Meredith’s Sister And A Perugia Friend Share How Very Much This Funny Very Talented Girl Is Missed

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Natalie is already coming under FoA fire for that interview.  The tweets are too disgusting to reproduce.  It’s incredibly sad that Meredith’s family and friends can never say anything about the case and about her life without exposing themselves to bullying and slander.

Beautiful. Beautiful. Beautiful.

Here are those kind and loving eyes that Mignini saw in death and said he will never forget. He sensed the presence of someone great and good having been lost to this world.

The rose of Coulsdon was a delicate flower. I liked the adjective “non-judgmental” used by her friend. Meredith was the type of friend who was healing and restorative to others. I wish Stephanie or others would give us some verbatim e-mails that Meredith wrote, her exact words. One of her poems would be so wonderful to see.

Thank you TJMK Main Posters for the capture of these interviews from Stephanie Kercher and Natalie Hayward, the friend. Thank you ViaDellaPergola for the music and retrospective of the loveliest flower of Perugia transplanted from England for so brief a time to shine. She still shines. Meredith Kercher, justice is coming.

i just read candace dempsey’s piece of sep 25 201.  it is so unprofessional and sarcastic.  but what really chaps me is that her comments completely disregard the evidence presented in the trial and that which is contained in official reports and the court transcripts.  anyone in the united states who has not followed the trial or has not been informed accurately and objectively through tjfmk is apt to believe what she writes. 

even the point that meredith had no defensive wounds and that it has been stated that with her martial arts training, she would have fought valiantly indicated that there HAD to be more than one attacker.  how can the knox family and supporters ignore that which is so obvious to the rest of us?  i would like to see them interviewed and asked questions about the evidence against amanda that they never address.

SO WHY DO WE DO THIS?
This remembrance and wish to keep Meredith and people like her, people of intelligence who are interested in education and bettering themselves in every aspect of human development alive.

We do this to keep Meredith and what she represented protected from the third raters of this world who except as normal the lowest common denominator in human development. We do this because of the ever present threat of being over run by people of little intelligence. People who inhabit the FOA and other sites for example, who will lie and distort the truth in order to protect what? Not just their own livelihood for example, but the level of education that they are satisfied with. Therefore if we feel threatened by them then they obviously feel the same from people who’s education is of primary importance.

People such as Steve Moore and company who feel they can comment upon this case without ever learning Italian jurisprudence or by ignoring the facts in the hope that they will simply disappear.

Perhaps it’s because they in turn feel threatened by anyone who thinks and who’s life is not governed by a thirty second sound bite. I’m reminded here of the book ‘Atlas Shrugged’ by Ayn Rand where the third raters took over the world (Not unlike what’s going on now.)

So therefore they wish to protect not some little insignificant third rate person such as Amanda Knox and her slovenly ways, but their own low standard of intelligence.

Meredith represented this high standard of intelligence to which Knox could never hope to attain.

This is the society from which Knox comes from after all. The society which hates Afro Americans and Jews, ie the white supremacy bunch. Check out Knox partying with some collage kids on utube to see what I mean.

I write this just in case there is a misunderstanding for the nastiness and outright lies emanating and in response to Natalie Haywoods comments for example. Candace Dempsey is just a parasite anyway. Just watch after this is all over she will switch to something else in order to keep her bank balance viable.

@Mark - While I think you are absolutely correct that Amanda was territorial, I’m not sure that the “my house” bit is particularly indicative of that.  I’ve lived in shared apartments before and always referred to them as “my place,” not out of disregard for the other people, but out of habit and probably because it was comforting.

Theres something in the interview with Natalie that is new to me. She says:

“I remember her talking to her stepfather on the phone and saying that she had found the body and it was in the cupboard and it was in a blanket. It was odd because she hadn’t been in the room. We were so traumatised we didn’t take it in at the time.”

Although I was aware of the remark by amanda with regards to meredith’s cause of death, this is news to me. Does anybody know if Natalie testified to this and if it was used in the initial trail.

