Colin Powell

[Joel S. Berson]

At 9/8/2011 03:42 AM, victor steinbok wrote:
>IIRC, Powell's family roots are Jamaican--in fact, his parents were Jamaican
>immigrants who moved to Harlem, then to South Bronx
>--at least in part to escape the local culture.

Which local culture was his family escaping?

>Powell's entire career has been built on answering
>*white* superiors, all the way from My Lai (actually, he was already a major
>by then) to the Cabinet. But Wiki says something else--he had learned
>Yiddish while working at a store (in high school)

Those were presumably the days when there were still some Jews in the
South Bronx.  (Powell graduated from Morris High in 1954.)

>and he graduated from
>CCNY, so in his formative years he appears to have been mostly surrounded by
>NYC Jews. In this context, lack of Ivy education is irrelevant.

Of course -- a NYC Jew is the equal of any Ivy graduate -- and speaks
as pure an English.

Joel

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