File spoon-archives/phillitcrit.archive/phillitcrit_2000/phillitcrit.0008, message 23


Date: Sun, 06 Aug 2000 20:39:14 -0400
From: Barron <gebarron-AT-InfoAve.Net>
Subject: Re: PLC: Fairness to Faulner


On 8/6/00 12:56 PM George Y Trail wrote:

> To say that black people have a different odor is racist. Pure and
> simple. So frequently and in so many circumstances demonstrates that he
> believes it, and is to that extent a racist. Indeed it seeme to me
> (despite the dispute here) that Faulkner is a racist.
> 
> It is also indusputable that one person may not smell like another.
> Short of disease, this results, not from race, but from diet and access
> to and utilization of santition. Period. To say anything else is racist.
> 
> g 

This amounts to one of the most thoughtless absolutisms I've seen in a while
and is clearly couched in ignorance of the physiological differences between
races. (It is so mindless I wonder if it isn't a bit of baiting, but at the
risk of appearing reactionary I'll take the bait.)

I would appreciate you and Howard explaining to the list how it is different
to say that a group of people has a particular odor is any more racist than
saying that a group of people has a particular color of skin, shape of eyes,
texture of hair. I think you are bigots of the senses. A visual judgement
(black skin, wide nose, course hair, almond eyes, yellow skin) seems to be
okay while an olfactory judgement is taboo.

Before I go on I want to make it _perfectly_ clear that by pointing out
these differences I am not making _any_ value judgements. I am compelled to
take this defense because based on the logic of George and Howard I would be
branded a racist for the comments that follow. I fear that even by simply
pointing out that an observation of odor might not be racist I may already
_be_ a racist......."Period. Pure and Simple"

Africans and African-Americans have different anatomical, metabolic and
physiologic characteristics than Northern European Caucasions. "Period",
George Y. Trail. Period. Cystic Fibrosis is rare in blacks. Sickle cell
anemia rare in caucasions. Blacks metabolize sodium differently from
caucasians. Develop renal failure at higher rates than whites in response to
diabetes and hypertension (social and economic backgrounds adjusted for.)
Develop prostate cancer and hypertension at higher rates than caucasians.
Have lactose intolerance, along with Asians more than caucasions. Respond to
medications differently than caucasians. In many cases are more resistent to
malaria than Northern European whites. Have yellow tinted conjunctiva and
paler retinas as normal findings. Have their own peculiar set of enzyme
deficiencies just as do whites, native Americans, Jews and Asians,
especially Jews. Certain African tribes have higher rates of twin births
than, well, anyone else.  Melanoma is rare in blacks. Skin thickness is
different. 

Is a different odor then inconcievable? Yes? Still? Are all the researchers
and physicians that discovered and described these differences racist?

> So frequently and in so many circumstances demonstrates that he
> believes it, and is to that extent a racist.

So show us. Period. And in the context of odor only please. Period. Prove
that he doesn't describe the odor of whites, oh, sorry, you can't. Pure and
Simple, you can't. Need a reference? See Boon Hoganbeck's descriptions in Go
Down, Moses. Even his room had a Boon-like odor, and a clearly unpleasant
one with a truly derogatory description. Clearly racist right? Is it still
racist if you are racist against everyone? (Oh, well, Boon _was_ part Indian
wasn't he?)

I think this smell thing has been beat to death, especially since Howard
felt compelled to summarize my last post as a way of 'understanding' it.
What I would like to know, if nothing else, is how Faulkner could have
described a black person physically, and by George's and Howard's standards,
NOT done it in such a way as to be racist. And note that I said could and
not should. 
-- 
Barron
 



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