A cautionary tale for Markie and others. Sometime around the mid-1980s, Howard Cosell (a pretty famous white sports announcer in the U.S.) received a lot of grief for saying something like "look at that little monkey run" in reference to a black football player. The politically correct piled on Cosell even though he had a good record on civil rights. I don't remember the exact details but I believe that incident helped contribute to Cosell's departure from network television. A recent HBO documentary on Cosell interviewed one of his family members describing how he frequently used to refer to his grandkids as "little monkeys" as they scampered around. Most telling, however, was a tape of a college football game HBO showed in which Cosell referred to Mike Adamle (later of American Gladiators commentating fame) as a "little monkey." Adamle, of course, is white. This suggests we should be cautious about getting out the lynch mob over use of any particular word or term especially when, as in the case of Cosell, there was considerable evidence that he was far from the racist he was made out to be.

Now, I clearly have too much time on my hands, but a not so quick search on the Community forum reveals the threads below where the term "kiddo" is used by Essxjay and others. The usage there does not appear either paternalistic or demeaning. Moreover, while I've never met Essxjay (or anyone else on this board), her posts (unlike some of those by others in this thread) have never struck me as unfriendly or antagonistic. I'm just tired of the vitriol directed at the moderators at a personal level by some of those who don’t like the new policies. I’m all for a vigorous debate (I approve of the moderators but don't particularly like the multiple boards) but some people are taking things way too personally and are being a little immoderate.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum95/HTML/000437.html

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum95/HTML/000649.html

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum95/HTML/000900.html