From: HADCRJAM@admin.uh.edu (MILLER, JIMMY A.)
Subject: AN OPEN LETTER TO MR. HUMPHREY
Organization: University of Houston Administrative Computing
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 18:51:46 GMT
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  At the request of Peter Nyikos, I am posting this article.  It is posted
as I received it.  Thus, do not use 'r' to reply to Peter, and adjust the
attribution lines accordingly if you followup.

  Jim Miller
______________________________________________________________________________

AN OPEN LETTER TO MR. HUMPHREY                                                  
                                                                                
        Mr. Humphrey, I sent you privately an e-mail message saying I           
was convinced you owe Mr. Steve Chaney an apology for the comment which         
I reproduce below.  I tried hard to be diplomatic, but you wrote back an        
arrogant reply in which you told me never to e-mail you directly again.         
So I am using this method to continue addressing you.                           
                                                                                
        Here is the comment you made in a post addressed to Steve.              
                                                                                
>Come on, Steve.  Let's see just how much of a boy you are.  March your         
>fat black ass down here and tell me I'm a liar, to my face.  (I hope           
>you don't mind doing it in the presence of a few witnesses, and I hope         
>you like being humiliated.  On second thought, why should *I* care what        
>you think?  What you get, you won't expect.)                                   
                                                                                
>--PLH, thankful he's not a parent to such a waste of DNA as one Steve Chaney   
                                                                                
        I do not think even you, Mr. Humphrey, realize just how virulently      
racist this comment can sound.  It reminded me of an excerpt from the           
writings of a Black author from the first half of this century, reproduced      
in a book on social problems which I read for a class in sociology back         
in 1966.  Unfortunately, I cannot recall which book it was or who the           
author of the excerpted piece was, but I remember details almost as vividly     
as if I had read it yesterday.                                                  
                                                                                
        The author was at work when one of his White co-workers said to         
him: "__________ tells me you called me Pease." [I no longer recall the         
name of ________, either, but "Pease" is vividly etched in my memory.]          
                                                                                
        Now this was a terrible accusation in that time and place [deep         
South, depression years or even earlier]: a Black man referring to a            
White man by his first name without putting "Mister" in front of it.            
                                                                                
        Before the author-to-be could answer, __________ advanced on him        
with a heavy iron bar, saying: "Now be careful, Nigger.  If you deny            
calling him Pease, you're calling me a liar, see.  And if you do that,          
I'll beat your brains out with this f--k--g bar, see."                          
                                                                                
        Choosing his words carefully, the author-to-be said, "I don't           
recollect ever calling you `Pease,' Mr. Pease.  And if I did, I sure            
am sorry..."                                                                    
                                                                                
        Now "Mr. Pease" grabbed him by the shirt and said, "You black           
bastard!  You called me `Pease', then!"  And he repeatedly slapped the          
author-to-be, hard.                                                             
                                                                                
        The incident so shook up the author-to-be that he immediately           
quit his job [which was what his accusers were after all along] and             
moved out of the deep South.                                                    
                                                                                
                                                                                
        Mr. Humphrey, I don't think you meant any such drastic course           
of action by your open-ended threat ("What you get, you won't expect.")         
but I think you should tell Mr. Chaney that, for instance by saying,            
"I didn't mean it that way.  I'm sorry if it sounded that way to you."          
                                                                                
                                                                                
Note to all networkers:  You may, if you wish, call me a "Friend of the         
Fetus."  It's a badge I wear proudly, just as I would have worn "Nigger         
Lover" back in the 1960's--and, for one brief shining moment, I actually        
did.                                                                            
                                                                                
Peter Nyikos                                                                    
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