"... Enough to make a black man blush!"

[Wilson Gray]

>From what I see on the tube and in print, the point of this expression
is lost on white folk. Blushing is as common among blacks as it is
among whites. In general, the surfeit of melanin in the skin of the
(stereo)typical black person prevents one from seeing the reddening of
the face so obvious among European-Americans. Instead, one goes by the
cold sweat and the embarrassed grin. The point of the saying is that
something has occurred that is so _incredibly_ embarrasing that even
the face of, e.g. a Kofi Annan fills with so much blood that the blush
can be seen *through* the layer of melanin. As one of the boyz in the
'hood might less politely put it, "Man, that embarrassed the shit out
of me!"

-Wilson
-----
Everybody says, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange
complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is knows how deep
a debt of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first great benefactor of our
race. He brought death into the world.

--Sam Clemens

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org