I have appreciated all your posts on this subject. It's fascinating to see the extremes of human behaviour.
Jed's post was great (as always on this and other matters) very articulate and well thought out but I'm not patronising. R C Macaulay I find you very interesting. You have your views and I can live with that (apart from the oppression). You have said exactly the same things that my chemistry teacher and sixth form tutor used to say! He got me at that age when one is very susceptible to ideas (16-18) and probably set my view on politics and science. I got in touch with him years later, recently and told him what I was up to. He used to despair at my adolescent laziness but straight away played the race card saying it was "typical, own worst enemy, cunning". This caused immense damage to a young mind and I should have told my parents more since it was their money I was burning at that place (I had a bog standard comprehensive education before hand). Rather than try to understand a young person he did the old statistical analysis thing which is grouping people by race, class, religions and so on. I realise what his problem is and he is hurting. He is of the generation that saw the British Empire collapse, the relegation of Britain to some small European power and the shock of all the wogs and fuzzy-wuzzies taking over them economically and what's more buying British companies, asset stripping them, sacking the work-force (don't complain about Mercantilism you chaps invented it), giving the Brits orders and marrying their daughters. The general malaise in all 1st World societies, the decay of city centres and youth delinquency are good examples and was perhaps inevitable - things need continual re-birth and purification but to his mind it is linked with this collapse of the BE, left-wing movements, universal suffrage and mass immigration. In your view there was a golden age of the Southern States before the Civil War and then Integration. It can only be due to the same left-wing movements - in your view! Now what Jed said is right (well left :) but extreme in places and you are on the other extreme. Not wishing to start war or wipe each other out, can reasonable people live together and respect each other's space in the Twenty First Century with deeply held beliefs? Edmund Storms contribution on another thread was to look at ways of melding all approaches. We have noticed that this applies in other walks of life in a micro-setting, like our profession of science: TB/PS, State/Free enterprise. I put it to you R C Macaulay that yes, Blacks have plenty to learn as regards civil society but that would be to patronise people like Rice, Powell and other people we see in high office who are not figureheads. It seems that there is probably not something interminably wicked about blacks (as you and my old teacher seem to think) - pay testament to Black middle class (US BMC who on their own would be 16th largest trading nation) but some very small factor of nature but largely NURTURE. Unfortunately the left is suffering from a failed dream along the lines of the road to hell being paved with good intentions. I reckon that any race that swallowed this philosophy hook line and sinker like my race would have been doomed to failure. It's a tragedy, who else could we have latched on to? Initially it was the Republicans and Abe Lincoln but then we shifted leftward. No, you've only got to look around the world and history and I'm sure you will find that blacks are not uniquely wicked. You talk about a church being burnt down, well where I grew up the skinheads did this and more routinely. Their problem was lack of work from a suddenly shifting world economy and lack of traditional male unskilled and semi-skilled work. So I'm not bothered by what you think but I must admit I admire you for having the balls to speak your mind; we cannot fail to learn something and adjust once the anger has subsided - much as in science. To draw to a close, I think old school people are going to have trouble adjusting to loss of empire and special privileges. Face facts, other emergent economies will ring circles around you as will their skilled professionals and women too. The future is probably Mandarin. I think your comment was of the tough love variety as practiced by my 6th form tutor. It can work but sometimes but can cause immense damage. The teacher should be learning too. Regards to everyone, Remi. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of thomas malloy Sent: 19 September 2005 09:30 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Way-OT: Mo' de king's English Jones (?) posted; >> >>Another case in point (the point being the humorous irrationality >>of life): it was nearly ten years ago now that the Oakland School >>Board ruled unanimously to teach Ebonics (which some argue is a >>dialect of English spoken by some African-Americans) in school as a >>second language, then backed off. My neighbor at the time in >>Berkeley was a 25 year old recent Cal grad, liberal Jewish >>(actually a "Ju-Bu" formerly Jewish turned Buddhist You're right, teaching any children in eubonics is tantamount to child abuse. The black American Academic Robert Sowell was interviewed by Dennis Prager. He makes the case that the Puritan Englishmen, from northern England, who settled America spoke a English differently than did did their southern brothers, Hence the different accents. Sowell contents that the northerners spoke English correctly. As Dennis says, teaching anyone Eubonics is an idea that is so stupid that you need at least a graduate degree in order to believe it.
