Race/racism and the late Prof. Frederic G. Cassidy

[Laurence Horn]

At 5:08 PM -0500 11/1/06, Wilson Gray wrote:
>Somewhen, somewhere, I was reading the published papers from a round
>table on BE. The included commentary contained a brief discussion
>between the moderator and a black, female member of the audience.
>
>The black woman asked something to the following effect: "How is it
>that you white people dare convene this round table on the language of
>Black America and include not even a single black participant on the
>panel?"
>
>The moderator responded somewhat as follows: "You are laboring under a
>misapprehension. Indeed, the most eminent member of our panel, Prof.
>Cassidy, is black."
>
>I'm fairly certain that I was familiar with Prof. Cassidy's name, but,
>beyond that, I knew nothing personal about him. This being the United
>States of America, I had made the default assumption that a full
>professor of linguistics at a major American university [OT brag: the
>father of your humble correspondent received his law degree from the
>University of Wisconsin in 1936, later becoming the first black person
>to be admitted to the Texas bar] must be white. So, I was quite
>surprised to read this assertion, so much so that I found it hard to
>believe, though there was nothing to indicate that Prof. Cassidy
>denied the assertion.
>
>As fate would have it, some time later, in the early 'Seventies, I
>became acquainted with M, who had once been a teacher (rank unknoown
>to me) of linguistics at Wisconsin. We became, I thought, close
>friends. So, I eventually felt free to ask her The Question: "Is it
>true that Prof. Frederic Cassidy is black?"
>
>M went up in smoke, virtually exploding with righteous indignation,
>replying somewhat as follows: "How in the HELL did you ever get the
>impression that Prof. Cassidy is not white?! Where did you get that
>shit from?! That is absolutely a damned lie! He is as purely white as
>the driven snow! He is NOT black!"
>
>Given that a simple "No" would have sufficed, I felt forced to make an
>agonizing reappraisal of what I had surmised to be M's attitude toward
>black people in general, as opposed to her attitude toward your humble
>correspondent in particular, which was revealed to be nothing more
>than a variation of the old apartheid move of designating non-white
>VIP's as honorary whites as necessary.
>
>But, IAC, was he black or was he white?
>
>-Wilson

He certainly looked pretty white to me (Assistant Prof. of
Linguistics, UW-Madison, 1977-80), but that's not always indicative
of one's being entirely white.  I'd think if he was "black", it
wasn't detectable melaninically.

LH

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