To the editors:
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Mr. DuBrul, in his November 18th letter, obviously read my October 7th letter on differences in black and white use of generalizations through his own special filter. What I said in my October 7th letter was that blacks and whites have different discourse rules (or standards) governing the use of generalizations (of the kind that Jeff Bloom was talking about in his letter “Stereotyping Honkies” 9/16/88). Mr. DuBrul has taken this to mean that blacks use one set of criteria when evaluating these kinds of generalizations when made by whites about blacks and another set of critetria when blacks use them about whites. That is not the case, and not what I said. Blacks, as whites, consistently apply their different standards to these kinds of generalizations (there are other kinds of generalizations, such as “you people,” in which different rules seem to apply) regardless of whether the speaker making them is black or white.
And that is, of course, my right. As the black proverb says, “different strokes for different folks.”
