"tar baby" in the news

[Ronald Butters]

Ron Butters did not write what Wilson says he wrote. Ron Butters wrote

I  was questioning the seeming assertion that the intended audience for the Remus stories was exclusively white people who wanted to read stories that belitted black people.

I don't think Wilson and I have any disagreement about Harris's imagined audience. Harris was writing for a literate late-19th-Century audience (among whom would certainly have been people of color). His purpose was not to belittle or to cater to those who might have wanted to belittle. So why is Wilson so angry?


On Aug 4, 2011, at 5:39 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:

> On Thu, Aug 4, 2011 at 2:30 PM, Ron Butters <ronbutters at aol.com> wrote:
>> _the seeming assertion_ that the intended audience for the Remus stories was exclusively white people
>
> Rather, it is the _intended_ assertion.
>
> What other potential audience was there, when Harris wrote?
>
> However, I personally doubt that Harris's intended audience was
> wasting psychic energy, whether positive or negative, on the question
> of the belittling of a subgroup in which it was not necessary for that
> audience to have any interest whatsoever.
>
> My WAG is that, if he did give a thought to that question, he would
> have concluded only that his readership was seeking entertainment.
>
> And, of course, would anyone wish to claim that any white person has
> ever written anything with the delectation of black people as his sole
> motive or even as one of his motives?
>
> When the NYT BR or whatever notes that a work is intended "for a
> general audience," does anyone ever think,
>
> Oh! This author wants black people to be able to read this book and
> find it enjoyable and a worthy addition to their personal libraries,
> too! How white of him!
>
> It is precisely the desire to cater to the taste of the colored
> population that provides motivation for authors such as Herrnstein and
> Murray, no doubt.
>
> My WAG is, "Probably not."
>
> Of course,
>
> Youneverknow.
>
> --
> -Wilson
> -----
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
> to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -Mark Twain

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