Pardon me are you Jewish?

[David Morris]

>From: --- <rosenlake at mac.com>
>so when I learned as a kid that your mother has to be Jewish or you're out, 
>I told him I wasn't Jewish. He said "In a pogrom, you're Jewish." Yikes! 
>Which is to say, each of us suffers from definition by others.

And how much blood does one need to be Black?

>It's a clever bit in Gravity's Rainbow when Pointsman's crew are drugging 
>Slothrop to mine his presumed American black-hatred, and he complies -- 
>except he's making it up, hoping for an insanity discharge.

I know from the text how you claim this, but I disagree with your 
interpretation.  I don't believe Slothrop (or you or I) could ever exert 
such control under Sodium-P.  But riff on, it's still all good.

>So like my being, Slothrop is a bit ambivalent concerning his Americality. 
>[...] Several times in the Zone, he longs to return "home" but never goes 
>as far as actually making an effort to do so. He becomes a permanent 
>dweller of the Zone, where boundaries are still porous and choices have yet 
>to be made.

Yes, and this is what makes him a traditional hero.  He never goes home.  It 
is a brave journey, and he thus effectively eludes his masters.

David Morris
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