Shakespeare and the "N" word
Whittbrantley
the plays. I have been reading the Hostage to Fortune biography (which mentions
nothing about the authorship mystery) and find it to be illuminating concerning
Bacon. Start to get the feeling Bacon was somewhat of a spoiled,
class-conscious little prick.And "class" is the ugly reality that forms the
core argument of the authorship debat.
Elizabeth, being one of the most vocal Bacon supporters (shovel in hand, I'm
sure, on your way to matching and surpassing Delia )would you consider your
self a snob? Or, at least admit to being somewhat of a snob?
Look at it this way. In the 30' 40' 50's Duke Ellington was a great pianist
and arranger; Satchmo, a great trumpeter; and other black performers just as
talented. Some were great inventors, actors, writers, doctors, etc...in their
time. They met Presidents, world leaders, the Pope...etc. But, at the end of
the day, they left through the back door. Rode in the back of the bus, ate in
the kitchen...etc.
And sadly, no matter who they were, or what they accomplished, when they left
the room, they were just another "nigger".
So, I wonder if Ben Jonson felt the same about William Shakespeare; dirt poor
kid from the wrong side of the tracks who made good.
When Shakespeare left the room, do you think Jonson, or maybe even Elizabeth,
King James, Bacon, DeVere, or for that matter any of the courtiers or
university graduates thought of Shakespeare as anything but just another
"nigger"?
Jo Lonergan
wrote:
>So, I wonder if Ben Jonson felt the same about William Shakespeare; dirt poor
>kid from the wrong side of the tracks who made good.
Half-educated provincial bourgeois but a good mate and knew how to
write?
>
>When Shakespeare left the room, do you think Jonson, or maybe even Elizabeth,
>King James, Bacon, DeVere, or for that matter any of the courtiers or
>university graduates thought of Shakespeare as anything but just another
>"nigger"?
>
"We have a little man who writes rather decent plays". Where do you
think the word "patronising" came from?
--
Jo
Roundtable
I always think that Anti-Strats are anti-Will not only from some form
of snobbery but also because they really love their Bacon, their Marlowe,
their Oxford, and want them to be the true "everlasting poet".
Being a bit of a snob myself - who isn't, after all - doesn't stop me
from fully believing it was Will of Stratford - in spite of the many
arguments I have read here over the past years, perhaps because I
believe that if a person has a talent for something - like dramatic
writing - and is "vif" and observant and a quick study - that he or
she can rise above their insufficient training and be as good or better
than those trained for the task.
Roundtable
Greg Reynolds
> On 20 Dec 2003 09:07:27 GMT, whittb...@aol.com (Whittbrantley)
> wrote:
>
> >So, I wonder if Ben Jonson felt the same about William Shakespeare; dirt poor
> >kid from the wrong side of the tracks who made good.
>
> Half-educated provincial bourgeois but a good mate and knew how to
> write?
He was certainly not dirt poor (and poor is not the complaint
of racists anyway).
I think that anyone present who envied his talents and the
easy manner in which his company and plays appealed to
the highest level might say some disparaging things, but that
could not reflect on Shakespeare, it would portray the envy.
> >When Shakespeare left the room, do you think Jonson, or maybe even Elizabeth,
> >King James, Bacon, DeVere, or for that matter any of the courtiers or
> >university graduates thought of Shakespeare as anything but just another
> >"nigger"?
> >
> "We have a little man who writes rather decent plays". Where do you
> think the word "patronising" came from?
And, writing was a task. It took time and strife and discipline. No
one would envy the intensive labor needed to create a play. It is
not fun or sport--the things nobles are made of. People who
just "assign" these accomplishments to nobles--and of course
provide no evidence because there is none--aren't recognizing
that a nobleman hasn't the discipline nor the grudge ethic needed.
Greg Reynolds
Irish people are not offended by ethnic slurs--why is anyone else?
Elizabeth Weir
> I have to admit that I do enjoy reading about the argument for Bacon writing
> the plays. I have been reading the Hostage to Fortune biography
Jardine advertises herself as a 'committed socialist
feminist' and Stewart is a professor in Queer Studies.
