"Uncle Grumpy -- On Race"

Here we go, boys and girls. It's Uncle Grumpy - on race. Please, always remember. It's Uncle Grumpy talking. Not me.

Uncle Grumpy. Not me.

My grandmother was left-handed. She told me how, when she was a kid, the teachers would strap her left hand to her side, and force her to write with her right hand.

Why did they do that? Because the culture of that time believed that left-handed people were biologically inferior. Worse than inferior. They were bad. Do you know what the Latin word for "left" is?

Sinister.

Left-handed people were considered to be sinister. Why? It was never explained.

Wherever you looked, the interests of left-handed people were ruthlessly ignored. The world belonged to the right-handed, and everything was tailored to their needs. Scissors. Can openers. Notebooks. (The coiled wire rubbed on the lefty's arm.)

Negative messages insinuated themselves into the language. You've heard of a "left-handed" compliment? That is not a good compliment. "Southpaw?" I don't know its derivation, but just the sound of it -- "southpaw" -- it doesn't make you wish you'd been born one. In the reactionary culture of baseball, left-handed pitchers were viewed as unstable, bordering on crazy.

Left-handed children were stamped as a lower category of humanity, suffering treatment consistent with their status. Throughout in the culture, the message was crystal clear:

Right-handed. Good.

Left-handed. Bad.

At some point, maybe science had something to do with it, maybe folks just came to their senses, there was a liberating change. The "handedness" issue became irrelevant. It was as if a light had been turned on. "That stuff is all wrong!" People thought back on the demonization of the left-handed and it was like:

"What were we thinking?"

Finally they had realized the obvious: "Handedness" was something you were born with. Valuing one hand as being superior to the other hand was ridiculous.

After centuries of misbehavior resulting from a mistaken belief, the concept of "handedness" came to be seen as what it had always been:

A meaningless distinction.

I thought you were talking about race, Uncle Grumpy.

Uncle Grumpy?

Earl Pomerantz's blog can be reached at earlpomerantz.blogspot. com

Comments

[Martha601]

12:18 AM on 11/22/2008

My daughter is left-handed and she has to turn her paper at a different angle to write. Her teacher in third grade was so irritated by that but that was the way she had to write. We are all right-handed in my family and it was interesting to see my daughter growing with that tendency to do everything purposeful with her left hand. It seems weird, but it just isn't so. She's left-handed, oh well and it was obviously genetic because her father is left-handed. When it's all said and done, it's always a case of minority against majority. I believe we are finally obtaining a grasp on the lack of importance of that. I mean, we know we have to mean more than that. Right? We were, and some still, a scared nation and it says much of us that we decided to trust Obama with our fears. We should be commended for it, and I think we have been, all across the world. They didn't believe us capable. Boy, we showed them- and us.

[anon004]

08:41 PM on 11/21/2008

"Do you know what the Latin word for "left" is?

Sinister.

Left-handed people were considered to be sinister. Why? It was never explained."

Actually, it had to do with left-handed assassisins being more effective at killing public officials with daggers in the Roman empire [visualize someone coming after you and you using your dominant (right) hand to protect yourself]. I found this out because I'm left-handed and learned to use right-handed desks, notebooks, sissors and corkscrews, and I always wondered why it was a "right-handed world." At least there's a reason, unlike racial discrimination, which has none.

[bwilder]

06:46 PM on 11/21/2008

Funny! Especially since Obama is both black AND left handed!