[78-L] Stephen Foster

Sun Jan 25 13:34:54 PST 2009

You're the guy who continues to insist on asking questions about why it is that you can't go through life referring to African Americans as "mulattos". And you're the guy who continues to ask for clearly delineated lines of distinction between terms like "negro", "black", "Afro American", "African American", "quadroon", "octaroon", "mulatto" and so forth.

I'm sure there are some other terms you could toss in if you thought hard enough about it. Just go back to the coon songs of the late 1800's and early 1900's and the racially charged work of Stephen Foster, which you find so endearing, and you can find the whole sordid litany of racially tinged terms right there.

And you can go through life, if you wish, referring to African Americans as "mulattos", I guess. Just brign the subject up with your circle of African American friends and see how they respond to it.

I think you know just how offensive most of those terms are. It's just that you want to be coy and facetious in pretending you don't understand distinctions about which you're perfectly well aware. But then, that's a reflection on you, not me.

And we can continue to talk about this subject as long as you wish.

--- On Sat, 1/24/09, Bud Black <banjobud at cfl.rr.com> wrote:

From: Bud Black <banjobud at cfl.rr.com>
Subject: Re: [78-L] Stephen Foster
To: "78-L Mail List" <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
Date: Saturday, January 24, 2009, 11:38 PM

Hey, I've got a splendid idea on how to break this stupid thread.  Let's
discuss the pros and cons of abortion on demand.  That subject has about as
much relevance to 78 rpm records as this one.

Bud 

-------Original Message-------

From: Tom
Date: 1/24/2009 7:06:42 PM
To: 78-L Mail List
Subject: Re: [78-L] Stephen Foster

Jews were enslaved in the U.S.?

Yet another revelation about U.S. history for the previously uninformed. You
don't see any irony, I guess, in a guy like Jolson, who was a Jew from
Lithuania and who had probably experienced some degree of anti-Semitism
during his life, coming to the U.S. and putting on blackface and
pejoratively stereotyping African Americans to further suppress them?

--- On Sat, 1/24/09, Bud Black <banjobud at cfl.rr.com> wrote:

From: Bud Black <banjobud at cfl.rr.com>
Subject: Re: [78-L] Stephen Foster
To: "78-L Mail List" <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
Date: Saturday, January 24, 2009, 2:19 PM

No, but the Jews certainly were.  So let's ban all references to, "My
Yiddisha Mama," "When Yiddle Plays His Fiddle," "Cohen Owes
Me Ninety-Seven
Dollars," and all the recordings of Myron Cohen.

C'mon, let's get real!  Why can't we enjoy the music and humor of
the past
without necessarily condoning it's shortcomings by today's standards?
Just
because I enjoy the singing and infectious laughter of Arthur Collins doesn
t make me a charter member of the KKK.  And if somebody has a problem with
what I enjoy, I don't particularly give a tinker's damn.

Bud

-------Original Message-------

From: fnarf at comcast.net
Date: 1/23/2009 7:12:12 PM
To: 78-L Mail List
Subject: Re: [78-L] Stephen Foster

Of course there were other ethnic stereotypes. But Germans and Scotsmen were
never enslaved, were they?

--
Steve.

  -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: "Bud Black" <banjobud at cfl.rr.com>
> And all Scotsmen are cheapskates.  And all Irishmen are drunks.  And all
> Germans are war-like.
>
> -------Original Message-------
>
> From: fnarf at comcast.net
> Date: 1/23/2009 5:38:44 PM
> To: 78-L Mail List
> Subject: Re: [78-L] Stephen Foster
>
> "Gwine" instantly identifies the speaker as African-American. As
for
> demeaning, the song clearly portrays blacks as childlike, fun-loving but
> unsophisticated, and so on. This is clearly demeaning, and plays into
common
> perceptions of black intellect. Darkies love to bet on horses all day, isn
t
> that cute?
>
> --
> Steve.
>
>   -------------- Original message ----------------------
> From: lizmcl at midcoast.com
> > > Chris Zwarg:
> > >
> > >> First of all, there is NOT ONE WORD in the whole lyrics that
says
> > >> anything about
> > >> the ethnicity of either the singer nor the ladies, nor about
the
moral
> > >> or mental
> > >> qualities of either
> > >
> > > You know, you completely blow your credibility when you suggest
that
> these
> > > lyrics are not specifically black, and specifically demeaning.
They
are.
> > > No one who heard them then was in any doubt. "Gwine"
is all you need
to
> > > see.
> > >
> > While "gwine" is certainly a specifically-black reference,
whether it
was
> > intended or understood as demeaning is quite another matter -- it
was,
in
> > fact, a part of the actual dialect spoken by many African-Americans
of
the
> > time, and in fact, it survives today in the speech of the Gullah
speakers
> > of the Sea Islands off South Carolina and northern Georgia. Note the
> > examples in the American Bible Society's Gullah translation:
> > http://juniperwebsolutions.com/gullah/bible.html
> >
> > There's a common perception today that much of minstrel-era
dialect was
> > simply made up by comedians and songwriters, but the more research
that
s
> > done by sociolinguists the less likely this seems. The works of J. L.
> > Dillard, William Labov, and Walter Brasch contain much worth reading
on
> > this point.
> >
> > Elizabeth
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > 78-L mailing list
> > 78-L at klickitat.78online.com
> > http://klickitat.78online.com/mailman/listinfo/78-l
>
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