Where is 'Caucasia'?

Subject: RE: Where is 'Caucasia'?
From: GUEST,dusty m
Date: 24 Apr 01 - 07:45 PM

lovely rant, this. flew a little to close to the flame, (ouch). i'll visit you all again by another name, in another thead. bye

Subject: RE: Where is 'Caucasia'?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 25 Apr 01 - 12:37 PM

oy vey, all. For crying out loud and other things. Mousethief is a sweetie, so there, and so is the First Amendment, who didn't offend me, but then again I remembered MY meds... and when I was in West Africa (60's and 70's), I was called (as were all whites) tubabu, which means white MAN, not white person. Not to be confuse with tubab, which means Doctor, again whether male or female. Frogmore, where were you and why? And what language were those terms in? I really only heard tubabu, which is either Dioula or Bambara, depending on the theorist. (FYI in case, Dioula is the lingua franca of West Africa, the language natives use to communicate with other natives not of their tribe. The colonial French didn't really replace that, although I think it tried.)

Subject: RE: Where is 'Caucasia'?
From: Haruo
Date: 25 Apr 01 - 08:01 PM

Mrrzy, I think there are parts of WA where Fula(ni) and other languages play the role of lingue franche [that's a plural, not a typo, folks]. Incidentally, to complete the thread creep away from the caucasoid, about two weeks ago on the bus (in Seattle) I was listening to a couple of what looked like perfectly normal American young ladies of African extraction speaking some other language. I could tell it wasn't Swahili and I was pretty sure it wasn't Haitian, so I got up the courage to ask and found out they were both from the Gambia and were speaking Mandinke (which, I'd hazard a guess, is another word for Bambara and Dioula?). Small world. (Small country, too, for that matter. They were surprised I'd ever heard of it.)

Liland
(ninafahamu Kiswahili, walakini sifahamu Kimandinke)

Subject: RE: Where is 'Caucasia'?
From: GUEST,Frogmore
Date: 25 Apr 01 - 10:03 PM

Liland, I was in: Senegal, Mali, Haute Volta, Ghana, Togo, Dahomey, Nigeria, Niger, and back to Europe through the Sahara through Algeria. The words I mentioned were spoken by tribes in Ghana and Togo and I was never offended. They are WORDS. Words are useful, nothing more. There are MANY languages in West Africa. I use many words but omit ones I think might be offensive. "Sticks and stones....." Oh, "why was I there?" Simply because I was young and curious. Still curious too. This is fun.

Subject: RE: Where is 'Caucasia'?
From: mousethief
Date: 26 Apr 01 - 12:33 AM

Call me what you will, but please don't call me "Late For Supper."

I always thought that was a stupid name.

Alex
Part Blackfoot and not ashamed of that either.

Subject: RE: Where is 'Caucasia'?
From: Kim C
Date: 26 Apr 01 - 02:34 PM

Can I call you Shirley instead? :-D

Subject: RE: Where is 'Caucasia'?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 27 Apr 01 - 01:01 PM

Yeah, it was Haute Volta back there. To continue this particular aside, I believe Mandinke is a language that is particular to the Mandinke people, whereas Dioula is not particular to any tribe (which was the PC term, at the time). Dioula is very very close to Bambara, which is a particular tribe's language. My only brush with the Swahili family came from linguistics classes, so I recognize your noun class markers, Liland, have you read "Women, Fire and Dangerous Things" which is a great noun class book?

Subject: RE: Where is 'Caucasia'?
From: mousethief
Date: 27 Apr 01 - 01:53 PM

Surely you won't call me Shirley.

Subject: RE: Where is 'Caucasia'?
From: Kim C
Date: 27 Apr 01 - 03:32 PM

It's better than Late for Supper.

Speaking of Caucasian, tho, there are apparently a lot of people who don't know what that means. Where I work, we do educational presentations and have people fill out anonymous surveys at the end so we can have the information for grant reports at the end of the year. We used to ask their ethnicity and Caucasian was on the list. Instead of checking Caucasian, several people would write "white" under "other."

The old family rumour is that one of the gggrandmothers was half Cherokee but it's never been substantiated. My brother does sing in a Native American drum group, though... and my maiden name was Feathers... but that's actually a bastardization of Vatter, which was German. Then I found out I have a whole passel of Dutch ancestors.

So I don't know what I am frankly but I'm happy to be it whatever it is. :-)

Subject: RE: Where is 'Caucasia'?
From: mousethief
Date: 27 Apr 01 - 03:35 PM

I hear you, Kim! I'm not entirely sure where all my blood came from, but I appear to have enough, and I'm grateful.

Alex

Subject: RE: Where is 'Caucasia'?
From: Kim C
Date: 27 Apr 01 - 03:56 PM

Havin enough blood, now that's important! I shouldn't be selfish, I know, but I prefer to keep my blood. I do understand, however, that there are people who don't have enough blood. Maybe one of these days I will get enough chutzpah to share mine.

Subject: RE: Where is 'Caucasia'?
From: mousethief
Date: 27 Apr 01 - 04:51 PM

I used to donate blood a lot before I wound up on all these various medications. It's not scary at all, and doesn't hurt as much as it feels good, IYKWIM.

Alex

Subject: RE: Where is 'Caucasia'?
From: GUEST,in room 325 of the Motel 6
Date: 27 Apr 01 - 05:12 PM

Alex/Mousethief,

I used to think that you you were some kind of jerk.

Now I understand that you must be the way you are because of all your "various medications."

Subject: RE: Where is 'Caucasia'?
From: Kim C
Date: 27 Apr 01 - 05:35 PM

That really wasn't very nice. Most of us are jerks at one time or another.

Don't go there with him, MT.

Subject: RE: Where is 'Caucasia'?
From: mousethief
Date: 27 Apr 01 - 05:37 PM

No intent.