Its good that Natalie Hayward has come forward to highlight some of the aspects of Knox’s obnoxious behaviour - which Meredith would have mentioned to her. 

It paints a picture of a lazy, self-obsessed individual who was above pulling her weight in the shared flat.

Can you imagine sharing a flat with such an individual ? Strumming a guitar on one chord to wind people up; not flushing the toilet; not helping with chores in the flat; bringing random dodgy guys back to the flat against flatmates wishes; perhaps using drugs in the flat.

I feel if this flatshare had some guys that Knox would have brought down to earth very early on - and maybe even thrown out of the flatshare. Perhaps the girls were on the verge of getting Knox kicked out of the flat - there was only so much of this behaviour that they could take, in particular Meredith.

Its no surprise that Meredith and the other girls wanted nothing to do with her socially - not getting invited along to Halloween celebrations with Meredith must have really hit Knox hard - she was no longer Miss Popular.

It is incredibly sad that Meredith was killed for being a nice person. Many people question the motive in this tragic case - the only motive is jealousy on the part of Knox, something she was unable to control due to bad parenting I believe. “Amanda being Amanda” comments from Edda Mellas sums up the lack of discipline she must have received as a child.

@Carl - It was known that Amanda said Meredith had been found in a closet.  Perhaps it’s Natalie’s use of “cupboard” which makes it sound new or strange. For the British folks on this board: what does “cupboard” mean to you? Would you use it to refer to a closet? (i.e. where you keep your clothes).  To me, it’s a piece of kitchen or dining room furniture.

If you remember, when the police broke down the door, Filomena started screaming “A foot! A foot!”, and the police ushered everyone out.  I think that Amanda seized this opportunity to make it seem like she didn’t know what was in there.  Several people said she was talking loudly on the phone with her parents.  I think she wanted to be heard saying Meredith was found stashed in her closet, with only a foot showing, because it showed her supposed misunderstanding of the crime scene.

@Mark

Nobody knows how she got those “high marks”. Have you read her email? Probably more grammar and spelling mistakes than sentences. Wait, she doesn’t use fullstops, so basically, its one looooong sentence.

I don’t think Amanda Knox is stupid, she is certainly intelligent, but I doubt she is “highly intelligent”, probably more average.

I have never heard of a case before where someone gets himself into hot water through one lie after another and is subsequently described as a highly intelligent superior human being. Wishful thinking. Who is the source for her grades, intelligence, ability to speak more than one language? Her parents. Did they ever tell the truth? No.

@vivianna
Thanks for the clarification. I seemed to have missed this information, especially the part where she’s publicly calling her stepfather. It seems like a combination of trying to be the center of attention (and not seeing that this is very inappropriate) and creating an alibi. I really hope she doesn’t get away with it!

@Mark

I agree with Nell, her very poor grammer and spelling mistakes are not the sign of a highly intelligent person. I personally think an intelligent person would be able to see they weren’t fooling anyone.

You also stated; “In fact, it may be this very same high intelligence that could see her beat the Italian justice system.”

You’re kidding, right? Her inane ramblings both on the witness stand and in the things she has written, the numerous lies, the false accusations, etc, etc fool no-one of any importance. AK is an idiot if she thinks she can lie her way out of this. I truly hope the sentences are increased with some solitary thrown in, time for some reflection might just do the pair of them some good! She has yet to convince me that she is “highly intelligent”....

I have never felt that Graham’s postings have ever portrayed him as having an irrational hatred of America, I have always thought he was very objective as are all the posters on here. Maybe you just misunderstood the point he was trying to make? Just as I may have misunderstood your seemingly agressive post!

@ Mark, in all fairness to Grahame, I didn’t read his comment as applying to all Americans, but some (though the phrase ‘the society from which she comes from’ did give me pause)

I do think however it is fair comment for people of any country to note that the FOA display the worst aspects of Americanism.

