I'm not going to belabor this, but I would like to clarify, since some of you were not aware of this, and I think it is a rather interesting phenomenon. In the history of the US South during slavery and for a long time afterward, it was common for a white male, especially, to address a black male as "boy" and a black female as "girl." This was to make it extremely evident that they were not respected, were not their equal and were considered to be on the level of a child. This was ok even if the white person was much younger, and the black man (or woman) was 80 years old. It was also common for a black man/woman to be addressed only by their first name, no matter how old they were, and never as "Mr. or Mrs." This led to the common behavior among black people of referring to one another by only their last names, therefore, if a white person wanted to address them, they only had that name by which to do it.
I'm a black woman, and to this day, I will NEVER allow a child to address me by my first name, as is the customary habit among young parents today. I also lived in the South for a period of time, and was referred to as "the girl" when I was grown, married, and the mother of 2 children. That got corrected quick, fast, and in a hurry, as you might imagine...lol This is why it was an offense of the highest degree for the young Bethelite to be called "boy" by Sydlik and I can't imagine what he felt at being addressed as the N-word!
Climbs down off of soapbox, and wanders off to put it away... :-)