pynchon-l-digest V2 #1327

[Christina L. Svendsen]

On Tue, 25 Jul 2000, pynchon-l-digest wrote:
> 
> Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 08:48:00 +1000
> From: "jbor" <jbor at bigpond.com>
> Subject: Re: Eminem (was: Influenced by GR?)
> 
> > You have staked a claim in the area of relative judgements-
> > "Just winners and losers..." But you did not elaborate.
> 
> Not many black races genociding, colonising or assimilating white ones in
> the history books I've looked in. Sorry if I was obscure but I thought this
> would be pretty obvious. And that's why I really have to speak out when
> apparently intelligent people say absurd things like this

if you looked more closely in history books you would, however, see many
cases of black people enslaving other black people of different
ethnicities before many white traders showed up on African shores, and
then later selling black people of other ethnicities to these very same
white traders in exchange for things like gunpowder and alcohol. 

the fact that black people are just as morally capable as white ones of
engaging in slavery, genocide, etc. etc. is yet another measure of their
"equality" "averageness" "humanity." a darker measure of it in fact.
 
if you look in history books about intra- and inter- national african
history you will find yet more sad stories of racial problems among black
people of different races. indeed, all black people are not of one single
race!

i would suggest that you don't find many cases of blacks enslaving whites
simply because of historical economic & technological differences.

occasionally there are other reasons. i can't imagine australian
aborigines enslaving anybody, & that's purely for spiritual reasons. 

but other groups, such as the ashanti in what is now ghana, had no problem
with it.

what i'm saying seems to be that you are creating an 
o v e r s i m p l i f i c a t i o n.

i don't like your dismissive tone. ("apparently intelligent ppl..." is
not good argumentation.)

> > Yeah, it comes as a surprise to find out that inspite of paragons
> > like Tiger Woods, and the Williams sisters, most of "them" are average, or
> > worse, whether from nature or nurture, just like the majority of uncolored,
> > and like the colorless, use what ever little advantage they might have in
> > any given situation to further their own cause.
> 
> and seek thereby to excuse two hundred or more years of racial oppression.
> I'm quite flabbergasted and disappointed by it in fact. It's the black
> person's "averageness" -- their equality -- indeed, their very *humanity* --
> which has been constantly and wholeheartedly denied by centuries of white
> suprematism.
> 
> > The natural prey of English Professors and teaching assistants- a whole
> > nother matter, entirely.
> 
> Not really, and I would hope that the texts are strong enough to speak for
> themselves. But the fact of the matter is that that's where Pynchon is
> probably doomed to be most read. As I said, students aren't all caught up in

can you really dismiss anyone affiliated in any way with a university ipso
facto? isn't that somewhat arrogant?

a bad generalization?

-c.