Word: wasps
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While his theme offers great potential, however, Brown's storytelling falls far short. The white world in The African Company is limited to a bigoted, apparently Irish cop and a slimy, apparently Wasp businessman. The five men of the actual company are reduced to three -- one who is unrequitedly in love with the leading lady, another who is loved by her but doesn't reciprocate her trust, and an older third who is limited mostly to low-comedic shenanigans. The women are equally stereotypical...
...words that friends invariably use when describing this rare bird are Wasp and patrician -- Matthiessen's voice resounds with the kind of arrowhead sternness they hardly seem to make anymore (and his sister was the college roommate of George Bush's sister). Tomato has seldom had a longer a, and visitors are handled with a reserve at once concealed and intensified by easy courtesy. Yet the other thing always said about Matthiessen is that he's persistently tried to escape the comfort of his upbringing and put himself in wild places where privilege has no meaning...
...week's elections will see the wisdom of stanching the illegal trade. The main cause for concern remains Russia, because its huge diamond production coincides with deteriorating economic conditions. Russian production in 1991 was an estimated 13 million carats, compared with Angola's 1.5 million. "Angola is like a wasp," says Oke, "but Russia is like a bear stomping around...
...that the atmosphere is sexist, the women add; it just reminds them of their fathers. In addition, they feel oppressed by the Anglo-Saxon tone of the clubs, calling them "WASP theme parks." One female ex-member of the Tavern Club summed up the discontent by saying that although some men are "trying to change," most are unwilling to "change the things that most are most those white Anglo-Saxon males grew up with...
What make WASP maleness so different? The knee-jerk liberal answer, white male hegemony, doesn't explain it all. Note that the women complaining about the Boston clubs weren't saying the men excluded them from the power networks; in fact, many women said, the men were quite welcoming. No, it was the culture that turned them off, not because it was sexist like the Tailhook Convention but simply because it reminded them of men bonding together without women...