Kevin, what you say about geographical origins is correct, but at one time, academic anthropologists used the word "Caucasian" as the "official" designation for the "White race," apparently under the assumption that this is the area of the world from which the "White race" originally came. This is not my idea. I didn't make it up.

This terminology is now considered archaic, with more recent ideas of what constitutes race or ethnic grouping, but to my knowledge, as yet there is little general agreement.

I'm speaking here about terminology used in academic circles. General terminology--used by non-academics--is pure chaos, and between the "PC police" and cautious pussy-footing, is a verbal minefield.

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Personal anecdote about the "PC police":

Early on, when I acquired a 12-string guitar, I set about learning some of the songs recorded by Lead Belly, and tried to dope out the runs and such that he was doing on the guitar. One of the songs I learned in this process was "Black Girl." I learned the words from Lead Belly's record, but I didn't try to imitate his dialect. I just sang it straight out.

I included this song in my repertoire, and when I retired the 12-string and switched to using a classical guitar, I modified the accompaniment to fit and continued singing it from time to time.

Then a couple of people jumped my case about singing the song. Essentially, they told me that I had no right to sing it, essentially because I was the wrong color to be singing a song like that. [I've heard the same edict about white singers who sing the blues—which the PC police insist is "Black music." Let me ask: WHO, here, is the racist?]

At the same time, I heard a recording of someone doing the song, and they had dodged the issue, simultaneously removing it from its context, by changing it to "Little girl, little girl, don't lie to me. . . ." To my mind, they had castrated the song by "sweetening it up" like that!

So I dropped the song from my repertoire. But some years later, I met two young Black women, and separately I asked them to give me an opinion. Lynn was a singer, and although she did blues on request, she much preferred English ballads. She went up in flames at the idea that I shouldn't be allowed to sing the song. She said, "That's downright stupid! It's a good song, it tells a story, and you sing it with respect. Go ahead. Do it whenever you feel like it."

Rosetta was not a singer. She was a co-worker when I worked for the telephone company. After hearing me sing it, she said, essentially, what Lynn had said. "Ignore them!" was her verdict.

Neither of them found the idea of a White man singing this song to be offensive. I will take the word of these two young ladies over that of a whole regiment of PC police.

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Anybody heard of Mitochondrial Eve?

Mitochondrial Eve is estimated to have lived around 200,000 years ago, most likely in East Africa, when Homo sapiens sapiens (anatomically modern humans) were developing as a population distinct from other human sub-species.

The dating for 'Eve' was a blow to the multiregional hypothesis, and a boost to the hypothesis that modern humans originated relatively recently in Africa and spread from there, replacing more "archaic" human populations such as Neanderthals. As a result, the latter hypothesis became dominant.

So—sorry to have to tell you this, Bubba, but there is very little actual difference between you and all those n*****s you hate so much. Suck it up!!

Don Firth