Posted by
VBushmills on Saturday, October 31, 2009 8:40:11 AM
Richmond 31 October, 2009
About 15 years ago, in order to defray some of my travel expenses, I taught American Government and Business Law at a small inner-city college in Cincinnati. The ratio of women (girls) to men (boys) was about 8 to 1. The ratio of mothers to unfrocked flowers, 10 to 0.
I have quite a song and dance about American Government, and teach it with enthusiasm, but still, it is "government". So, to spice up the tests, I'd put in a few 1066 and All That type questions, such as "Who said this about that?" Once I asked who was the greatest jazz singer...for extra credit, of course. (Everybody knows it's Ella.) I got answer from Celine Dion to Lady Day, and just for helluvit, I asked one student why she put down Sarah Vaughan.
She stood up and she said: "Just once in my life I'd like to meet that man she's singing about." All the males in the class began to slink down under their desks.
Makes you stop and think, huh?
Piece of Evidence #2: In that same period there appeared a film I'm sure you all recall, "Shakespeare in Love". I wanted to see it, chick flick that it was, because I enjoy the lyrical banter of Shakespearean films. But of all the major cinema-plexes it was only shown, in a smaller theater on Cincinnati's north side, an area called Blue Ash, which in those days was for Yuppies and BMW dealerships. I caught the Friday, 7 PM showing, and noticed, as I walked in that most of the people going in alongside me were young black girls, in pairs, threesomes and foursomes. Sprinkled through this assemblage were a lot of young white girls, who from their hair styles and the license plates on their pickups, had driven in from rural northern Kentucky, about 30 miles away.
A strange congregation for Shakespeare, you might ask. Indeed, I did ask, as one has to wonder why the promoter's of this film would try to sell it in to a niche audience (horny thirtysomething female lawyers) that barely made a blip at the ticket window. Did they miscalculate, or was it simply understood that urban black girls and country white girls weren't capable, or supposed to "get" such a film's drift?
I later validated my observations by watching the audiences at various Jane Austen/Merchant & Ivory films or just about anything with Emma Thompson in it. (Thank God she never bared all as Gwyneth Paltrow did...such as they were.)
Then more recently there was the audience reaction to first Paul Potts, then Susan Boyle...again a mix of young Cockney girls and old crones who looked like Andy Capp's wife, tearing up as one of their own shone. (Check these out on YouTube, from England's Got Talent television show).
You might have guessed that I like watching audiences almost as much as I do film. But who doesn't when a mousy frightened little man stands up and on his first try sings Puccini like Caruso? That's even more heartwarming than watching Will Smith and Jeff Gloodblum bring down the evil Mother Ship.
There is a point to this, and that is: Who is it that is always wrong about those people living on the other side of the tracks? And are they wrong on purpose? Are they wrong because they want them to stay on that side of the tracks? Are they therefore right in their own plans as to their own pre-conceptions about the depth of the human spirit?
And do they have a plan about what to do with these folks once their takeover plans are complete? Or do they just continue to laze about like Hyacinth's sister Daisy and 'er 'ubbie Onslow?
I have in the works a more serious piece about "the other side of the tracks" and how they may soon be turned into an armed militia/mob (can you spell Paris during the Terror?), for that may well be the role they have been assigned in the coming months or years. For forty years they have been driven into a more and more barbaric state, and no matter how hard they try, they are not alllowed even the least little light in, and offered only one door out. Again we have to ask, miscalculation or plan? Maybe soon the Left will simply unleash them and set that barbarism loose.
VB