Backroom Errata

[Montmorency]

One obvious question is how this outgroup perception compares to the country she left behind. Certain outgroups may also be perceived positively in sum.

Another highly relevant question is to what extent the locals tend to notice ethnicity based on appearance, including physical traits and cultural markers, particularly in the urban environment where this woman lives.

How do all types of Europeans and Africans and Asians distinguish one another? There are shibboleths.

What do you think of this?

My first reaction to the source, as an historian, is that it appears to be misrepresenting something. All secondary sources are written with a particular goal/thesis and it behoves me to ask why that is. The American army in WWII was and is a byword for institutional racism at all levels and there have been two films about the trials and successes of the Tuskegee Airmen specifically. Given that this was surely known to you it behoves me also to ask why you are posting this?

As to why it looks dodgy - I'll elaborate on my previous explanation. The final quote from an American airman is cut off mid-sentence and it's unclear whether his view of coloured airmen is actually positive or negative, but it's made to look negative by grouping it with the other quotes. If this is the sort of historiography the book employs then the book is manipulative and not to be trusted. You need to drill back to the original unit histories

I'm surprised you didn't know that ellipses in quotes is widely used in all forms of non-fiction. It is not inherently misleading.

To assume that this sequence is "dodgy" and that the author is manipulating the abbreviated quote to turn a positive sentiment negative would surely require some evidence. or else it would be nothing more than a malicious attack on someone for printing subject matter you don't like. The author's prior history of improper or misleading citation for instance. But you didn't offer any.

Turning to the actual content it's hard to look at:

1. Racism
2. Racism!
3. Racism
4. Racism

and not think one would have to be motivated to confidently interject that the last quote might read something like "That isn't just what they are looking for. What they want to do is to stand at the same bar with you, and be able to talk with your wife. They are insisting on equality... [and I think that's totally awesome!]" What, do you need them to say something like this? (Don't be like Spencer.)

Your judgement on this quote also suggests you are unaware of the historical association between white racism and misogyny/chauvinism. I should emphasize there's a reason a number of these quotes refer to white women or wives in relation to the undesirability of black contact with them. Historically it has been an overwhelmingly prevalent trope that non-white (not just black) men are sexually predator and hunger for the sweet pure flesh of white women, who are themselves judged to vulnerable to succumbing to the aggression or blandishments of swarthy ravishers. Thus in the US there was a great deal of paranoia over white women having any sort of relations, especially as peers, with black men. With the last quote anyone familiar with this history would instantly be aware of the connotation of the speaker's reference to black soldiers wanting to "talk with your wife," and it's not that he's open to sharing an interracial cuckold fetish...

As I said, the negative connotations to "churl" are post-Norman. The word really just means "man" in the same way Adam does. Do you think there would have been so many Germanic Kings calls Karl if it was an insult as far back as Late Antiquity? If you want some orientation on this I suggest you look up the story of Thrall, Karl and Jarl which is a Norse legend about Heimdall that maps the social classes in Germanic society.

The point is that the example is faulty - there is no real correlation between the blogger's perception of the churl and the modern American - they've created a false equivalency. In so doing they've taken precisely the wrong lesson from history.

Here is the operative part of the post:

Its archaic meaning, though, is for a person of low class. Specifically, in early Saxon England the churls were the lowest class of free people, which is to say they were not nobles nor royalty nor clergy, but nor were they serfs. They were essentially peasants; poor, but with the social and practical advantage of not being bound to a manor as serfs were. They were, in words used by the Mystery Lecturer that I will never forget, "possessing the freedom of the upper classes but without the economic means to take advantage of it."

The premise of the article lies in the one and only line that the writer attributes to the lecturer, which I bolded. It has nothing to do with the Normans or the later insulting connotation of the word "churl," which was just mentioned as a lead-in by the author. The author's analogy is from the status of ceorlas as the lowest-class freemen of early Anglo-Saxon (pre-Norman) society. Do you not accept that ceorl = low-status freeman? Do you not accept the validity of the statement attributed to the lecturer (in bold)? I think you just had a lapse of reading comprehension, it happens.