Culture-clash

[Wilson Gray]

On an episode of The Peoples Court, a late-thirty-ish black woman is
asked by the judge, a late-forty-ish white woman, to describe the
injuries suffered by the former's son as a consequence of his having
been shoved down a flight of stairs at school.

She speaks:

"Your honor, I looked at him and I saw that he had _hickies_ *all on his head*!"

Judge Milian, rhetorically:

"Well, I don't think the other boy gave him very many kisses, do you?"

Black woman:

Blank look. I.e., the question is totally void of content in the
relevant context, hence unanswerable.


For those who came in late, a while ago, I noted here that, though the
word _hickey_ is present in the lexicon of BE, its meaning has nothing
whatsoever to do with its meaning in WE. In BE,  a "hickey" is only a
knot raised on someone's head as the consequence of a blow, having no
reference whatsoever to kissing. In this case, the black woman was
describing the knots (is that the right word?) on her son's head that
hadresulted from his head having struck against the edges of the
stairs during the course of his fall.

Of course, the judge, thought that, for some who-knows-WTF-these-
people-are-saying-it's-all-so-what's-the-word?-"hip" reason, the woman
was colorfully, but obscurely, referring to the knots on her son's
head as though they were the consequence of his having been *kissed*,
in some jargonic sense, by the other boy.

And, likewise, the black woman couldn't even guess at what answer the
judge's rhetorical question might call for.
--
-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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