Rumour and race

I think it is risible that Theo Paijmans continues to ascribe a neighbourhood folkloric bogey to mean old white people [ Ft352:71]. Were blacks of the 1930s so ignorant that they would simply accept at face value a monster story like that from an outsider, and employ no critical thinking whatsoever? I can’t see that happening. Think about it: if some outsider from a culture highly antagonistic to your own who always behaved like a conniving bastard came up and told you there was a monster in the nearby woods, would you go flipping out and boarding up your house? I still maintain that such stories are far more likely to arise from within the community in question due to simple mischievous pranksters. James Barnes By email

Editor’s note: Mr Barnes goes on at some length about how black people in the American South are today more racist than their white neighbours. This correspondence thread is now closed.