6008: RE: 5978: Teaching a lesson: "blan" or Madanm" (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Karen Davis <kdavis@marygrove.edu>
> 
> 	I applaud CC Henrius on her lesson to the children who called her
> "blan" and demanded money or candy. I also came up with the same lesson as
> a response to being yelled at as "yovo" (white/rich/stranger) in Benin
> (ancestral homeland of many Haitians), and begged for "cadeaux." I taught
> the children (and their adult women caretakers, if present, in my tourist
> French, to call me "madame" or "tanti" (as they would a strange Beninoise
> woman) not "yovo."  I felt it would be racist of me to assume I could let
> little children disrespect me, when I could teach them something that I
> would certainly teach my own children.
> Karen Davis