Jardine and Steward probably didn't mention those details on
the dust jacket of Hostage to Fortune.
> and find it to be illuminating concerning
> Bacon.
Ideologues cannot 'illuminate,' they can only convert.
> Start to get the feeling Bacon was somewhat of a spoiled,
> class-conscious little prick.
Bacon probably was a spoiled little prick when he came back from the
Court of Henry IV because he had been wined, dined, lauded and
according to some accounts, seduced by Henry IV's nymphomaniac wife.
Bacon's genius was so precocious that the French, who actually were
*having* a Renaissance unlike the backward English who wouldn't have a
Renaissance until Bacon and his Sidney cousins made one for them, were
simply blown away by this sixteen year old polymath genius who 'spoke
French like a scholar.'
We have a letter from Jean de Jesse, French ambassador, raving about
Bacon's genius (de Jesse also states Bacon's muse was Athene!) and
Bacon's miniature by Hilliard done at the same time does seem to have
a rather smug expression (Hilliard's inscription says 'If I could only
paint his mind.')
This smugness, if it existed, didn't last because when Bacon returned
to the Court from France with a plan to create a national literature
to elevate English to the level of renaissance Italian as La Pleiades
had done for French,(Bacon was hanging out with the last of the
Pleiades
who lived at the Court) Elizabeth wasn't interested. Elizabeth liked
to patronize treatises on Anglican doctrine, history, geography or
perhaps
science but she was cold to poets and hated playwrights.
Bacon took his project to his Sidney cousins, and while the Sidneys
embraced it with both generous patronage and works of their own,
Bacon's association with the Sidneys put him in the enemy camp. The
Sidneys
opposed Lord Burghley's political aims, chiefly the Catholic Marriage
in the early 1580s.
Bacon's handwriting has been found on the draft of Sidney's letter
to the Queen asking her to break off negotiations with D'Anjou.
Sidney was banned from Court as a result. Mary Sidney had been
banned years earlier.
Bacon lost the patronage of his uncle and his fortunes went downhill
for the next twenty years. Bacon had been humbled.
When Pope said that Bacon was the 'wisest, brightest and
meanest of mankind,' a quote often used as ammunition by
Strats, Pope meant 'most humble of mankind.' The word
'mean' meant 'humble' until the 20th century yet Strats have
written essays on how mean Bacon was.
> Elizabeth, being one of the most vocal Bacon supporters (shovel in hand, I'm
> sure, on your way to matching and surpassing Delia )
I've never subscribed to her theory. Neuendorffer is a
'Delia Baconian.'
> would you consider your
> self a snob? Or, at least admit to being somewhat of a snob?
If I don't subscribe to radical feminist socialism or the
political excesses of queer theory, that makes me a snob?
> Look at it this way. In the 30' 40' 50's Duke Ellington was a great pianist
> and arranger; Satchmo, a great trumpeter; and other black performers just as
> talented. Some were great inventors, actors, writers, doctors, etc...in their
> time. They met Presidents, world leaders, the Pope...etc. But, at the end of
> the day, they left through the back door. Rode in the back of the bus, ate in
> the kitchen...etc.
>
> And sadly, no matter who they were, or what they accomplished, when they left
> the room, they were just another "nigger".
I'm sorry, but you've just played the race card.
John W. Kennedy
> (and poor is not the complaint
> of racists anyway).
I wonder....
--
John W. Kennedy
"But now is a new thing which is very old--
that the rich make themselves richer and not poorer,
which is the true Gospel, for the poor's sake."
-- Charles Williams. "Judgement at Chelmsford"
Mark Steese
news:3FE4C437...@core.com:
[snip]
> And, writing was a task. It took time and strife and discipline. No
> one would envy the intensive labor needed to create a play. It is
> not fun or sport--the things nobles are made of.
Which nobles are these? One needs only a nodding familiarity with the
history of Elizabethan England to know that fun and sport were as rare
in nobles' lives as they were in anyone else's. The country didn't
govern itself. A ne'er-do-well like the 17th Earl of Oxford was quite
uncommon.
