http://www.emporiagazette.com/news/2008/nov/05/esu_prof_says_obama/

STAN: Kevin, white and Black are political and cultural catagories as welll as phenotypes… and Jefferson was white.

http://www.frontiersman.com/articles/2008/11/17/opinion/columnists/doc491d0c71aa9b4424387056.txt

My earlier comment regarding ethnic oppression ending upon intermarriage should be clarified – the less powerful ethnic group destroys its separate existence (or makes it less threatening) via intermarriage – Dutch/Frisian, Arab/”Berber” etc.

Perhaps an example closer to home: I’m from South Africa (Afrikaner) – our (European) ancestors variously settled in abandoned enclaves (post-Mfecane) and among other (southern African) ethnic groups – occasionally living in peace, but often attacking, and even destroying said African groups (the s.c. San-related groups in particular in certain areas). There was at the same time, much intermarriage, both between Europeans and Africans, and between Europeans and their South and South-East Asian slaves (in particular Malays, Malagasys and Javanese, and Indians) – the evidence is in our DNA and MDNA (mitochondrial DNA), as well as in the existence of the s.c. ‘Coloureds’ (SA definition – Euro-Africans with notable African features, as well as any non-black, non-Indian muslims, in particular, Malay and Indonesian descendant). One recent survey found 6% of whites in Cape Town had San-related mDNA – quite often one finds whites with notably Indian, and occasionally even (Southern) African features – my one grandmother’s facial build looks very Oriya (NE India), and many of my white classmates in primary school had a greyish-brownish skin-tone (their immediate relatives could pass as whites in North America, though they could probably pass as Eastern Europeans).

The only effect of the above on apartheid in South Africa was to allow certainly light-skinned ‘coloureds’ to have themselves reclassified as whites (e.g. my one grandfather). It did not in the least modulate racism (although other factors did, e.g. in the ‘Orange Free State’ many Afrikaners learn Sotho at home from the (black) nanny and their parents, and Afrikaans in school, and they tend not to hate blacks in the fashion one may find in certain other parts of the country – I understand that similar processes worked in the southern US regarding kikongo – you call peanuts goobers?)

The fall of official apartheid did far more to weaken white-on-black,etc violence than all that intermarriage. (Of course, white privilege changes its form: better schools are usually formerly exclusively white, and still largely white; pointing out to whites that they enjoy racial privilege leads to “but whites are now also living in shanty towns” etc…)

http://greenespace.blogspot.com/2005/11/afro-celts-and-other-cultural-cross.html

This reference is from a footnote by Daniel Cassidy. Among other things, it validates what Willie Ruff recalls hearing Dizzy Gillespie talk about with regard to Gaelic speaking African-Americans in the Carolinas. Newton has a PhD from Edinburgh University and is an expert in Scots Culture and a fluent Gaelic speaker. His research also confirms Daniel Cassidy’s view of the “crossroads” where various immigrant cultures met, mingled and melded in America. Newton’s research reveals that Scottish peoples were displaced from their homeland by British forces that took their land, and the Scots came to America, where some of them became slaveowners, yet were lowranking in the dominant white culture along with the Irish.

And no doubt the races interbred. Descendants of these people have to deal to this day with the confusion of their melded ancestries and cross-cultural connections.

All this leads me to believe the maybe Earl Woods was on to something when he predicted that his son, Tiger Woods, would save the world, or something like that. Or maybe Barack Obama will lead us into a post-racial world as a self-professed “mutt”.

One thing seems certain to me, the boundaries that people have used to divide and oppress and dominate one another through the centuries are not nearly as certain as most people think. If these boundaries are artificial and unsupportable, then the ability to enforce them must give way to equality and fraternity and justice, and the sooner the better.