I also wonder whether Amanda being an ‘honors’ student is an indicator of intelligence or just, being pushed at school to overcome her obvious shortcomings. Her e-mail of record in November 2007, her short stories, show certain deficits, sorry to say.

@Mark - I think the “house” part is complicated, and perhaps this is why Peter Hyatt stayed away from it.

Speaking strictly for myself, I only use “my house” when referring to my family’s house. It’s partly because that’s where my mother is (my father passed away) and partly because we have joint ownership.

Regarding rented accommodation, I’ve used fairly specific terms in the past: “my room” (when I was living in a dorm), “my place” (when I was sharing a house/apartment), and “my apartment” (when I was renting a studio).

The reason I gravitated towards “my place” when describing shared quarters is probably because it’s a neutral term.  In a police statement, I would have probably referred to it as “home,” as in “I went home after dinner” or “I was at home when X called me.”

Perhaps I’m proving your point, Mark, but I’ve heard people informally refer to shared, rented quarters as “my house.”  I take it simply as an attempt to carve a personal space.  I’m probably a bad person to have this conversation with because I’m very careful with nuances.  However, I know that most people aren’t necessarily preoccupied with this and that their word choices tend to be generic and loose.

@Mark
Your response to my post is very telling. You seem to feel the need to defend the US Education System. As to accusing me of an irrational hatred of American’s that is of course ludicrous. The simple truth is that the American Education System is broken. If you have money and can send your kids to a private school in the USA then you can be pretty sure of a better education. If, on the other hand, you are poor, or black or anything else other than finacially secure then you will be taught by teachers who are over whelmed by too much work at best or who do not care at the worst.
When I was in Mount Allison University the students who came North from the US had to work twice as hard just to reach the excepted educational standard. They did this be taking electives in order to bring their core degree score up no matter what their scholastic discipline was.
By the same token and comparatively speaking we all had to work like hell to catch up the the Chinese/Japanese students who were light years ahead of us, not only in work ethic but in core knowledge of their subject matter.
Amanda Knox is not one of these. She is basically
a party girl who got her marks because (If my information is correct) by Edda complaining and threatened her school. Not an unheard of development in the US where schools have been sued for not passing some little angel or other.
If knox was that interested then just how many hours did she spend at the Parugia University. I think you will find practically nothing since she spent most of it shacked up with Sollecito or trying to seduce the male customers in in the bar Le Chic (See Lamumba’s reasons for firing her)
As to the ‘White Supremacy’ people in Seattle I would suggest that you examine Seattle society a little more closely, plus examine Knox’s statement concerning German’s and Jews during the second WW.
Finally I have read Knox’s scribbling both in the original and the translations because reading her poor attempts at journalism is to be frank pathetic and I needed the translation to really find out what she wrote, sic;
Finally though and to repeat myself I do not have a psychological hatred of Americans since I work with many of them in NewPort RI, Boston, NY and Chicargo. In fact many years ago in 1973 I was lucky enough to have worked for Duke Ellington.
the year before he died.
Segregation was supposedly finished with in 1968 but we all know what a joke that is since segregation, where people of colour are looked upon with disdain and revulsion and treated as second class citizens, is alive and well not only in the South but in other cities as well, Seattle being one of them.
Knox and her family are racist. That is just one more reason why Knox chose Meredith because she could not stand a person of colour no matter nebulous be better than she was. Hence Guede and Lamumba as the fall guys.

Vivianna wrote: “Natalie is already coming under FoA fire for that interview.  The tweets are too disgusting to reproduce.  It’s incredibly sad that Meredith’s family and friends can never say anything about the case and about her life without exposing themselves to bullying and slander.”

This is so disgusting.

What if it was YOUR daughter that had been murdered, Curt/Edda/Chris? How would YOU have wanted to be treated?

People like this can only be described as not really Christian.

Carl,

I’m English and on your point is usage.  A Cupboard is where you would keep “cups” and other kitchen items.

