I've known lots of Clive Bundys

I've known lots of Clive Bundys. Good, hardworking people who are not uneducated, but are unsophisticated by some measures, so they speak the blunt, direct language of an earlier age.

A dear neighbor sometimes remarks about blacks in ways that "sophisticated" ears might hear as racist.

And, to a certain degree, it is, but not much.

I know he is speaking of the culture, not the race, really. I expect he knows about rules & exceptions, that blacks are hardly alone in that culture, and that (as is often noted here) there is a self-denigrating culture among American blacks specifically which keeps themselves down. So, "those people" refers to a specific set of black culture, not all of that skin.

I know he knows the kind of good, kind, hard-working Christian blacks, such as those who (like my neighbor) were employed by my family back in the day, people still dear to my heart as family.

When I hear such remarks, I sometimes try to gently 'correct' the way he talks about it, more FTR than anything. I don't expect he'll change his manner of speech and quit embarrassing his citified grandkids. I'm not trying to change his thinking, really, because like what Bundy said, it's right, just poorly-put by some standards.

Besides, he's a wiser, smarter, stronger, harder-working, more successful businessman and father, a more moral, more generous man, than I can ever hope to be, so I tip in my tiny bit of ejjimicated soffistication with utmost humility. Not that it necessarily shows.
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Guess that's my t.l. for today.