Lenny Bruce - Are There Any Niggers Here Tonight?
https://youtu.be/gfNhiRGQ-js?list=RDgfNhiRGQ-js
https://medium.com/@kulvirlehal/lenny-bruce-are-there-any-niggers-here-tonight-71c6cf9f2a2c
"Are there any niggers here tonight?" I know there's one nigger, because I
see him back there working. Let's see, there's two niggers. And between
those two niggers sits a kike. And there's another kike— that's two kikes
and three niggers. And there's a spic. Right? Hmm? There's another spic.
Ooh, there's a wop; there's a polack; and, oh, a couple of greaseballs. And
there's three lace-curtain Irish micks. And there's one, hip, thick, hunky,
funky, boogie. Boogie boogie. Mm-hmm. I got three kikes here, do I hear
five kikes? I got five kikes, do I hear six spics, I got six spics, do I
hear seven niggers? I got seven niggers. Sold American. I pass with seven
niggers, six spics, five micks, four kikes, three guineas, and one wop.
Well, I was just trying to make a point, and that is that it's the
suppression of the word that gives it the power, the violence, the
viciousness. Dig: if President Kennedy would just go on television, and
say, "I would like to introduce you to all the niggers in my cabinet," and
if he'd just say "nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger" to every nigger he
saw, "boogie boogie boogie boogie boogie," "nigger nigger nigger nigger
nigger" 'til nigger didn't mean didn't mean anything anymore, then you
could never make some six-year-old black kid cry because somebody called
him a nigger at school."
On Tue, Jun 6, 2017 at 12:06 PM, douglas rankine <
dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
It's very strange how a word or phrase which one considers as innocuous,
can so incense people that they fight wars or come to blows over them.
When I were a lad in my home country of Scotland, the fact that most of the
English didn't know how to sound the word loch, or know the difference
between the word Scotch and Scots or Scottish, when it was used,
particularly by those very special English presenters on the BBC who were
chosen for their English clipped diction and Received Pronunciation and
English Public School education (a bit like the Harvard of today, but of a
much more exclusive and hoi poloi, and of more ancient roots, than
traditional Anglo-Saxon America of course), and therefore most Scots were
excluded from the job because of their vernacular or accent; or those
ill-educated English shopkeepers, who refused our money or those educated
English bank tellers who used to try and charge us 10% when we went on
holiday in England, to change a Scottish Bank note into English money, when
we accepted English pounds in Scotland at no extra cost, was very much a
bone of contention, particularly when we had an Act of Union way back in
the 18th Century (just like America) which united both countries, but
"forgot" to make Scottish pounds legal in the same way as English pounds
were.
We, the Scots, men and women, were supposed to be treated equally under
the Act of Union, no longer barbarians but equal servants under
his/her/Scottish/English majesties. Anglo-Saxons and barbarians were all
the same to the Romans of course, whether they lived in England or
Scotland, though some of them, through accident of birth or ownership of
land or by special merit, grovelling, strategic interest, but mainly
grovelling arse crawling and money laundering, were made into honorary
Roman Citizens. Funnily enough, it wasn't until we were all forced to join
the European Union under a Conservative...or dare I say...a Tory
government, that we all became citizens of Europe, as well as servants of
her majesty the Queen Elizabeth the Second of England, but the First of
Scotland. In those days, everyone went "up" to London, no one went "up" to
Edinburgh, most English barely knew the capital of Scotland, thinking it
was Glasgow, if they knew anything at all.
Where I came from there were very few members of ethnic minorities, living
in our community. We were all immigrants of long standing, living there
long before America became the USA; Gaels, Celts, Vikings, Beaker People,
with a smattering of Anglo-Saxon and a few others of mixed ethnic genetics
and cultures. I was about 7 years old when I saw my first Sikh, a
travelling salesman with a turban on his head, a long white beard and a
large suitcase in his hand, and who spoke a form of English which I didn't
understand, with an accent which verged on a musical composition. (It was a
Glasgow accent, I later discovered, he had lived there for most of his
life). Absolutely amazed I was, so much so that my jaw dropped when I
opened the door, and my mother had to hide me behind her in case I started
asking some questions which peaked my curiosity which she considered might
be considered embarrassing to the sales man...or is it person....:-).