You would hang your robes (clothes) in a wardrobe. 

At least that is how I would use the two words.  I have always thought of the piece of furniture in Meredith’s room as being a “wardrobe”.

It is my experience that most people in the English-speaking world are very good at disentangling the slight differences in usage.  As you were.

@ Mark, I appreciate your point, and yes, I too would deplore any form of anti-Americanism. You will note, however, that he wrote “what she represented protected from the third raters of this world” (I cut and pasted properly this time, whew 😊

But seriously, don’t expect perfect grammar or spelling in a chat environment. I don’t know Grahame at all, but his comment does show a fair degree of intelligence.

I am not too sure of the defendant, though, and it is not her grammar, but her behavior that causes me to think that way.

Peter Oliver got to the cupboard question before me, but allow me to second it, by saying that Knox’s use of the word “closet” is what helped the comment stand out in Natalie’s memory. I still get odd looks from Americans for my persistent use of Britishisms, but a freestanding piece of furniture, such as that which held not only Meredith’s clothing, but the other women’s as well, could not be called a closet, even in the States. It is a wardrobe or an armoire. More significant about that particular statement of knox’s is the fact that she said the body was IN the closet. That would be a difficult fit. And her prideful insistence at having FOUND the (ever nameless) body, which anyone else present at that moment could instantly verify as a lie.

@Mark, Knox and Meredith did not attend the same college, nor the same level of study. M was an Erasmus scholar, at the Univ. of Perugia. Knox was one of a colourful jumble of amatuer Italian speakers, at the Univ. for Foreigners. And brains, in her case, did not equal sense.

@Gabster, her strumming on one chord was not to wind people up; in her own mind she was a rockstar. (Just ask the inmates of Capanne who can’t escape her daily American(in exile)Idol auditioning!

@Vivianna, I, for one, greatly appreciate your nuances.

and, lastly, @Grahame, having experiences both the American and British free education systems, I wouldn’t hesitate to support your indictments of the failing health of U.S. schools. I am in the elementary schools in Seattle as a teacher’s aide. Cursive is extinct. Spelling is endangered. Grammar, a puzzle. But put these kids in front of a CRT, and they can type faster than I can. We make allowances for the content, as long as the gist makes sense.

@Peter Oliver - Thank you for clarifying.  When Carl pointed out that bit, I found it a little odd too that Natalie would have used the word “cupboard.” I was fairly sure that you’d call a closet a “wardrobe,” but I didn’t want to presume.

I find Grahame’s assessment of American education rather unfair.  As you know, I’m not American, so I’m not defending it out of a nationalistic impulse.  I have an American degree and a Canadian one, along with a Dutch one on the way. To say that my American education was somehow subpar would be uncalled for; after all, I was accepted by top Canadian schools for grad work, including McGill and Toronto, and I got a Huygens last year.  The Dutch university was by far the most prestigious I’ve attended so far (particularly strong in the Humanities), and I can’t say that the other students wow-ed me or that I had any catch-up work to do. Everywhere I studied, my professors were brilliant, erudite, and engaged in very interesting and relevant research.

As far as Amanda goes, I think none of us can tell exactly how intelligent she is (or isn’t) because we don’t know her personally.  Basing our assessments on a few informal pieces of writing would be unfair, in my opinion.  Her spelling and punctuation are pretty appalling, but then Grahame, who calls her some very harsh names, also makes spelling and grammar mistakes. We haven’t seen her university transcripts, but we know that her Perugia instructors said she was a good student. Dismissing her education because she didn’t major in Engineering (or whatever else people consider a challenging major) would reflect poorly on us.

I see her as the quintessential B/C student - doing the work most of the time, possibly enthusiastic, but otherwise unremarkable: not particularly articulate or well-read or creative, but also not disinterested, disengaged, dim-witted, or utterly ignorant. Not being exceptional doesn’t mean that you’re not intelligent or that you won’t ever amount to anything. Statistically speaking, most people are/were that student, but go on to become well-adjusted adults, who perform adequately at their jobs, and who don’t kill anyone in cold blood. Frankly, I don’t have much patience for Randian elitism.

