Thursday, September 13, 2007

Thanks, Yelpers.

You brought more human inflicted brutality to my attention.

Have you read about this case in West Virginia?

Here we have a family victimizing a woman. They felt it was their right because she was a "n----". What year is this?

I also was helping my nephew with his homework over my mobile phone and wifi last night. He had to do research on Pocahantas and I thought he asked a BRILLIANT question:

Why does she look so European if she was Native American?


The illustration was of a woman in Elizabethan gear, fancy neck thing and everything.

I told him he was brilliant to notice this and to ask why the English would have illustrated her that way. Then we got into how even today people are "white washed" to look like the dominant culture in this country.

Brown/yellow people are due to be the half in this country in less than 50 years. I wonder if the tables will be turned by then and everyone who has a little pallor will be illlustrated with some flavour to fit in the "norm"?

1 comment:

Roger Williams said...

Speaking on "why does Pocohontas look like that?", that portrait was painted in London, where she and her husband John Rolfe had an audience with King James I. She was painted in that outfit because that's what she was actually wearing while in London. By the time she had gone to England, she was already very familiar with English norms and customs. Perhaps she was the one who was engaging in a little cultural anthropology?