[78-L] OT^ re: various posts, an answer to Mr Zwarg's (sorry for delay), and please a plea for civility

[Erwin Kluwer]

Come on guys, don't be sohypocrite. Nobody else made a mistake in his life
before!!!

You chased away one of the most knowledgable guys on the this forum.

To Chris: Man just don't quite like that. Take a good drink tonight (and the
rest of this forum too!), think it over. enough people on this list respect
you !

Erwin

On Sat, Jan 24, 2009 at 6:23 PM, yves francois <aprestitine at yahoo.com>wrote:

> To Chris and all of us at 78L regarding the whole race matter,a thank you
> note, our behavior on this list et all ...
>
> hello this is my post to the varied subjects in the last few days:
> first a note for Chris Zwarg (who i also am writing to him personally,
> seeing that he may of left this list by now)
>
>
>  I want to thank you for taking the time to read and respond to my letter,
> please accept my apology for not writing earlier. First I would have never
> thought you were not an anglophone first ,judging by your facility in the
> English language, your English is excellent. Your responses (for me at
> least)are more than sufficient, indeed I have an much better understanding
> on what you were trying to get at, I will further correspond off list, if
> you are interested
>
> second:
>
> To the people still giving Chris problems from what he said a couple of
> days ago, Mr Zwarg apologized, I believe that to err is human and the
> gentleman did apologize for the word he used (see below). I have kept his
> part of the apology in this letter, the writing is of a fertile mind, even
> if one needs not agree with his position, and one perhaps using shock to get
> a reaction. Personally, I am not interested in changing how a person thinks,
> a person has every right to his/her point of view - like Voltaire - even if
> I disagree with it. However, while I (and some others may of pointed this
> out with intellect to me in private posts, I thank you for noticing) was
> upset by  another N* word being thrown around, and I deliberately listed the
> heading as N*, and the one I was also offended by is only 4 letters long.
>    All I can say, at least Mr Zwarg spoke to us in this open forum,
> explained himself to great detail AND apologized. If one noticed in my
> rather long essay (I know ... LOL), I mentioned the difference in that time
> changes what a perceived meaning of a word or image means to an audience who
> is reading and/or listening to it. To put it another way, if I named my band
> The Cotton Pickers in 2009 I would get a lot of flack (and rightfully so),
> yet 2 of my all time favorite bands have that name, McKinney's (1920's/last
> band was as late as 1941)and the very under rated Argentine jazz band led by
> Ahmed Ratip (recorded for Victor 1946/50, TK 51/3, featuring Booker Pittman
> the grandson of Booker T Washington)*.
>   The other word was quite easily hinted and thrown around, all I can say,
> as the son of a man used as slave labor by the aforementioned Nazi's (4.5
> years to be precise) PLEASE don't use the term lightly. I was deeply
> irritated and saddened by that (I have had people write to me off list
> regarding this and noticed in my writing that I was equally offended by
> their words as well). As a son of someone who was a slave, I am sensitive to
> such accusations, as I am to racial pejoratives. We all have very different
> points of view, and experiences, and much differences in opinion as well as
> different knowledge of the language used in this forum, political leanings
> AND age (we are, after all to some degree the product of our schooling),
> what we do with it afterward is ours in the freedom of choice we as human
> beings have and our responsibility to our choices (as well as our ability to
> learn current parlance and norms of behavior), life is, after all, a
> learning
>  expirence
>
>  let's just be civil about it, and get back to records
> (my final post regarding this matter unless I am asked a specific question,
> I will be blogging some of my thoughts on the election at some point in
> time, needless to say, I see some common circumstances to the early days of
> the Chilean Eduardo Frei's administration circa 1964/5...)
>
> Yves Fernand Francois Smierciak
>
> * I did not mention that Dave Wilborn lead a "New McKinney's Cotton
> pickers" in the 70's playing excellent music (including other African
> Amercian musicians like Ted Buckner and Louis Stephens who played with ex
> McKinney's pianist Todd Rhodes combo, as well as jazzman - and Motown
> session man - Tate Houston), as well as a 1920's studio jazz band led by
> Phil Napoleon
>
> finally Mr Zwarg's apology follows:
>
> --- On Thu, 1/22/09, Chris Zwarg <doctordisc at truesoundtransfers.de> wrote:
>
> > From: Chris Zwarg <doctordisc at truesoundtransfers.de>
> > Subject: [78-L] ^^An apology to hopefully end the N-word discussion Re:
> Goodbye (from Michael), re: racist remarks (one person's opinions et  all)
> > To: "78-L Mail List" <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
> > Date: Thursday, January 22, 2009, 9:40 AM
> > Dear all,
> >
> > although I repeatedly promised to not lose another word on
> > the subject, Yves Francois' thoughtful post seems to
> > require an answer, and
> >
> > I HEREWITH APOLOGIZE FOR MY APPARENTLY OFFENDING USAGE OF
> > EITHER OF TWO WORDS STARTING WITH THE LETTER "N"
> > (which I will not repeat în full to avoid another round of
> > blows). I also promise to add the definition
> > "taboo" to the relevant entry in my 1990 edition
> > of Collins' English Dictionary which I used while
> > studying the language, which does list "N***o" as
> > a general-usage term to describe members of various peoples
> > with dark skin colour, current since the 16th century.
> > "N****r" OTOH is listed as derogatory in several
> > written sources I have consulted, and I have already
> > apologized for using that slang expression rather than the
> > other. Therefore, sorry also for my ignoring that usage has
> > apparently changed so radically in less than 20 years - too
> > much surrounding myself with more-than-80-year-old records
> > and documents maybe.
> >
> > Yves wrote:
> > >my problem is more than just the word itself, but the
> > INTENT behind the word, as Tom so well put in a recent e
> > mail.
> >
> > My intent was certainly not to smear Mr. B.O. as a person,
> > nor as a member of his people, but rather to express my
> > annoyance at the ubiquitous discussions about him and his
> > skin colour. Why do professed anti-racists lose even ONE
> > word about this?! I do not know the man except from media
> > coverage - what can I seriously say about him, good or bad?
> > I sincerely hope he will prove a better President of the US
> > than some of his predecessors. I also hope that he will be
> > able to show that he has no need to be singled out as the
> > "first Afro-American US President" because he has
> > more useful qualifications than his ethnicity and his
> > outward appearance to stand on. Right now, the only
> > interesting and laudable property about him seems to be his
> > being non-white (that's why I sarcastically called him
> > what I did), and I do feel that glorifying the man already
> > before he has done *anything* in office is also a perverted
> > kind of racism: "He is Afro-American, therefore he
> > *must* be better than (white and inept) G.W.B." -
> > that's all I hear and read in the media, and if that is
> > an acceptable statement, the opposite should be also.
> >
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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