BookTalk.org

I saw on BBC. this morning a stunt where Market traders were giving away 5 pound notes four 4 pounds. Many people gave their opinion and then a little black boy said-''It makes no difference, if you've already got 4 pounds you can buy food and you can buy food with 5.'' and he shrugged his little shoulders. Aristotle, Plato-- here is your Master.

I don't understand what you're saying.

There are ,I think, 3 possibilities here. 1} You're not bright enough. We can discount that one. 2} That my English was/is inadequate to the task of explaining that a black boy who understands that 'enough' is contentment and the desire for More is unhappiness. Or 3} I'm enigmatic !! Now I've always wanted to be enigmatic. My doctor {de Milde} thinks I'm Bizarre ,he told me that just after he told me the silly joke and before he prescribed the medicine for my {prosaic}ear ache.
So we'll settle on Enigmatic,shall we ? J.

I found it reassuring that Chris didn't understand the story, because I didn't get it either!

You're kind of a racist. Why is the child's race relevant? Are we supposed to be pleasantly surprised that the child was black?

What a horrible thing to say.

Are we supposed to be pleasantly surprised that the child was black?

Moon Knight, I think you may be over-reacting. To the best of my knowledge, nobody in this forum thinks things like "this person is X colour, this person is clever, therefore I'm surprised."

I think we must'nt be too quick to use words like "racist or "kinda racist" because they end up introducing suspicion where none is necessary, and also because the word "racist" becomes so over-used that it ends up losing its meaning.

Because the child was black......we can assume, perhaps, that he could remember being hungry....... and so his attitude to an extra