Saturday, July 25, 2009

James Bond Daily: Bond & M Are Not Quite As Racist As You'd Expect

From pp.016-017 of Live and Let Die, originally published in 1954:
'I don't think I've ever heard of a great Negro criminal before,' said Bond. Chinamen, of course, the men behind the opium trade. There've been some big-time Japs, mostly in pearls and drugs. Plenty of negroes mixed up in diamonds and gold in Africa, but always in a small way. They don't seem to take to big business. Pretty law-abiding chaps I should have thought, except when they've drunk too much.'

'Our man's a bit of an exception,' said M. He's not pure negro. Born in Haiti. Good dose of French blood. Trained in Moscow, too, as you'll see from the file. And the negro races are just beginning to throw up geniuses in all the professions -- scientists, doctors, writers. It's about time they turned out a great criminal. After all, there are 250,000,000 of them in the world. Nearly a third of the white population. They've got plenty of brains and ability and guts. And now Moscow's taught one of them the technique.'

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