I don’t have much sympathy for Amanda and I think that what she did is incomprehensible and horrible. It’s normal for all of us to want to understand what could bring someone to do something like this.  It’s scary and aberrant, and perhaps our curiosity is not purely intellectual, but, on some level, inspired by our self-preservation instincts.  How can we recognize someone like this, before they do something irreparable? Does her mind work like ours? Are we all capable of what she did? At the same time, I think that there are boundaries that we shouldn’t cross lest we become like the other ones.

@ Grahame Rhodes, I wish you would ease up on the race issue.  You seem to come back to it time and again.  I think whites tend to be more obsessed about race than blacks.  When Rachel Ward went missing in Kenya many years ago the talk there was focussed on who killed her and what the motive might be, not on the fact that she was a white English girl.  She was a human being who was unjustly attacked, and robbery was determined to be the motive.  At the end of the day the Knox’s ‘racism’ does not get to change the facts in this case, that a terrible crime was committed against Meredith.  I think that should be, and has generally been, the main focus of this excellent website.  I’m afraid I think you are perpetuating the myth that all black people everywhere are poor, downtrodden, discriminated against souls. 

There simply isn’t one story to be told about any group of people.  The African novelist Chimamanda Adichie talks about the danger of a single story, that if we hear only a single story of another person or group or country we risk a critical misunderstanding.  I am sure this is not your intention but I feel that this is what comes across.  Just as black people come in all shades and shapes and sizes, they have different stories, histories and experiences.  They are to be found on every continent from Australasia to Africa and are an integral part of the rich tapestry of life on this planet.

We mustn’t lose sight of why we’re here, to see the upholding of the convictions against the two appellants, Amanda and Rafaelle. No more, no less.

If the defence are going for full acquittal then surely the ‘lone wolf’ has to feature in their closing remarks?  To be consistent with earlier statements they have to say they were both at RS’ flat on the night of the murder.  And, as we all know, after four long years of trying all the money in the world hasn’t been able to unearth a single other person connected to Guede who could have done it instead of them.  And so they are forced to say Guede acted alone, and build a scenario around that. I think the recent attempt to shift perceptions with regards to the cut on Guede’s finger is evidence of just such a strategy by the defence, and shows (to me) the likelihood that we might well hear about it again in closing.

OK it’s a fair assessment of my writing skills. What I really need is another monitor larger than a postage stamp. The one I have at work was provided by the Government. However in my own defense let me say that we can only comment upon our own personal experiences. Of course I do not mean that all American Students are subject to a lessor standard. As to the race question the same applies. I am still of the opinion however that it was no coincidence that Knox accused Patrick Lumumba and arranged for Guede to take the fall. Having lived in Seattle and experienced how the different races are viewed therein it comes as no surprise to me to intuit that Knox is a racist. That’s how she grew up after all. That is how she was taught. In doing this I am still looking for another aspect of motive and while I agree that race is not the complete picture I beleive there is an element there, just as Ergon has said there is an element of sexual desire also. As I have said repeatedly I would sooner be taken to task for suggesting something rather than leave it alone. I think these questions should be asked even if they hold no water in the end. We all want the same thing. To see that Meredith receives the justice she deserves and to counter the very nasty sleaze that the P/R manifestations have stooped too.
Face it. Without the PR spin this crime would not have received the attention it has.

The PR spin is one thing and I agree that it has reached new lows, Amanda’s previous motivations are something else.  What if Guede wasn’t around that fateful day?  What if he’d had no interest in Amanda at all?  Would she have waited until she found another black guy before committing the crime?  She accused him because she didn’t want to be blamed and he WAS there after all.  He was culpable too.  Rafaelle was her boyfriend and she wanted to protect that relationship.  I don’t think she thought that deeply about the race of the person she was implicating, unless she’d planned the crime weeks before which we know wasn’t the case.  She named Lumumba because subconsciously she had knowledge that nobody else had at that point - another black guy was present at the crime.  For a racist she unusually seemed to like hanging out with people of colour, and even working for them! 

