Nice Cabbie poem. Captured "it" precisely. Carlo Parcelli

Tim Romano wrote:
>
> 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?
> >