Comments on The Pensive Quill: Murderers, Liars, Conspirators

let's have a sit in....that ought to make peop...

2012-06-19T13:14:11.650+01:00

let's have a sit in....that ought to make people sit up and listen...no pun intended....

@ Eamonn McCann my apologies for misunderstanding....

2012-06-17T13:45:18.361+01:00

@ Eamonn McCann my apologies for misunderstanding. mary

Christopher, ‘That's an easy error to make, e...

2012-06-17T12:58:20.425+01:00

Christopher,

‘That's an easy error to make, especially if you're not familiar with the American usage of "being in blackface."

That pretty much sums it up. The transcriber actually got it right but at this end ... we were no so clued in

Christopher, ‘That's an easy error to make, e...

2012-06-17T12:58:19.632+01:00

Eamonn McCann just rang there to clarify that he s...

2012-06-15T22:32:15.067+01:00

Eamonn McCann just rang there to clarify that he said 'Bush In Blackface' and not 'Bush and Blackface.' The transcriber earlier suggested that she thought likewise. The fault for the mistake is entirely our own and not Eamonn McCann's nor the transcriber. We apologise for any difficulty this might have caused. The error has been corrected in the above article.

That's an easy error to make, especially if yo...

2012-06-15T13:57:15.146+01:00

That's an easy error to make, especially if you're not familiar with the American usage of "being in blackface."

Also, you probably wouldn't want to tell most Americans that the term "Mummer" is English in origin. Most "Irish" bars in and around Philly have the requisite Proclamation on the wall and often as not you can encounter a Hawkish bent only Americans removed 3000 miles from the immediate carnage of a war will retain. (Notice I'm not saying which ocean Atlantic or Pacific or which war.)

The transcriber has pointed out that it might have...

2012-06-15T12:46:53.612+01:00

The transcriber has pointed out that it might have been 'Bush in Blackface'

enuff family try this http://youtu.be/tRlDnilhqTM...

2012-06-14T22:41:35.130+01:00

enuff family
try this

http://youtu.be/tRlDnilhqTM

@Christopher Conley, jr Big thanks for insights/g...

2012-06-14T22:12:04.176+01:00

@Christopher Conley, jr Big thanks for insights/good clarification I always thought mummers was just a freakish English thing. Your take on it has cleared up my apprehensions...

Ta Anthony...

@ Organised Rage the ‘imbecile’ responding. Context and coconuts - pandering to your idle query written in a rush as late so hope it makes sense...
Calling someone a coconut who is Polynesian could rightfully earn you shattered teeth or you could be making a point such as the mummer bizzo analogy that Christopher clarified. Coconut is brown on outside but white on the inside.
Conversely someone may call you ‘a coconut just like us’ as affection (ie) you are a white person but you are brown like us – stand with us’. Aeons ago by an old Aboriginal woman said to me “ sis you have a black heart” which initially freaked me as i thought she meant i was evil in me heart but other Aboriginal people there said NO! she is saying it as a loving comment. Your skin is white but your heart is black = you stand with us for Aboriginal rights – it is a loving comment Hence it is always context /cultural understandings etc. I hate the skin color schisms and so on but yes i am more sensitised alert to the shit that can go on due to years in a certain field of work. I feel no shame challenging/asking and getting clarification. As for no-one being perfect yeah i put my hand up to that too. Regards ahaha that terminology always makes me cringe. U could have just said Up yours.

Christopher, that is a very useful contextualisat...

2012-06-14T21:49:05.687+01:00

Christopher,

that is a very useful contextualisation

I just realized this says "bush AND blackface...

2012-06-14T19:27:30.665+01:00

I just realized this says "bush AND blackface" where I thought it said "bush IN blackface."

"Blackface" was a Racist Carnival Disguise that Mummers and Vaudeville Actors would rub dark shoe polish over their faces and act boorish on-stage lampooning prejudices and stereotypes of black Americans. Unfortunately for me and my hometown region, one famous example is the Philadelphia Mummers, string bands who parade on New Years Day and drink and party. They used to dress up in blackface. I enjoy the parade and its festivities admittedly, but I regret its original racist overtones, especially being that many of its practioners were/are Irish-American immigrants and descendants. Luckily most of this overt racism has been rightfully banished from the celebration.

Usually "Blackface" is trotted out these days for people that Malcolm X would call "Uncle Tom" ie entertainers or athletes or politicians seen as "clowning it up" to the WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) establishment.