My view is that the people drawn to commit this crime had a character flaw in common, their weakness and susceptibility to carrying out bad acts, resulting in the terrible consequences we have seen.

Grahame, what I was trying to say is that I don’t think anyone on this board perceives you as anything but intelligent and articulate, regardless of the occasional spelling mistake. While Amanda’s writing has more than the occasional mistake and falls in the atrocious category, I still wouldn’t consider her unintelligent based on that. While I doubt the fact that she was academically exceptional, I don’t think we should underestimate certain aspects of her intelligence, like her ability to identify people who were somehow vulnerable and use them for her own purposes.  It’s not the sort of intelligence we generally admire, but it’s something to acknowledge in others for our own protection.

Regarding the race issue, I’m a bit on the fence.  On the one hand, I found myself agreeing with what you wrote, Intuition, and especially with the implication that she chose Guede because he was around at a convenient moment.  I also think that since her circle of friends in Perugia was pretty mixed, that she wasn’t particularly racist.  I remember that she wrote in her blog that during her first visit to Perugia, she met the most beautiful black man she’d ever seen.

On the other hand, something we need to reckon with is the stereotype of the black man as an easy scapegoat.  A couple of friends, who are both black, college-educated, clean-cut, one of them gay, have told me that it’s painful to see women cross the street if they happen to walk behind them in the evening.  Both of them are tall and well-built, so one could say that it’s not a matter of race, but of coming across as physically intimidating.  But there are plenty of white men out there who are similarly built and who don’t experience this kind of thing, especially when they are very presentable and professionally dressed.

I think that it’s possible for someone who comes from a rather less than tolerant environment (I hesitate to use the word “racist” because I’ve never lived in Seattle) to not be particularly racist, but to use racial stereotypes to their advantage. Had she known more about ethnic tensions in Italy, she might have chosen a white or middle eastern guy; Albanian, Moroccan, Romanian, Bulgarian, etc. would have been excellent choices.  I’ll be honest about something and you can call me crazy, but I am always very careful about revealing my nationality in order to avoid hurtful questions or snide comments, and that I don’t bother correcting people when they assume I’m American.  Anyway, choosing someone of a nationality which may be perceived as threatening or criminally inclined would have shown a much deeper degree of premeditation.  Instead, I think she fell back on the good old black stereotype, which we could perceive as the result of a racist upbringing.

I can’t begin to imagine what she was thinking when she fingered Lumumba.  That the police would unconditionally accept the fact that a black man did it, based on no other evidence than her testimony?  That police couldn’t tell one black man from another? That black men share a greater part of their DNA than everyone else?  The last couple of questions are mostly rhetorical.  I don’t think she was thinking as far as physical evidence, but rather overestimating the racist beliefs of the investigators and hoping that the lack of physical evidence would be overshadowed by the strength of her testimony.

There have been all manner of articles written regarding Obama’s election signaling proof of the “post-racist society” in the States. Why, then, so little mention of the fact that he is as much “white” as he is “black”? 

I am of “mixed race” (if such a thing actually exists). My frame of reference for any perceived racism in the murder of Meredith Kercher extends not just to the fingering of dark-skinned perpetrators, but in the fact that Meredith herself was not lily white. Button, of the eclectic chapbook blog, has made multiple posts referring to this. I don’t honestly know whether or not it was mere happenstance, in terms of how Meredith ended up being a target of violence. She was certainly an easier target among the flatmates than the two Italian women, who were older, and not so far from home. I think, though, that Knox, as well as Soleccito, found it easier to dismiss M because she was not perceived by them as their racial equal.
I don’t hate white people. My boyfriend is Irish-American, and they don’t come much paler than he is. But I have been on the receiving end,more times than I care to recall, of comments,behind my back and to my light brown face, of how others were tolerating my presence in their midsts, and accepting or allowing my existence.I was a 16 year-old with an Arab father, attending a Wheaton, Illinois high school when the Twin Towers came down.Didn’t matter that we were not Muslim.

