Re: Racists In This Group

Matthew Huntbach <mmh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

> On Thu, 15 Dec 2005, Alan Jones wrote:
>
>> The ghost of the British Empire still haunts our language and
>> culture, and most Whites are quite aware of the difference between
>> Black people whose parents or grandparents came from Africa (and
>> can often guess by appearance from which part of Africa, so that we
>> say "Nigerian" or "Ghanaian") and those from the West Indies.
>
> A lot of white people, even many who are generally liberal and
> fairly racially aware, don't seem to realise just how many of those
> with black skins in the UK are of direct African (mainly West
> African) origin rather than Caribbean. I've often heard people talk
> about "West Indians" when I know those they are talking about are
> Africans. Even in those parts of London most closely associated with
> the West Indian communities, such as Brixton, the proportion of the
> black population which is African is growing rapidly, and I suspect
> will in time become the majority. The difference in appearance comes
> about because West Indians actually have a mixed racial ancestry -
> most will have at least some white ancestors.

And, unless the situation in the Caribbean was different from that in
the US, they will have ancestors from many different African groups
and so will be a blend of physical characteristics. Here in the US,
it's my understanding that there was often a concerted effort made to
mix slaves who spoke different languages, to make it more difficult
for recent abductees to force them to communicate in poor English and
make it more difficult foment a rebellion. So a lot of marriages were
between slaves who didn't have a common language other than English,
and and in a relatively small number of generations most blacks could
(if it were possible) trace their ancestry to widely diverse parts of
the continent.

--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |We never met anyone who believed in
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |fortune cookies. That's astounding.
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |Belief in the precognitive powers
|of an Asian pastry is really no
kirshenbaum@xxxxxxxxxx |wackier than belief in ESP,
(650)857-7572 |subluxation, or astrology, but you
|just don't hear anyone preaching
http://www.kirshenbaum.net/ |Scientific Cookie-ism.
| Penn and Teller


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Nostratic
    ... >> You presented a somewhat hagiographic account of G's African work. ... his first contributions were to bring order from the chaos of African language ... then Greenberg comes along and basically ... you do not read all the linguistics journals every month. ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Birth of Language from 100,000 years ago? Or Earlier?
    ... Bushman Mother Language from 100,000 years ago? ... In Click Languages, an Echo of the Tongues of the Ancients, Nicholas ... wrote that key African Click Languages were spoken by ... Bushmen who separated over 100 tya. ...
    (soc.history.ancient)
  • Birth of Language from 100,000 years ago? Or Earlier?
    ... Bushman Mother Language from 100,000 years ago? ... In Click Languages, an Echo of the Tongues of the Ancients, Nicholas ... wrote that key African Click Languages were spoken by ... Bushmen who separated over 100 tya. ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
  • Birth of Language from 100,000 years ago? Or Earlier?
    ... Bushman Mother Language from 100,000 years ago? ... In Click Languages, an Echo of the Tongues of the Ancients, Nicholas ... wrote that key African Click Languages were spoken by ... Bushmen who separated over 100 tya. ...
    (sci.archaeology)
  • Study: Africans More Genetically Diverse Than Rest of World
    ... it will be hard for African Americans to trace their ... "It may be very challenging to trace back ancestry to particular ... from archaeology, oral history, genetics, or linguistic similarity are ...
    (sci.archaeology)