Brun-
I guess that's a possibility, but I'd wager a good chance of them being a political/social statement, given the time they were made. You'd hope the silverware expert, somebody who had studied at least a part of U.S. history, would have been alive to that and mentioned it. Not at all surprised that the people around him (owner of the spoons, people stood nearby, programme crew) weren't aware of it; most Brits don't know that much about U.S. history and while they know there was once slavery, they typically know nothing about post-civil-war reconstruction and segregation and haven't heard the term Jim Crow. Recent events might have spread some knowledge just a little bit wider, but it was something like 15 years ago I saw that episode and it was a repeat from I don't know when.
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itsbruce
Fuck off. I'm soo in the habit of constructing fake narratives about quaint BBC shows to illustrate a point, since I'm such an inveterate liar.