Wei,
Words change over time.  The word "nigger" was commonly used earlier this
century, in Britain, even in "polite" and respectable publications. Today,
you won't see the word "nigger" in print anywhere, certainly not as a
socially acceptable name for people with dark skin. You might see the word
spray-painted on an underpass or bridge in certain sections of certain
cities in this country.  For an american caucasian to refer to a person of
color today as a "nigger" would be a clear indication of a kind of
pathological race-hatred.  NOT SO, EARLIER THIS CENTURY. Earlier this
century, while the use of the word "nigger" certainly reflected a racial
divide --the status quo in this country--   its use alone is not evidence of
a virulent race-hatred. One would have had to hear the tone of voice of the
speaker to determine the true attitude of the speaker to people of color.
Thus, the word "racist" is a meaningless label when it is applied
indiscriminately to people in the 1920s and the 1990s, without regard for
great shifts in consciousness that have occurred in this country and in
England over the course of this century.

 I grew up in the late 1950s in a town in the northeast where blacks lived
in the east end, whites in the west end.  As a boy, I had only two words in
my vocabulary for blacks: "negroes" or "niggers".  My mother said "it isn't
nice to use the word 'nigger'  "  so we always said "negroes".  There were
ads on TV for "The United Negro College Fund".   Because connotations of
names change, people of color have themselves been changing the names by
which they wish to be referred, when being referred to in terms of their
skin color or cultural identity:   negroes, blacks, African-Americans,
people of color. Today, most people in this country are extremely sensitized
to such appellations. NOT SO, EARLIER THIS CENTURY.

There are several things one can glean from Pound's remark.  That he did not
dislike the blacks he knew.  That he regarded them as inferior.  That his
"racism" is not the same racism of the people I knew when I lived in
Roswell, Georgia one summer in the early 1970s, where, as one drove north on
the highway, the city of Atlanta a smudge in the rearview mirror, one
encountered a billboard that read: Welcome to Clan Country. Nor the same
racism as that of the cab-driver whose cab I took when visiting "Middletown,
USA" in Indiana in 1979. Here were his conversational gambits,  which
punctuated the silence on the long trip from the small airport through
endless corn fields:


Out to the university? Why, I was out to the university
just last week. Them gals ain't dressed in nothin'
but hairnets and bandaids...

Saw one gal, with one of them Frinch poodles
on a little silver leash--Skeeter here near went through the windshield!
Skeeter's what you call an Austeralian terrier...

Ought to put them goddam niggers inside a goddam fence
and drop a A-bomb on 'em all! KERBLOOM! That'd fix 'em.
Put the Gipper in the White House and things'll be all right, you wait and
see...

I guess you can see I ain't shaved in a couple o' days.
My mirror's broke. And without a mirror, why hell
I'd like as cut my throat!  ...

I use a goddam' straight razor.
Good enough for my daddy's good enough for me
is what I always say...

Now, up in Wisconsin, that's God's Country.
Most beautiful country IN this US of A.
Yessir, up in Wisconsin, that's God's Country...


Tim Romano


> And for good measure, we’ll throw in this quote:
>
> 4)  My recollections of nearly all the niggers I have ever known are quite
> pleasant . . .”
>
> Will anyone on this list want to conclude from this quote that Pound did
NOT
> have a racist attitude toward blacks?
>