Call them black. Don't use other words that have known negative connotations. If people are offended by it, then they're overly sensitive. I had a discussion about this with a guy that I work with. He's black. He was born in Atlanta, and moved to Denver at the ripe old age of 11. But he said that black is okay for him, and that he didn't understand why people were so sensitive towards that term. He said that in Atlanta, black is just fine. It's the other words that people have used for years, that are still used, that get to him and other blacks.
He also said that in his experience if a person just explodes when you use that word, and they don't ask you to not use it but just explode instead, then they are just looking for an excuse to make things into a white versus black thing.
I have also heard the same thing from my girlfriend. She teaches at a local school here with several black kids, a few hispanic kids, and a couple of white kids. And there is one black girl in particular who tries to throw the race thing at my girlfriend when she tries to get her to do something. "You hate me because I'm black!", "You are being mean to me because I'm black!", and "You're focusing on me because I'm black!" are all things this girl has said. Fortunately, my girlfriend had a student EXACTLY like this one in her student teaching days. And she also substituted in a district with a LOT of black kids. So when this girl tried using her skin color, my girlfriend was like, "That's not true! Stop saying that when it isn't true." My girlfriend specifically wanted to teach in a school that has many different ethnicities because a class of all white people would freak her out. (It'd freak me out too... and that's one of the reasons that I'll NEVER EVER live in the southeastern US.)
One thing that my girlfriend has consistently noted in most of the places she's taught, is that you can tell which kids are getting that kind of influence from their parent(s). It's sad.
I definitely understand that there is a culture difference between people with different skin colors. And a lot of the tension arises from misperceptions or misunderstandings. And some of the stuff is probably racist one both sides. But the majority of things is that people just don't try to truly understand each other. (And yes, contrary to belief, having black skin means that most people WILL treat you different. It's totally odd how you can watch people interact and see that there is definitely a culture clash. And I've heard black people say that regardless of whether a person is racist or not, they are treated differently when interacting with non-black people.)
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