Subject: Hiding behind pseudonyms & What is Black?
Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 02:55:47 +0200


20 July 2000

Dear Members of the Postcolonial List,

1) PSEUDONYMS
James M. Blaut does bring up a pertinent point which bugs all e-mail lists.
Some of us reveal who we are right from the start, and consequently have to
put up with the abuse and praise, by equal measure, directed at us.

Some people, however, in trying to get objective answers to the issues
involved. They don't want praise / attacks, so they hide behind a pseudonym.
Ultimately, these people may get found out one way or the other, so it's
maybe better to argue from your real ethnic and social spot on this Earth,
rather than getting too clever-clever by playing Devil's advocate, or agent
provocateur, or adopting other devious solutions to mask one's insecurity
about one's identity.

In other words, if you really believe what you stand for, why not come clean
and fight for your corner of the ring like, for instance, some of the more
noble-minded Arabic members of this e-mail group?

2) BLACKS
Isn't using the term "Black" for an awful lot of different ethnic groups,
just as grotesque as lumping Portuguese, Lithuanians, certain Australians,
Finns and Jews from the Yemen together and calling whem "Whites", in an
attempt to create a convenient black-and-white distinction, worthy of
apartheid? Haven't we grown up beyond such colonial distinctions? Where do
the following belong, in this neat packaging of identities: 1) negroid,
speaks British English with an accent that is totally British, though the
skin may suggest a different ethnic provenance; 2) White-skinned, but was
brought up in Africa. Speaks a "South African" type of English, but also
happens to speak two "Black" languages (e.g. Xhosa, Zulu); 3) Upper-class
Indian, went to all the best public schools and universities on offer on all
continents, skin -  brown; 4) White European, but speaks such lamentable
English that s/he can hardly be understood in Britain, though s/he claims to
have studied English for four years at university in an Eastern European
capital; 5) ethnically, an North American Indian, totally educated in the
current North American system of education which is, in effect, run by White
hegomaniacs, although these "rulers" keep quiet about this at faculty
meetings? How many of these are "Black"? What indeed is a "coconut"? Does
the converse exist? Is the problem race, or culture and language? Black
literature - should it exist as a category?

Best wishes,

Eric Dickens




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