That's a traditional attitude toward servants, too, goodness knows it  
also existed among the British upper crust, who never thought the  
servants and wait-staff were hearing anything they were discussing at  
dinner or over cigars and brandy; or any of the natives staff in the  
various colonial empires in the east. They were "things" more than  
fellow people. If any of you have watched the various BBC recreations  
of life in different periods of history, the one in the "manor house"  
was a hoot. The family selected as the lord and lady of the house and  
their children, I forget if it was a boy or two, and the working  
class blokes and wait staff, gardeners, etc. The man who was the lord  
especially fell right into his role, was soon making demands and  
insisting on this and that. Yet he told the camera he thought he was  
such an eminently fair master, treated his people right, had every  
confidence in what a good man he was and the high regard they held  
him in. He was a very self-satisfied fellow indeed. But when Guy  
Fawlkes Day rolled around, who did the staff make an effigy of, to  
burn? Their master, moustache and all. They didn't think they were  
being treated all that well, they seemed to consider him a pompous  
ass. It was striking to see the total disconnect between each side's  
POV.

The several of that series that I have seen are amazing in how  
quickly and easily so many of the people fell right into a different  
mindset, a different lifestyle. There are some who really don't cut  
it, they cannot leave their modern personna and attitudes behind, but  
many really did change. How much do clothing styles [and their  
dictates] and daily activities shape who we are? And many became sad  
to leave the recreated old life. This was esp. true of the group who  
lived in the recreated 17th Century settlement in Maine. They seemed  
to find a sense of community, shared struggles, an identity and  
closeness that is so missing in society today. I loved it, too; I  
cried when it was over. The whole way of life really grabbed me.  
Early Virginia was probably very much like that, something we can  
scarcely imagine today. It's possible, I suppose, that despite their  
hardships and the injustices endured, slave communities also held  
that sense of kinship and shared struggle.

The Victorian  people, upstairs and down, seemed pretty happy to  
leave; all the work, the dirty hair from shampoos that didn't clean,  
the all day task of fixing meals, the kitchen stoves that never  
cooperated, unending laundry, what an ordeal...

Nancy

-------
I was never lost, but I was bewildered once for three days.

--Daniel Boone



On Mar 2, 2007, at 10:21 PM, Lyle E. Browning wrote:

> This "argument" seems to accept the inferiority of black people.
>
> Put it the other way around. Can you imagine yourself in the 18th  
> or 19th century as a slave? Can you imagine any of your ancestors  
> in that situation. What would your feelings about the subject be if  
> you were or your ancestors were? Acceptance? I think not.
>
> And, after your ancestors had been freed, but in the face of a  
> system that denied by law your ability to do anything but exist,  
> and you had the lovely folks in bedsheets running around at night  
> to worry about, do you honestly think you were going to be dumb  
> enough to say that "White folks were the bad guys?" Because if you  
> did, you'd have a visit from those types and it wouldn't be social.
>
> Danged right your answers would be somewhat circumspect. And that  
> stuff wasn't off the radar until when? It was certainly there in  
> the 1970's. I have had two people offer to kill me in all  
> seriousness. One was a KKK member who told me that he'd put a .38  
> between my eyes and that the "Klan had done more for this country  
> than the N-word and the hippies put together."
>
> BTW, I had heard that one of the sources of Elizabeth Van Lew's  
> intel was a servant woman in Jeff Davis' house who served tea while  
> high level matters were discussed. These guys couldn't conceive  
> that their own property had enough intelligence to understand what  
> was  being said and to report it up the pipeline to Van Lew. Even  
> when it was obvious that there were leaks, they couldn't put it  
> together. This was the classic example of folks seeing what they  
> wanted to see and not seeing a thing. It amazes me that even today  
> folks are not able to figure out the con.
>
> Lyle Browning
>
>

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