Stan Moore

http://opa.yale.edu/news/article.aspx?id=3580

If one does a Google search using the words Dizzy Gillespie and “Gaelic”, one gains access to various news articles documenting a connection between slaves brought to America and Gaelic culture brought by Scottish immigrants to America.
Apparently, Dizzy Gillespie recalled some of his memories and family lore to fellow Jazz artist Willie Ruff, and Willie Ruff actually traveled to Scotland and “was blown away” to see some of the musical connections that emananted from the melding of cultures. Willie Ruff actually organized concerts of white singers from Scotland singing in concert with African American singers who both practiced remnants of the same culture, unbeknownst to each other.

I wonder if the musicologists would have derided Willie Ruff for suggesting that African American gospel music derived from Scottish gaelic music before his research was perfected? Perhaps they do anyways, I don’t now, but I do accept the fact that Dizzy Gillespie came from a background of Gaelic speaking slaves based on the second hand testimony of his friend and jazz collaborator Willie Ruff.

Stan Moore

I don’t know anything about linguistics, but I am very interested in the unrelated science of taxonomics and systematics of life, and it is amazing to me that at this late date in time, the classification of living organisms continue to be revised, often due to genetics studies either confirming or conflicting with other scientific methods. One of the great ecologists, Aldo Leopold, once defined science itself as the art of “finding patterns in nature” and it is entirely possible that (the recently departed) Daniel Cassidy had a scientific genius that could identify patterns missed by ohers, perhaps sheer to his own history and hunger for information about his Irish roots.

The fact that modern linguistics does not necessarily prove the connection of Irish slang and Irish language to American vernacular English language does not disprove it. And many words in English are of undetermined origin. I think that Daniel Cassidy looked at the patterns and drew his own conclusions and to my knowledge, his work has been derided, but not disproved.

I have not bothered to look up the issue of Dizzy Gillespie and his relationship to Gaelic-speaking people, but I don’t think that Cassidy would have made that up out of the blue. He has done a lot of research into the melding of Irish with other populations in America, and his family lived some of that history. I did hear Dizzy Gillespie play music years ago at a Houston Blues Festival, and I could not detect any Gaelic tones emanaiting from his bullhorn. But I was not listening for such, either

Lastly, one of the great things about Daniel Cassidy that I thought would be of value here in the context of the politics of race is his deep acceptance of the melding of races of people (using the term very loosely). Cassidy was a living antidote to racism and celebrated that melding of languages, cultures, lifestyles, families that used to be called “the American melting pot”. To me, among the benefits of this melting would be mutual compassion and understanding that in various ways, all of us are victims of our circumstances in life and we do best when we work together to sort out our differences, share our suffering, take comfort from one another, and learn to live, play, breed, work, and (maybe) drink Irish whiskey together.

Stan Moore

the dichotomy black-white has made us ignore many other dynamics and possibilities in the history of the americas. let me emphasize that although the notion of hybridity is so popular among liberal-academic circles (and obama is part of it), it is usually not applied to working class folks born to american indian-black marriages etc.

most crucially: if the irish were able to “become white” after the american civil war, is it also possible to “unbecome white”? cassidy’s work, as flawed as its linguistic details may be, points in this direction and must be pondered upon.

most of the criticism seems to repeat that he has no firm textual evidence for his claim (aka where are the footnotes?), and it comes from people whose primary background is in english (and not much else. i’m wary of linguists who don’t speak a few languages fluently). in contrast, i’d be interested in reading studies by people familiar with sociolinguistics and, most of all, irish dialectology. it gets a little absurd when people without a solid grounding in irish accuse cassidy of not knowing the language.

until then, my hunch is that cassidy’s dictionary may be horribly wrong on some words (folk-etymology), but that the basic idea is correct. a good analogy is the wonderful “many-headed hydra” by p. linebaugh, which at times can be hagiographic, but succeeds in writing a history of laboring classes of the atlantic.

aside from historical linguistics, which i’m quite passionate about, i think that cassidy’s statements about the middle class, radicalism and ethnicity are very profound. the program made me think of latin american creolization processes and how north american processes are an inverted mirror image. but i’ll stop here. good luck, you all.

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005098.html

have pointed out.