Bruce routines

[David Casseres]

Jean sez

>Well, I haven't heard the Bruce routine, but it's likely he could be trying 
to 
>use the "correct" word nigra and keeps slipping into nigger. Or it could be 
>Bruce mishearing or not understanding that nigra probably as close as 
>someone with LBJ's accent could get to Negro, and that it is not inherently 
an 
>insult.

Hmm.  I don't want this to turn into another "Beetlebomb" debate, but I 
don't remember any Lenny Bruce routine about Elbie Jay learning to say 
"Negro."  Of course that doesn't mean he didn't do one, but what I 
certainly do remember is a Jules Feiffer cartoon in which a handler tries 
to teach ol' Elbie to say "Negro."  "Try it again, Mr. President.  
Knee-grow.  You can say it.  Knee-grow.  Now you try it."  And ol' Elbie, 
he sez, "Nigra."

The way I read that, by the way, is that it's perfectly ambiguous as to 
what he's trying to *unlearn.*  Could be "nigra," could be "nigger."  I'm 
sure ol' Elbie used them both in his natural speech.

Gratuitous Lyndon Baines Johnson anecdote:  A friend of mine was in law 
school in Chicago when LBJ made a big speech announcing his civil rights 
bill (an achievement not to be disparaged, btw, in spite of his other 
career as a war criminal).  My friend was having a beer in a South Side 
saloon, where he was the only white person, and the news was on the TV.  
LBJ reached the climactic moment of his speech and leaned forward, 
staring straight into the TV lens, and declaimed "We -- shayall -- ovah 
-- come!"  The entire room exploded with raucous, incredulous laughter...

(Sorry, Andrew, no reference to Pynchon; but then you left him out of 
your post about Schindler's List.)


Cheers,
David