Politics aside, it's hard today for many people to know what to say - how to describe people who our different from themselves.  Is "Negro" ok to say or "Black" or "African American" or "Oriental" or "Asian" or "Latino" or "Hispanic" or "Caucasian" or "White" or "Gay" or "Straight."

It's not easy to think about these words.  In fact, many people don't think about them. They think and talk around the so-called "identifiers."

The challenge is to recognize that our diversity is powerful, all present and growing.  NJ is so diverse that at any given moment, any of us may question what is appropriate.

It is always better to refer to people by name without the descriptive - so much more respectful.

We don't need the Thought Police for us to acknowledge that we are an evolving society and so, too, our language evolves.  Even our dictionaries add new words every year!

It won't be light years ahead of us but just a short few years when we'll have no majority of races/ethnicities in New Jersey at all.

To get along, to succeed at work; to teach our children to value different individuals and to enhance a civil society, we will need to be respectful of and value all of our differences.

So what's in a word does mean a lot.   The word is "Respect."