When you mention people who live in what’s called the “inner city,” you’re generally referring to Americans of African descent.

That’s a given in today’s political culture.

And when you suggest that the “inner city culture” doesn’t honor work, you’re insulting a whole race of Americans.

That’s what U.S. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan was told after he made some, um, intemperate remarks on talk-show host Bill Bennett’s radio show.

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/first-read/paul-ryan-confronted-over-inner-cities-remark-tense-exchange-n57636

And one of Ryan’s Wisconsin constituents called him out on it at a town hall meeting this week in Janesville, Wisc.

Ryan said on Bennett’s show that there is a “tailspin of culture, in our inner cities in particular, of men not working and just generations of men not even thinking about working or learning to value the culture of work.”

An African-American man, Alfonso Gardner, challenged Ryan for that remark, saying he was using code words to describe black citizens. Ryan’s response? “There was nothing whatsoever about race in my comments at all, it had nothing to do with race.”

Actually, Mr. Chairman, it had everything to do with race, even if you didn’t say it overtly.

That’s the point Gardner is making and it is something the possible 2016 Republican presidential candidate may need to clear up if he jumps into the next national presidential campaign.

Ryan already has more or less apologized for using what he described as “inarticulate” verbiage when talking to Bennett. Indeed, as the link attached here notes, Ryan has become an advocate for immigration reform while many of his GOP House colleagues have balked at the notion. He told the town hall crowd he is entirely sensitive to the plight of minorities.

Code words can be perceived as hurtful if they’re put in the kind of context Ryan was addressing in his radio interview. One of the young congressman’s constituents construed it that way. It doesn’t matter what he intended to say or meant to imply.

Words have consequences, Rep. Ryan.