By A Longtime Reader
Sat, Jan 8, 2022 12:02 p.m.
Comments on Two Different Items of Yours
1. Re:
I checked out the wikipedia entry on E. R. Braithwaite, the author of the 1959 autobiographical novel upon which the film was based. Born in Guyana, he died in 2016 aged 104. The article (and others) mention a longtime partner, Genevieve Ast with whom he lived in Washington, DC, but the 2017 Guyana Chronicle story about a memorial service for him in Washington, DC shows a photo of a white wife called Ginette and his sons Francis and Ron, clearly half-white.
For Whites, Nepotism is a Moral and Legal Offense; for blacks, It's a Wonderful Opportunity: noi mayor Eric Adams Appoints Kid Brother Bernard as Deputy Police Commissioner
Remind me about JFK appointing his brother Bobby as Attorney General.
[N.S.: After JFK's assassination, Congress passed a law outlawing nepotism in cabinet appointments.]
2. "What Can I Give You, in Return?": "To Sir, with Love": An Ode to Miscegenation
(I don't know if Ginette was actually the mother of these two middle-aged men or whether she succeeded earlier spouses whom E.R.B. had outlived. The media are remarkably incurious about such things.)
Braithwaite's long life was especially atypical for a black, beginning with his name Eustace Edward Ricardo Braithwaite and the fact that his parents were both said to have been graduates of Oxford University. Among other things, Braithwaite earned an MA and PhD in physics from Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge and had earlier been an RAF fighter pilot in World War II. When visiting South Africa around 1974 he was given the official visa status of "honorary white," which seems rather appropriate, all things considered, for someone at the extreme right tail of the IQ distribution for his ethnic group. Talk about a fish out of water.
Sincerely yours,
A Longtime Reader
N.S.: Imagine how long he would have lived, if not for apartheid!
No comments:
Post a Comment