I guess I don't understand Tom's question.  In what sense is
the term "white folks" politically incorrect?  Just off hand,
it seems to be pretty much descriptive of me and people who
look more or less like me, and it does not seem to be
especially offensive.

Is it the second word, "folks," that is politically incorrect?
 In this day and age of populist politics, in which all major
political idealogies that have any serious constituency are
populist, what's wrong with the term "folk?"  I could
understand an objection to the term if there was an
intellectually consistent conservative movement still around,
but that does not seem to be the case in Virginia, or really,
anywhere else.  Everyone these days is committed to the notion
that the people at large are capable of rational
self-government, and hence are entitled to full participation
in public life.  I don't hear anyone in public life suggesting
seriously, for example, that democracies require some
regulation, because the mass of the "folk" are susceptible to
the malicious influence of demagogues.  Madison's notion of
filtration is pretty much dead, and has been for a long time.
 Viewed from any historical perspective, there is no
conservative party or ideology operative in the United States
today.  "Folk" quite adequately connotes the populist
democracy to which everyone today that is politically active 
is commited.

Maybe its the first part of the term, "white" that is
politically incorrect?  Perhaps so, but the better descriptor
would be "pink," and that one got used up decrying communism.
 And the alternatives, for example "Caucasian," are worse,
because they really are racial descriptors while "white"
simply describes (rather poorly) skin color.  At any rate, I
am not especially offended when someone describes me as
"white," and I find it hard to imagine the term generating any
real substantive outrage.

If there was a double standard in operation here, Tom might
have an argument.  But I don't see it.  

All best,
Kevin
Kevin R. Hardwick, Ph.D.
Department of History
James Madison University

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