of academia recently is racism without any evidence–it’s so ingrained in people that they can’t possibly ever view it in themselves. If there’s a shred of sense left in our culture, that is multiculturalism’s death gasp: claims based on nothing but assertion; multicultural mysticism.

Both of those statistics were discussed in Thomas Sowell’s book, The Economics and Politics of Race. It’s chock-full of statistics showing that cultures, and their respective attitudes toward the virtue of productivity, play a big role in determining economic prosperity (well, duh?). It talks about the transplanted Germans who played a large role in getting mining started in South America, as well as Chinese immigrants who created vast businesses in Southeast Asia–and who were attacked for being “predatory” on the local populace, with bad consequences for the prosperity of those who threw them out. And the wheel turns.

There are some minorities that are more “protected” than others by the Left. Blacks are the most protected. My guess is that is because they are perceived as being the most discriminated against. Egalitarianism would not allow a group which is perceived as being the ultimate “have not” to be insulted. But Asians are a very productive minority who may even have a higher mean income than whites. Therefore the degree of “protection” for them is less. This is all part of the unwritten speech code that is know as political correctness.