Sarah Gibbard Cook
  • Home
  • About
  • Writing
  • Contact

People All Work on the Mississippi

3/27/2017

0 Comments

 
“What do people do on a cruise ship?” I asked an upper-middle-class audience years ago. Eat, swim, dance, play shuffleboard, they suggested. What else? Watch shows, listen to lectures, go to a spa. As I pressed for more, the suggestions slowed. At last the ideas ran out.

Nobody suggested that people on a cruise ship wash dishes, tend bar, or make the beds. When I noted this, they dismissed it as frame of reference.

My sociologist father first pointed out to me that “people” tends to mean people like oneself, not all humankind. The version of “Old Man River” on our Showboat album had the line, “People all work on the Mississippi while the white folks play.”* How could all the people be working if some were playing? Dad’s response explained so much over the years, like languages where the ethnic group name is the word for “man.”

Webster’s calls frame of reference “a set of ideas, conditions, or assumptions that determine how something will be approached, perceived, or understood.” There’s nothing wrong with having a frame of reference. We probably can’t avoid it. The problems arise when we confuse our frame of reference with universal truth, or people like ourselves with humankind.

*Others changed the taboo original to “darkies,” “colored folk,” or “we all.” I haven’t been able to trace a “people” version but that’s my memory of it.​
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    I'm a historian who writes novels and literary nonfiction. My home base is Madison, Wisconsin. 


      ​get updates

    Sign up


    ​Archives

    July 2025
    June 2025
    May 2025
    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • About
  • Writing
  • Contact