A Texan's Racism in Washington

One of the commentators on Peter Tompa's blog - going against all the facts - following on from coin dealer Sayles' outburst - speculates about where the "support base" for this blog might lie:

He has a couple of fans in Botswana and from what I've heard three or four witch doctors in the Amazon rainforest love his blog.

Botswana is former Bechuanaland and the commentator on the Washington blog imagines that the only people who might take an interest in cultural property issues are the 'ignorant' and pagan brown-skinned folk from the colonies. The latent racism in the cultural property debate is nowhere clearer than here, American collectors and dealers have no doubt that their "collectors rights" override any that the brown skinned natives of Africa and the jungles of the Amazon might have, that the cultural heritage of these people is up for grabs, because "nobody else" (in the western countries) is - collectors think - a bit interested in these issues. Everything is up for grabs. This is presumably the tenor of that "intelligent discussion" Mr Sayles wanted.

For some US commentators, these people and their ideas
about their cultural heritage are merely something to be laughed at.