> People who just "assign" these accomplishments to nobles--and of
> course provide no evidence because there is none--aren't recognizing
> that a nobleman hasn't the discipline nor the grudge ethic needed.
Elizabethan noblemen had discipline and "the grudge ethic" in much the
same proportions as any other segment of the population. That few of
them became full-time playwrights is an indication of how much of the
burden of government they were bearing. If Sir Francis Walsingham, say,
had wanted to write plays, he would have wanted neither discipline nor a
"grudge ethic": what he lacked was time.
> Greg Reynolds
> Irish people are not offended by ethnic slurs--why is anyone else?
*All* Irish people? I've known a few who would gladly give anyone using
the word "mick" a free trip to an intensive care unit. Myself not
included, but then I'm only half-Irish.
--
Mark Steese
unscramble and underscore to email
----------------------------------
The concept of being quoted out of context was invented, I believe, by
people who blurt out ill-advised statements and then regret them later.
True out-of-context distortion -- someone saying "It's not as if I'm a
thing of evil" and being quoted as bragging "I'm a thing of evil" -- is
rare to the point of being unknown. --Neil Steinberg
Peter Groves
news:efbc3534.03122...@posting.google.com...
[desunt nonnulla]
>
> When Pope said that Bacon was the 'wisest, brightest and
> meanest of mankind,' a quote often used as ammunition by
> Strats, Pope meant 'most humble of mankind.' The word
> 'mean' meant 'humble' until the 20th century yet Strats have
> written essays on how mean Bacon was.
>
Too bad the editors of the OED didn't consult Elizabeth: look at the poor
saps making fools of themselves here:
5. a. Of persons, their characters and actions: Destitute of moral dignity
or elevation; ignoble, small-minded.
1665 Boyle Occas. Refl. iv. xii. (1848) 243 The Sublimity of such a
Condition would make any Soul, that is not very mean, despise many mean
things.
1724 Ramsay Vision xi, He..did me rebuke, For being of sprite sae mein.
******1734 Pope Ess. Man iv. 282 Think how Bacon shin'd, The wisest,
brightest, meanest of mankind. *****
1741 Middleton Cicero I. vi. 449 A mean submission to illegal power.
1768 Sterne Sent. Journ. (1778) II. 39 (Address), How many mean plans..did
my servile heart form!
1771 Junius Lett. xlix, The meanest and the basest fellow in the kingdom.
1815 W. H. Ireland Scribleomania 25 Rhymsters who..meanest actions eulogize.
1830 D'Israeli Chas. I, III. viii. 187 Charles the Second..was mean enough
to suspend her pension.
1874 Green Short Hist. viii. §2. 469 James had meaner motives for his policy
of peace than a hatred of bloodshedding.
1888 Bryce Amer. Commw. III. xcv. 336 Good citizens who were occupied
in..more engrossing ways, allowed politics to fall into the hands of mean
men.
No doubt the fools were misled by the fact that the line occurs in a passage
about the vanity of human wishes: "If parts [i.e.skill, wit, intelligence]
allure thee, think how Bacon shin'd, / The wisest, brightest, meanest of
mankind":
In parts superior what advantage lies? EM 4.259
Tell (for you can) what is it to be wise? EM 4.260
'Tis but to know how little can be known; EM 4.261
To see all others' faults, and feel our own: EM 4.262
Condemn'd in bus'ness or in arts to drudge, EM 4.263
Without a second, or without a judge: EM 4.264
Truths would you teach, or save a sinking land? EM 4.265
All fear, none aid you, and few understand. EM 4.266
Painful preeminence! yourself to view EM 4.267
Above life's weakness, and its comforts too. EM 4.268
Bring then these blessings to a strict account; EM 4.269
Make fair deductions; see to what they 'mount: EM 4.270
How much of other each is sure to cost; EM 4.271
How each for other oft is wholly lost; EM 4.272
How inconsistent greater goods with these; EM 4.273
How sometimes life is risqu'd, and always ease: EM 4.274
Think, and if still the things thy envy call, EM 4.275
Say, would'st thou be the man to whom they fall? EM 4.276
To sigh for ribbands if thou art so silly, EM 4.277
Mark how they grace Lord Umbra, or Sir Billy. EM 4.278
Is yellow dirt the passion of thy life; EM 4.279
Look but on Gripus, or on Gripus' wife. EM 4.280
If parts allure thee, think how Bacon shin'd, EM 4.281
The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind: EM 4.282
Or ravish'd with the whistling of a name, EM 4.283
See Cromwell, damn'd to everlasting fame! EM 4.284
If all, united, thy ambition call, EM 4.285
From ancient story learn to scorn them all. EM 4.286
There, in the rich, the honour'd, fam'd and great, EM 4.287
See the false scale of happiness complete! EM 4.288
In hearts of kings, or arms of queens who lay, EM 4.289
How happy those to ruin, these betray. EM 4.290
Mark by what wretched steps their glory grows, EM 4.291
From dirt and sea-weed as proud Venice rose; EM 4.292
In each how guilt and greatness equal ran, EM 4.293
And all that rais'd the hero, sunk the man: EM 4.294
Peter G.