I misread that as "bush IN blackface" as in "Hey, Obama, you came in on a platform of hope, but are you just Bush in a Mummer's Disguise?" Still provocative, but I think rightfully so. Should a minority of people who are historical and in their working class neighborhoods STILL victims of state oppression become the arbiters of government oppression?

Reading this source and many others, I think the same question can be accurately posed to Sinn Fein.

SMH, I think Christopher Conley, jr. spotted the ...

2012-06-14T19:15:41.394+01:00

SMH,

I think Christopher Conley, jr. spotted the significance

SMH, admittedly I didn't pick up on it first ...

2012-06-14T19:12:52.165+01:00

SMH,

admittedly I didn't pick up on it first time round. But I agree with Mick here when he refers to Eamonn McCann's stand on anti-racism. In fact if anything I think he has taken his anti racism to a point where he wrongly criticised cartoonists for depicting Mohammed, thinking it was racist to do so. I thoroughly disagreed with him. He has been a consistent anti-racist. People who know him attest to him being colour blind. I don't know why he used that term but I would be certain that he did not do it in a racist sense. I allow for the possibility that he may have deliberately chose it in the Fanon sense of Black Face White Mask whereby the Black person assumes the white persona. In that sense he would be hitting out at the hope Obama was meant to herald and yet he has been playing the same old games that old George Whiteface played.

saint mary, out of intrest would you find the wor...

2012-06-14T18:43:41.156+01:00

saint mary,

out of intrest would you find the word coconut offensive?

i feel it was a great speech and as JP has already said, it reads as well as it sounds. Like McCann or loath him, his record on anti racism is out there for all to see.

In a small way your criticism reminds me of those who attempted to tar Ken Livingstone as an anti semite, something only an imbecile or an inhabitant of mars would believe to be the truth.

No one is perfect and most of us come out with stuff at time we wish we had put in a better way, but in this case for me it did not make the points Eamon made any less spot on.

regards

@ Anthony was it necessary for McCann to say ‘Bush...

2012-06-14T01:35:09.816+01:00

@ Anthony was it necessary for McCann to say ‘Bush and blackface as I call him’ What the hell was that about – i found that highly juvenile and suspect as to the usage Did he call Bush whiteface nope. So why did he do it? Was he meaning tokenism – a token black in the White House to deceive African Americans equality/equity has been achieved? If so, why not say it? An expression like that is insulting and inflammatory. I am not in the admiration club and he did not say anything that any thinking person does not know.

The murder of Sam Marshall by the Brit death squads must never be glossed over /dumbed down. Never... I hope with all my heart for Sam Marshall’s fam and for Sam that this campaign fight goes from strength to strength til the truth is admitted... Without accountability and the facts they just do it again and again...

Write of life the pious said - forget the past / the past is dead.
But all I see in front of me is a concrete floor / a cell door / and John Pat.’
( Jack Davis) .
1983 - John Pat Aboriginal Australian aged 16 brutally beaten to death by cops/died in custody. The all white jury agreed no harm was done by police & they walked free. Brit System
‘2004 - Mulrunji
34 years of age died from ruptured liver literally split in half from beatings, ruptured portal vein including broken ribs - in police custody.Senior Sergeant Christopher Hurley walks free to this day.. Brit System.... Hurley still works a cop on the Gold Coast.

Great read. Eamonn tells it like it is. It's a...

2012-06-13T16:42:27.186+01:00

Great read. Eamonn tells it like it is. It's a pity there's not more like him.

As ever with Eamonn McCann, great to listen to, gr...

2012-06-13T14:26:44.623+01:00

As ever with Eamonn McCann, great to listen to, great to read. Just cuts through so much of the guff. This guy has been inspirational for more than four decades and is still doing it. An example to be emulated and aspired to

Holy Schmidt, this is too spot-on! I need to quote...

2012-06-13T12:41:16.764+01:00

Holy Schmidt, this is too spot-on! I need to quote him on "Bush and blackface as I call him." Of course, I've sort of a Jilted Suitor take on Obama, being as how I was duped into voting for him thinking he was going to role back Bush's human rights abuses, and instead he used the foundation Baby Bush built to erect a Drone launch pad.

Not that his upcoming opponent Romney is much different. Two sides to the same coin. Its a lot like Two-Face the villain in BATMAN, he flips a coin but both sides are Heads.