“Colored” hasn’t been “respectful” for several generations.

In 1984, I returned to my sorta-hometown, Shaw, Mississippi. There were two entrances to the only doctor’s office in town. Above one door was “Whites” and above the other was “Coloreds”. This was 20 years after the Civil Rights Act, and the locals still obeyed the signs. I didn’t think much of it, for that was where I grew up and it had always been that way.

Thing is, that building - like every other building in Shaw - had been there at least since before the Depression, when lynchings were common and Jim Crow was the unquestioned law of the land.

That’s how I know that whatever anyone else may claim, “colored” has *always* been a racial slur. For all her literary skill, Lackey should have known better. She gets zero pity from me.