Art Neuendorffer
> > Elizabeth, being one of the most vocal Bacon supporters (shovel in hand,
> > I'm sure, on your way to matching and surpassing Delia )
"Elizabeth Weir" <elizabe...@mail.com> wrote
> I've never subscribed to her theory.
> Neuendorffer is a 'Delia Baconian.'
I would prefer 'Delia Oxfordian' but you are not far off the mark
(; though in my case the shovel is for the Shaksper middenheap).
Art Neuendorffer
David L. Webb
"Peter Groves" <Monti...@NOSPAMbigpond.com> wrote:
Isn't it a pity that ALL editors of reference works and authors of
monographs don't consult Elizabeth? If Latin lexicographers were to do
so, they would learn that
"Verulam means 'state of truth' in Latin, Oxfordians."
By the same token, authors of monographs on Riemannian geometry could
learn something startling. Indeed, Elizabeth wrote:
"Not a coincidence that Minkowski's spacetime is hyperbolic geometry
and uses Poincare's equasion [sic]."
Since hyperbolic geometry is the geometry of simply connected Riemannian
manifolds of constant curvature -1 while Minkowski space has constant
curvature 0, it follows that zero is equal to -1 -- a stunning new
discovery!
And think what dialectologists could glean from Elizabeth's formidable
erudition. Elizabeth wrote:
"O[ld] E[nglish] was still spoken in some shires until the 1800s."
Grammarians could also learn a thing or two about grammatical inflection
from the erudite Elizabeth.
In view of Elizabeth's learned participation in the thread, one
presumes that the "'N'-word" alluded to in the subject line must surely
be "nutcase."
David L. Webb
"Art Neuendorffer" <aneuendor...@comcast.net>
(aneuendor...@comicass.nut) wrote:
> > whittb...@aol.com (Whittbrantley) wrote
>
> > > Elizabeth, being one of the most vocal Bacon supporters (shovel in hand,
> > > I'm sure, on your way to matching and surpassing Delia )
> "Elizabeth Weir" <elizabe...@mail.com> wrote
>
> > I've never subscribed to her theory.
> > Neuendorffer is a 'Delia Baconian.'
> I would prefer 'Delia Oxfordian'
In view of Delia Bacon's descent into insanity and her subsequent
confinement, few would gainsay your characterization of yourself above,
Art.
but you are not far off the mark
> (; though in my case the shovel is for the Shaksper middenheap).
And you have contributed far more to that midden heap than all the
rest of the h.l.a.s. anti-Stratfordians combined, Art! While it is true
that "Dr." Faker, Mr. Streitz, Elizabeth Weird, and a few others have
occasionally surpassed you in quality of comic incompetence (difficult
as it is to believe such a feat possible), nobody can compete with you
in terms of sheer quantity!
Art Neuendorffer
> > > Neuendorffer is a 'Delia Baconian.'
