Wednesday, September 9, 2020 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
How did it acquire its cur-
rent, semi-sarcastic meaning
4 the kind accompanied by
a rueful shake of the head,
a sigh of exasperation, or a
belly-laugh of disbelief?
I found a reference
in <Patriotic Sketches of
Ireland,= published in 1807.
Here9s a little context for
the time: settlers from Great
Britain had confiscated lands
belonging to the inhabitants
of the isle of Éire (a.k.a.
Éireann or Ireland). Many
of Ireland9s Indigenous peo-
ple and their Irish-Norman
descendants had little choice
but to become peasants on
what used to be their own
land.
They often lived on
scraps and potatoes, forfeit-
ing their labor and the land9s
bounty to their English and
Anglo-Irish overlords. The
English tried to break the
spirit of the Irish, expunge
their culture, eradicate
their language, and convert
the majority Catholics to
Protestantism.
<Patriotic Sketches= was
written in Connaught by
Lady Morgan, a.k.a. Miss
Owenson. Perhaps because
her father was Irish Catholic,
she showed compassion
toward the poor wretches in
her writing. Condescension,
too.
She described <the lower
Irish, passionately fond
of dress, and without the
means of gratifying their
dominant passion= decked
themselves out in <orna-
mental finery= on Sundays.
In the
PINES
By T. Lee Brown
Taking the
Cake
Word on the street is this:
Readers urgently want to
know whether expressions
like <cakewalk= and <taking
the cake= are racist or not.
It9s nice to know you guys
are reading my column. But
the answer isn9t a simple
yes/no.
A few weeks ago we
talked about how mid-19th
century slaves in this coun-
try performed cakewalks
for their owners. After
Emancipation, cakewalks
were performed at min-
strel shows, influencing the
development of American
social dance and the lindy
hop.
But guess what? <Taking
the cake= goes back to
waaaay before the atroc-
ity of American slavery. It
symbolized victory back in
Ancient Greece.
During the working week
they were <worse clothed
than the poorest mendicant
in England.=
Their food on Sundays
seldom rose beyond <the
accustomed potatoes and
milk,= she writes, but <some
few halfpence are always
spared to purchase the plea-
sures which the Sunday cake
bestows.= The Irish would
then erect a distaff, a kind of
long pole used in the wool-
spinning process, in the mid-
dle of a field.
On top of this they9d
place <a large flat cake:
this cake is the signal of
pleasure, and becomes the
reward of talent. The young
and old of both sexes, for
miles round the neighbour-
hood, hasten to enjoy the
pleasures of the cake, which
is sometimes carried off by
the best dancer, and some-
times by the archest wag of
the company.=
What the Sam Hill is an
arch wag? Well, he9d be a
jokester, probably a bold and
clever fellow with a mis-
chievous streak. I bet he9d
arch his eyebrow knowingly
as he filched the cake right
under everyone9s noses.
Some would shake their
heads in disapproval; others
would laugh and clap at his
derring-do.
This waggishness was
part of the tradition. Thus
the gosh-durn-it feeling
behind <Well, that just takes
the cake!=
(Owenson also describes
the old expression of paying
the piper. A short distance
from the cake-on-a-stick sits
the piper, <who is always
seated on the ground with
a hole dug near him, into
which the contributions of
the assembly are dropt&
At the end of every jig, the
piper is paid by the young
man who dances it.=)
So whose cakewalk is it?
Who takes the cake 4 or a
piece of it? The Greeks? The
Irish? African-Americans?
As a descendant of both
the <lower Irish= and the
English who displaced them,
as a descendant of both
African slaves and white
slave owners& I honestly
don9t know.
I do know that many peo-
ple of color are asking white
and mostly-white folks like
myself to <do your research=
these days. We know there9s
racism, we want to help;
often, we want friends,
acquaintances, and leaders
of color to do all the work.
Tell us what to say. Educate
us about racism. We9ll just
23
sit here and look woke.
For me? Becoming a true
anti-racist ally is going to
take a lot of work. I9ve done
some of that work over the
decades, but recent events
made me realize I have a
long way to go.
In this case, I literally
did the research after find-
ing <cakewalk= on a CNN
cheatsheet of potentially
offensive words. You could
say I wasted hours on this.
But it was incredibly valu-
able. I learned about the
twisted subtleties of slav-
ery and the daring humor of
the oppressed. I saw clearly
how my brutalized ancestors
brought a culture of brutal-
ity to the Americas with
them.
Watching antique film
footage of African American
cakewalks, reading details
about Irish ones, I felt a great
surge of warmth toward
humanity. Yes, we conquer
and enslave. Somehow, we
also find joy in the most
miserable of circumstances.
ZAM!
I In a J
Jam?
m ?
Call the
Super
Heroes!
boom!
pow!
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