"Hard times make monkey eat cayenne pepper" (Clarence Thomas's grandfather)

[Charles Doyle]

Whiting's _Modern Proverbs_ (1989; T156), gives "Tough times make monkeys eat red peppers" (from _Time_ magazine, 1958: "an axiom learned during his East Harlem youth").

Prahlad (p. 239) cites Elsie C. Parsons, _Folk-Lore of the Antilles_ (1943): "Hunger make monkey blow fire" (from Grenada).

Whiting cites as an analog the much older "Dainty dogs eat dirty puddings."

--Charlie
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---- Original message ----
>Date: Tue, 2 Oct 2007 21:53:32 -0400
>From: Barry Popik <bapopik at GMAIL.COM>
>
>Clarence Thomas said in an interview that his grandfather used this phrase; perhaps it's in Thomas's book.
>...
>Is it in the ProQuest Black Newspapers database?
>...
>...
>...
>(GOOGLE BOOKS)

>African-American Proverbs in Context
>by Anand Prahlad - Literary Criticism - 1996 - 292 pages
>
>Page 239
>Hard times will make a monkey eat cayenne pepper. ... Usage: "If a monkey had gone a long time without eating, he would eat whatever became available to ...
>...
>...
>(GOOGLE BOOKS)
>If He Hollers Let Him Go: A Novel - Google Books Resultby Chester B. Himes - 2002 - Fiction - 216 pages
>The white folks* pressure would make a monkey eat cayenne pepper—once. 1 tried to shake it from my mind, looked about me. I'd gone out past Washington. ...
>...
>...
>(GOOGLE)
>Hillsdale College - Issue My grandfather used to say, "Hard times make monkey eat Cayenne pepper." Hard times have a way of teaching us lessons that we refuse to learn in good times. ...
>
>[June 1994 essay by Clarence Thomas. Full quote below. -- ed.]
>...
>I know there are those who hear me with a smug arrogance that only
>untarnished youth or insulated cynicism can generate. But I am
>unimpressed with this uninformed and misguided arrogance; I have seen
>it and I have been there. My grandfather used to say, "Hard times make
>monkey eat Cayenne pepper." Hard times have a way of teaching us
>lessons that we refuse to learn in good times. That is the one
>university we all get to attend—tuition free. And learning the lessons
>that we must learn cannot forever be avoided by sweeping our
>difficulties under the rug of societal blame.

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