> "Art Neuendorffer" <aneuendor...@comcast.net>
> > I would prefer 'Delia Oxfordian'
"David L. Webb" <david....@dartmouth.edu> wrote
> In view of Delia Bacon's descent into insanity and her subsequent
> confinement, few would gainsay your characterization of yourself above,
> Art.
http://www.jmucci.com/ER/images/delia.jpg
Unlike a Webb they'll say 'Neuendorffer wouldn't even hurt a fly'!
> > but you are not far off the mark (; though in my case
> > the shovel is for the Shaksper middenheap).
>
> And you have contributed far more to that midden heap than all the
> rest of the h.l.a.s. anti-Stratfordians combined, Art! While it is true
> that "Dr." Faker, Mr. Streitz, Elizabeth Weird, and a few others have
> occasionally surpassed you in quality of comic incompetence (difficult
> as it is to believe such a feat possible), nobody can compete with you
> in terms of sheer quantity!
I'm a runalittle, doalittle, preealittle, pouralittle, wipealittle,
kicksalittle, severalittle, eatalittle, whinealittle, kenalittle,
helfalittle, pelfalittle gnarlybird.
A VERytableland of bleakBARDfields!
Art Neuendorffer
Art Neuendorffer
> > > Neuendorffer is a 'Delia Baconian.'
> "Art Neuendorffer" <aneuendor...@comcast.net>
> > I would prefer 'Delia Oxfordian'
"David L. Webb" <david....@dartmouth.edu> wrote
> In view of Delia Bacon's descent into insanity and her subsequent
> confinement, few would gainsay your characterization of yourself above,
> Art.
Look at the dainty hands:
http://www.jmucci.com/ER/images/delia.jpg
http://www.d.umn.edu/~sadams/Authors/hawthorn.htm
http://www.probertencyclopaedia.com/j/Nathaniel%20Hawthorne.jpg
Unlike a Webb they'll say 'Neuendorffer wouldn't even hurt a fly'!
> > but you are not far off the mark (; though in my case
> > the shovel is for the Shaksper middenheap).
>
> And you have contributed far more to that midden heap than all the
> rest of the h.l.a.s. anti-Stratfordians combined, Art! While it is true
> that "Dr." Faker, Mr. Streitz, Elizabeth Weird, and a few others have
> occasionally surpassed you in quality of comic incompetence (difficult
> as it is to believe such a feat possible), nobody can compete with you
> in terms of sheer quantity!
I'm a runalittle, doalittle, preealittle, pouralittle, wipealittle,
lecolin
> the plays. I have been reading the Hostage to Fortune biography (which mentions
> nothing about the authorship mystery) and find it to be illuminating concerning
> Bacon. Start to get the feeling Bacon was somewhat of a spoiled,
> class-conscious little prick.And "class" is the ugly reality that forms the
> core argument of the authorship debat.
>
Ah. For the longest time, I would not consider even looking at the
authorship debate because I had that same impression: that those who
wanted to deny the authorship to Shakespeare and give it instead to
nobility or somesuch, were motivated by class consciousness. Then
finally at the insistence of a friend, I did look -- and changed my
mind.
> Elizabeth, being one of the most vocal Bacon supporters (shovel in hand, I'm
> sure, on your way to matching and surpassing Delia )would you consider your
> self a snob? Or, at least admit to being somewhat of a snob?
>
Isn't this dangerous? Asking people to align themselves to different
views, based on how snobbish they are? Of course being snobbish is a
no-no, an uncouth of the couth, so you are in effect asking someone to
renounce anti-Stratfordianism or risk being denounced as a snob.
Putting these socially potent labels on different views demeans any
intellectual investigation of their merits.
Certainly people often choose allegiances based on association.
A(nother) friend of mine and I were discussing political views. I
observed to him that his views were closest to Dean's out of the
presidential contenders. But he remains a staunch Bushite-- because
he doesn't like the people he sees backing Dean, and likes his
self-perceived association with Bush supporters. Yes, it is something
in ourselves we should be aware of -- a caution.
For myself, I have no pretensions towards expertise in this issue.
Yet I do choose some view (a Baconian) from the different presented
arguments. And I wonder how much my biases play into this judgement.
