To quote from Cornel's quotes...
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"How sad that the Brahmins have a clear preference for non-Goan marriage partners for
their children, even lowly educated whites, rather than excellent educated
potential spouses who are Goan but not of the same caste"
"I have some so called Brahmin relatives by marriage and they always try to make me feel small to the point where we constantly get to blows... "
"I really am proud to be from Saligao...you know that is where the Brahmins come from in Goa. We are the real cream of Goa and not like the rest of the hoi polloi..."
"A barely literate Bardez Brahmin woman told her highly educated daughter in law, that, notwithstanding all her education/qualifications, she, (the mother in law) represents "the purest kind of ghee people can make" Further, she required her to speak in a distinctive form of Brahmin Konkani and not the Mapusa variety!"
"Casteism has been so deleterious to us Goans that I often wish I could put the Brahmin lot in a ship and send it out into the ocean and see it sink from Marmagoa harbour..."
"My father is Chardo and my mother is Brahmin, thus we come from a respectable family and only speak Portuguese at home...."
"My fianc�e and I knew virtually nothing about caste among the Goans. Yet, I was staggered to discover, much later, how much pressure my future mother in law came under from Brahmin women determined to block the marriage whilst smiling sweetly at us in public."
"The Catholic Church castrated itself historically in order to placate the Brahmins."
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Only once is Chardo mentioned. In all other cases Brahmins are made the scapegoats of the (highly exaggerated in my opinion) 'caste' problem among Goan Catholics. Aren't there any other castes? And strata within castes?
I could be wrong here but is Cornel out to simplify the whole caste problem as being Brahmins versus the rest, with the Brahmins being the bad guys. Or are there more layers to understanding this issue?
Cecil
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