On 9/8/06, Steve Chilson <stevechilson@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I read somewhere, whether or not it is true of course is left to having read it somewhere - but anyway, read somewhere that during WW2, Alabama or some place nearby, they let Nazi prisoners being housed in that state freedom that they wouldn't give the blacks who were American. Is that true or just urban mirth?
I wouldn't know about that, though I've heard similar rumors. I recall, however, a belief attributed to the ancient Greeks that the stranger at the door should be treated hospitably, since the gods sometimes take on human form to walk among us mortals. I also recall accounts of Queen Victoria's Jubilee, an occasion on which all sorts of darkly colored royalty were treated with pomp and circumstance.
And, on a final note, I remember just recently hearing one of my Georgia relatives mention something we heard from our grandmother when the word "nigger" came up: "There are black niggers and white niggers, but a nigger's a nigger." Andy's remark was spot on. The presumption was that the black you knew as a nigger was a nigger. A stranger, especially with more "Aryan" features and a foreign accent--he might be something else.
John
-- John McCreery The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN
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