Certainly a bias I do have is anti-authoritarian: from church to
school to the great world, I generally distrust proclamations of
authority (you MUST believe this because we KNOW it is true),
particularly when these views are self-serving. Is that a bias or is
it honest skepticism? Is there a difference? It is a paradigm. I'm
interested in discovering what is true, inasmuch as it is
discoverable. (It is one of the appealling aspects of science: the
search for truth, always testing hypotheses against evidence. Art,
too, is about truth -- but less obviously. Thus the phrase, "it
works", is meaningful to artists, too.)
> Look at it this way. In the 30' 40' 50's Duke Ellington was a great pianist
> and arranger; Satchmo, a great trumpeter; and other black performers just as
> talented.
"Black"? Or "Afro-American"? :-)
> Some were great inventors, actors, writers, doctors, etc...in their
> time. They met Presidents, world leaders, the Pope...etc. But, at the end of
> the day, they left through the back door. Rode in the back of the bus, ate in
> the kitchen...etc.
>
> And sadly, no matter who they were, or what they accomplished, when they left
> the room, they were just another "nigger".
>
> So, I wonder if Ben Jonson felt the same about William Shakespeare; dirt poor
> kid from the wrong side of the tracks who made good.
>
> When Shakespeare left the room, do you think Jonson, or maybe even Elizabeth,
> King James, Bacon, DeVere, or for that matter any of the courtiers or
> university graduates thought of Shakespeare as anything but just another
> "nigger"?
There is a feel-good aspect now in being "above" using the N word (in
white society-- and has been for many years.) Are you choosing your
view because you get to feel good -- even snobbishly superior --
towards the benighted who might still do so? Do YOU live in a mixed
community? Do you walk the walk or just talk the talk?
David L. Webb
elizabe...@mail.com (Elizabeth Weir) wrote:
[...]
> This smugness, if it existed, didn't last because when Bacon returned
> to the Court from France with a plan to create a national literature
> to elevate English to the level of renaissance Italian as La [sic] Pleiades
> had done for French,
Elizabeth's French ("Comptes de Rendus" (see
<http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=efbc3534.0308211838.aee772e%40posti
ng.google.com&oe=UTF-8&output=gplain>), etc.) will doubtless elevate the
language to a new plane, just as Bacon's English did for that tongue!
> (Bacon was hanging out with the last of the
> Pleiades
> who lived at the Court) Elizabeth wasn't interested. Elizabeth liked
> to patronize treatises on Anglican doctrine, history, geography or
> perhaps
> science but she was cold to poets and hated playwrights.
Since the Queen wrote poetry herself, she must have suffered from
self-loathing. As for playwrights, Elizabeth's appreciation is recorded
in the lines of Ben Jonson:
"Sweet Swan of Avon! what a sight it were
To see thee in our waters yet appear,
And make those flights upon the banks of Thames,
That so did take Eliza, and our James!"
Since there is ample independent evidence of James's fondness for plays
and players, these lines can scarcely be read in an ironic sense. (Of
course, Elizabeth Weird herself is unlikely to have read them AT ALL, in
ANY sense.)
[...]
> When Pope said that Bacon was the 'wisest, brightest and
> meanest of mankind,' a quote often used as ammunition by
> Strats, Pope meant 'most humble of mankind.' The word
> 'mean' meant 'humble' until the 20th century yet Strats have
> written essays on how mean Bacon was.
Peter Groves has already pointed out Elizabeth's folly, by the simple
expedient of posting examples of the sense (from the OED) that date back
to the 1600s. But using the OED successfully has proven many times in
the past to be far beyond Elizabeth's capability.
[...]
Elizabeth Weir
> > whittb...@aol.com (Whittbrantley) wrote
>
> > > Elizabeth, being one of the most vocal Bacon supporters (shovel in hand,
> > > I'm sure, on your way to matching and surpassing Delia )
>
> "Elizabeth Weir" <elizabe...@mail.com> wrote
>
> > I've never subscribed to her theory.
> > Neuendorffer is a 'Delia Baconian.'
Alrighty. 'Delia Oxfordian' it is.