Arrogance, as evidenced in Knox’s “permitting” M to date Giacomo, could certainly have been passed to her by her Seattle folk.
Her people killed my people. Would she have dared to make that same comment to my Grandparents and then fallen out laughing at her own wicked sense of humour? Maybe she wouldn’t have, but what about her Omi?

My guess is that it’s all a question of perception. Knox is crafty rather than intelligent and she’s very manipulative that’s obvious. It’s a fascinating mix of psychological dilemmas which is inherent rather than learned in a classroom

It’s also interesting that Lamumba was misquoted as saying that the local police abused him verbally by calling him a ‘Dirty Black’ which he vehemently denied later on.

Unfortunately the human condition dictates the search for a scapegoat to blame for our misfortunes. I remember Peter making the comment that the refugees flooding into Europe were to be pitied rather than reviled since we could never imagine how terrible their lives were before they left their native country.

However. Next week Knox is getting on the stand. Probably Monday. She has had two or three months to get her story down with much coaching by her defense. That should be good. In fact she will probably be up for an award by the academy of arts and sciences or is this my pessimism and revilsion showing through since I have read the recording of Edda and Curt talking Knox out of confessing.

@mimi
    Concerning your last paragraph where you talk about students classical education in Seattle as opposed to their CRT use. You are one hundred percent correct of course. The sad thing is that any student given the impetus to perk their self interest will want to learn the most complex sytems. My father in law after the second WW ended up teaching in the East End of London UK which is down by the docks. An area which was then governed by street gangs and violence. He was very successful and his classes were always full because he taught his students mathamatics by teaching them to play cards. If he had been found out he would have been fired straight away but as the old saying goes “Desperation is the mother of invention.”

Grahame, I think your father’s creativity was wonderful.  It makes me sad to think that the people who are in charge of organizing education are so narrow-minded and so disconnected from the realities of the classroom as to reject non-conventional methods.

A couple of years ago, before going back to school, I taught English in an elite high school (public, because private schools aren’t prestigious here).  While most of my classes were decent, I was also given a “problem” class - affluent girls, many with modelling aspirations, none but a couple with any academic interests.  We ended up doing a lot of fashion projects that year.  We trudged through a required Cambridge book too, but I don’t know how much grammar they remember.  But by the end, they could name every kind of shoe in English, from scrunched ankle booties to D’Orsay, and they knew words like “ruched” and “fascinator.”

Mimi, I find it appalling that you’ve had to put up with this kind of treatment from people. I have also been told awful things, to my face, but I suppose it’s different when it’s about your nationality rather your race.  Nationality feels like something arbitrary - where your parents happened to be when you were born.  Race is part of who you are.  As a white person, I never thought, first of all, that I belonged to a race, and, secondly, that my race was in any way part of my identity. I even find it odd to say that I’m a white person. But I realize that we haven’t afforded everyone the same luxury of simply perceiving themselves as a person. I hope you don’t find this offensive - some people I guess would perceive what I said as an erasure of their identity.  Obviously, we all choose how to construct our identities, but it should be no more than that - a choice, whether you choose to include professional elements, artistic inclinations, parenthood, religious affiliations, ethnicity, or race.

Adding a rather late comment….
Am English, (Southern), and would use the word wardrobe, cupboard, clothes cupboard, or possibly armoire for a cupboard in a bedroom.
Would certainly never use the word closet, which we associate with lavatories!

Where next:

Or to next entry Awaiting Appeal Court Verdict, Arline And Lyle And Stephanie In First Press Conference:

Or to previous entry In Good Italian Meredith’s Family Remind Italy Of Who Is The Real Victim Here