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 To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html