Best regards,
Elizabeth
Mark Steese
news:20031220040727...@mb-m06.aol.com:
[snip]
> So, I wonder if Ben Jonson felt the same about William Shakespeare;
> dirt poor kid from the wrong side of the tracks who made good.
Jonson himself was a 'dirt poor kid,' etc. He never made it to a
university, and he achieved success the same way Shakespeare did,
through intelligence, hard work, and patronage.
Shakespeare comes closer to the stereotypical snob than Jonson does.
Jonson never showed any interest in retiring to a country estate and
becoming a member of the landed gentry. There's no evidence to suggest
that Shakespeare ever showed disrespect to people above him on the
social ladder, but Jonson often did. Compare their respective tombs:
Shakespeare's goes out of its way to remind you that this is the tomb of
an important gentleman who could afford an expensive monument with his
coat of arms prominently displayed; Jonson's is a tiny stone slab that
originally bore no inscription.
You could argue that Jonson felt intellectually superior to Shakespeare,
but even that is questionable. I think Jonson recognized Shakespeare's
intellectual gifts, but was annoyed by Shakespeare's lack of interest in
rigorously applying those gifts to his work, as Jonson had done. Jonson
may have held Shakespeare's talent in higher regard than Shakespeare
did.
--
Mark Steese
Unscramble and underscore to email
---
Not a whit, we defie Augury; there's a special Providence in the fall of
a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come: if it bee not to come, it
will bee now: if it be not now; yet it will come; the readinesse is all,
since no man ha's ought of what he leaves.
Richie Miller
left
> > the room, they were just another "nigger".
>
> I'm sorry, but you've just played the race card.
>
Richie Miller
email: [remove MYFOOTFROMYOURASS to reply]
Christine Cooper
I'm not sure that's the correct implication.
The more I hear from Elizabeth, the more I envision her
as having VERy short hair, pleated trousers, and a button-down shirt,
or being VERy much younger than I am,
thus removing herself from the strictures of expressing her opinions
within the dictates of excrutiatingly correct behavior.
IMHO, the latter method can be just as effective,
but requires more skill.
Who was it that said the use of profanity
indicates an inferior vocabulary?
Cordelialy,
Christine
Christine Cooper
> left
> > > the room, they were just another "nigger".
> >
> > I'm sorry, but you've just played the race card.
That depends.
(use of said phrase universally identifies
the speaker as a lawyer)
I consulted an "expert," my son, the line-cook,
who grew up in the ghetto, and was treated with respect
by his peers, despite his short and skinny stature,
for his willingness to defend the weaker
amongst them with his fists, while simultaneously
appearing as Fritz in the Nutcracker in Jones Hall here in Houston,
wearing the shiny satin blue-boy suit and slippers,
(the agility aquired from years of pliets and pas de chats,
no doubt accounted for his skill in avoiding his attackers
while getting in some muscular counter-assaults)
Named after Thomas Jefferson, he is almost universally
known as "J-Dogg," but is beguiling in any company,
charming to even the occasional police officer,
and he tells me that black people call themselves "black,"
while white people, attempting to be PC, say "African-American."
A black person may refer to someone as "my nigger," as a
term of affiliation, regardless of the race, sex, affinity,
or socio-economic status of the designee, but use of the
term by an "outsider" is frowned-upon.
Miss Manners probably can sort all of this out,
but I'm sure that Elizabethan society
could not have been more complex.
IOW, it's all relative.
(This is not intended to denigrate the struggle for
"political" equality manifested in the 20th century,
but the idea of "equality" will always be relative)
Would Elizabethans have looked more askance at an
Indian Prince as upon a Frenchman or a Spaniard?
or viccy verky?
While the Spanish were technically European,
they were also "Black," and worse...Catholic.
I am, in principle, unconvinced by any argument that
either the Courts of Europe or the Vatican itself
considered the Catholic/Protestant issue anything
other than a matter of politics. I think they were
religious agnostics and political pragmatics, or pawns,
(or insane or something like it).
Cordelialy,
Christine
Richie Miller
> indicates an inferior vocabulary?
>