I was about 5 years old when I went along to the Faith Mission, of which
my grandmother was a founder member. It met in a little wooden hut in the
poorest part of the village I came from. This organisation was a religious
organisation which specialised in bringing a peculiarly Scottish form of
Calvanism to the English African colonies, through the use of Faith
Missionaries, particularly in the African continent, so civilising them
into the English way of life, so that they could be exploited peacefully,
and removed from their Pagan Gods to a more civilised way of life, and have
truly English imaginations. I vividly remember watching a show from one of
those very Missionaries, which involved a revolving wheel with lots of
photographs in a time frame, which showed African woman with large naked
pendulous breasts, bouncing up and down to some kind of ritual African
dance. All agog, I was, never having seen even my mothers breasts (or at
least I didn't remember them). The same venture was tried in the Americas I
believe, with the Puritan immigrants, but failed miserably, ending in
almost the extermination of the American Indian, and the buffallo and
ending in Trumpism, and of course the racial and ethnic and class
divisions, segregation and what not, which not only still exists in many
parts of the USA but has grown amongst the ethnic, racial and religious
groupings in the United States of America, the greatest democracy in
Christendom.
Such use of language and actions, can be so cultural as well as
historical and if we don't know those cultures, we can step right into the
shit, with little further aforethought. One of a number of reasons, that
might seem petty, that led to the present calls for independence for
Scotland, was because many Scots felt that they were being used as cannon
fodder, or political fodder or economic fodder or exploited by "Mother"
England. I believe that the American colonials organised a successful,
illegal armed rebellion and a war with England for economic and political
independence over exactly the same kind of thing. It is all part of our
cultural and economic heritage I suppose, and one word, such as nigger
which is considered as descriptive of a valuable occupation to the host
community and used quite commonly as a term of endearment, or comedy or
hate amongst themselves, but when used as a description of a form of
non-human slavery which was a very valuable occupation to the slave owner,
can create such a sense of anger and hatred when used by the slave owner.
Golliwog was the icon on a jar of Robertson's jam, I remember as a child
how much I enjoyed the jam, and how interesting I found the little golliwog
icon on the side of the jar, as I ate my toast and butter. I never gave it
a thought that it was racist, racialist, derogatory and aimed at making
those with darker skins or different backgrounds and upbringing as somehow
inferior to myself. I did like my Robertsons Raspberry and Strawberry jam.
it was only later, that this meaning was given to it, by those, mainly
Anglo-Saxons, of American origin who thought it was not politically
correct. Whether this was post modernism, or past modernism, or ante-post
ancientism...I haven't a clue.
see url: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=golliwog+jam&client=firefo
x-b&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiehNPq56j
UAhUHLcAKHdusAZMQsAQIJQ&biw=1366&bih=599#imgrc=2LVnojWKQPXLaM:
or url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golliwog
How well I remember one of my favourite children's authors, Enid Blyton,
of "Famous Five" fame; being castigated by those American politically
correct drunks in various speakeasy's who through boredom and under the
influence of alcohol, and/or some other ethnic concoction, such as
marijuana or mescaline and other ethnic, local or regional inventions; or
even high on CIA home manufactured LSD to fuck up their minds, invented
this new movement. The other, darker skinned minorities, just got on with
indulging it of course, and enjoying the jazz and the blues, rather than
set up some new movement to improve others...if not themselves...and
finished up populating America's jails and providing a new form of slave
labour.
Such is the way of life, arrogance and colour blindness continue to reign
supreme. As Robert Burns says in "To a Louse" "If only we could see
ourselves, as other people see us"
C'est la vie.
Enjoy...:-)
Dougie.
On 05/06/2017 16:59, Ben McGinnes wrote:
On Mon, Jun 05, 2017 at 04:35:44PM +0300, Peter M Howell wrote:
Thanks BenTypo, I meant Bill Maher regarding his "little" cock-up the other day.
Who is Bill Baher ? Seems I agree with him , or not.
Regards,
Ben
