Passer-by: You… are a colour… let’s say… a colour… very dark.
Cynerò: Yes, very.
Passer-by: That’s it!
Cynerò: Nothing else ?
Passante: well…
Cynerò: oh no! that’s not really good enough, my lad! There are lots of things to say about my colour-you bet! – and tones to use! For example, let’s see:
Clear and direct: "Dear sir, a single headword describes your entire literature: negro."
Courteous: "But how can our eyes ignore such a cute little negro?"
Disparaging: "A careful, committed and painstaking search into your wounds has turned up no better term than nigger to apply in your case."
Gastronomic: "A chocolate, that’s the tasty chew the sight of you calls to mind."
Modern: "Ignoring any and all origins or destinations of whatsoever navigation you have undertaken, with knowing boredom, you shall be nothing more than non-EU immigrant in my overcrowded memory."
Prescriptive: "Illegal immigrant, as much as you might enjoy the taste of hospitality, it will suffice to forget an authenticated piece of paper for you to be illegal anew."
Warmonger: "Come on, let that beard grow, loosen your naturally curly hair, give yourself a piece of clothing free of the mirror and I too will have my Taleban to burn."
Generalizing: "Where are you from ? No, don’t tell me, let me look at you, it only takes me a minute, I have the article in mind, it doesn’t matter if I’m wrong, you are, most of the time anyway, Moroccan."
Polite: "I’ve nothing against people like you, coloureds, as long as you behave properly, insofar as you are able to."
Exaggerated: "It’s useless to hide it by emphasizing the local dialect, wearing a familiar tee-shirt, smoothing down your hair. You are, inevitably, African.
Chromatic: "Believe me, it’s a question of practicality. Brown is, in effect, more exact but alas I haven’t got time to waste with a black like you."
Knowledgeable: "The issue of an incestuous coupling, the father exotic and the mother a local lass taken by trickery, is called mulatto.”
Indifferent: "The premises being unvaried and the factors inverted, there can be no other definition than half-breed."
Confused: "Do you now comprehend my intolerance if you turn out to be creole as well?"
Patriotic: "You do not wish to take flight and bravely hit the precious sphere? You refuse to slip catlike through the enemy lines with that very sphere glued to your feet? And though you consent to your role for years, you dare change jersey and spit in the plate that has so kindly nourished you? You shall not pass that line, foreigner, you shall no longer pass the goal- line.
Punitive: "How many mistakes must we have made to deserve you, oh lump of coal, at every red light that stops us?"
Comic strip: "There’s been a burglary ? a murder ? a rape ? No one can be guilty except you, black spot.”
Civilized: "Nature betrays you, savage, it sets you apart from those who have chosen the laws, rights and duties which make us deserve peace and prosperity while you are left with envy."
Political: "Work force? menials for organized crime? upturn in the birthrate ? Dear immigrant, you have the obligation to find employment."
And finally, up-to-date: "Muslim, we have the Pope, the crucifix, the Vatican and the Bible, and you…no!"
Look at all the things you could have said to me, my good fellow, if only you had a crumb of culture or of wit. But, saddest of individuals, of wit you possess not an iota. And as for culture, you haven’t got enough to put more than eight letters in a row, the ones that form the word imbecile! In any case, even if you’d had enough imagination to dedicate all these epithets to me in the presence of our noble audience, you wouldn’t have had the time to pronounce even one of them, because certain things only I am allowed to say to myself – and with utmost composure, you must admit – but I do not permit them to be pronounced by anyone else.
(1)Tuscolana, a street in Rome