Funny thing, I truly did not consider the racial aspects of the Katrina storm - thinking instead mostly along the North/South "Helping the South to Rise Again" - until I heard from Jesse Jackson and NOLA's mayor. To me these were Americans in trouble; I didn't give a rat's arse what color they were.
Like you said, I too grew up in the 70s and view racism as wrong. I dated black girls - and still find them to be some of the most attractive women on the planet (Korean women being a close 2nd).
To me, nationality trumps ethnicity. Don't get me wrong: I love ethnicity. America would be a very boring place without African-American music, Jewish comedy, Indian food, and liberal whining.
I just finished listening to The Adenvture of English: The Biography of a Language from Audible.com. A lot of what Dean talked about was extensively discussed in the book (I heartily recommend the audio book in this case, because the reader did a great job with the words from the Gaelic to Anglo/Saxon to Norman French to Middle English then the modern varities). It tracks World History to the extent there is a measurable effect on the language.
At any rate, the author talks a lot about Creole and Pidgin dialects that started, then flourished as many languages rubbed together during British expansion. Then how English fragments, then rejoins several times. And how it frames and enforces class distincitons.
A great book if you get the chance to hear or read it.
Multiculturalism that involves looking at foreign practices and evaluating them objectively with the purpose of trying to understand them and learning if they have merit is a good thing. Multiculturalism that insists that "all cultures are equal" and that considers it wrong to judge some cultural practices as being objectively bad (the list starts with cannibalism and human sacrifice and moves on from there) is bad. IMO, it's not a complicated or unreasonable distinction to make.
I think the best example of a person who can handle both that I've ever seen is Oprah Winfrey. She speaks absolutely perfect mainstream midwestern English. Some call it "talkin' white" but it's not, it's just the mainstream tongue most universally understood by all groups.
While I personally can't stand to listen to her, she speaks perfect mainstream midwestern English because that's the way they train you to talk in broadcasting. It's the way you get ahead in the business of TeeVee. Even the white folk from down heah in the south learn that lesson. Why do you think nobody knew that Peter Jennings was Canadian?
As to whether they train them that way because it's the most universally understood, somehow I think that might have had a smidgen to do with it, but more to the point, people react to TV folk based on their accent. Someone found out long ago that people with discernable accents got a negative reaction from TV viewers - not something you want when you're doing the news. So all the southern belles, boston beanheads, and SoCal surfer dudes and dudettes went to language coaches to hammer out their accents. And so do all the black folk, even Stuart Scott - who is like the anti-Oprah in many ways.
Try being a Heinz-57. I'm part Russian, German, Dutch, Georgia Redneck, and Panamanian.
My skin color is dark brown, my hair could be mistaken for black it's so dark. I'm often confused for Greek, Italian, and / or Hispanic (of which, technically, I am). But my features are caucasian.
I grew up in the outlaying area of Atlanta. I grew up to hate racism because I saw it so blatantly - from the rednecks who had no qualms about lynching blacks, to the ghettos where being white was a death sentence. I grew up knowing I was a 'mixed breed', and trust me, there ain't too many of 'my type' to hang around.
I don't care what color your skin is, but I do concern myself with the way you present yourself. So, yes, the culture you identify yourself with can impact the way people see you, skin color be damned.
If you come to an interview with your pants down to your crotch and a full set of gold teeth that spell out 'SEXY', I'm not going to take you as serious as someone wearing business casual. If I have a hard time understanding what you're saying, regardless of the accent, I'm more apt to hire someone I can communicate with better. And none of that has anything to do with racism, regardless of how loud sime people holler about it.
Dean's World definitely shows that level-headedness does still exist.
The Swiss manage to get by with four different official languages and even more ethnicities, and have for centuries.
Lest we confuse diversity with equality, there's a pretty strict social hierarchy in Switzerland based on language. Speakers of Hoch Deutsch look down on speakers of schwytzer tutsch. Romansch speakers are consider country bumpkins by practically everybody. And so on.
My family came over from Switzerland a long, long time ago but, oddly, we've maintained close contacts with the old country. Whenever any of us go over to visit the Swiss Schulers we see this hierarchy in action.
People need to get over this weird obsession with skin color. It's meaningless to who we are, to who we choose to be. Culture and character are far more important than our petty racial difference.
I think we should strive to move beyond having a "black culture" or "Latino culture" or "white culture." That kind of self-limiting, self-stereotyping race-based thinking does no one any good. This country is a melting pot, and that's what's made America great: the ability to take the best parts from all cultures and let everyone enjoy them.
Dane County, Wisconsin has some of the brightest african-American computer folks you could shake a mouse at. Furthermore, some of the world's most gifted programmers are Indians. (The ones from Bombay, not the ones from Gallup.) None of these folks seem particularly "white", which covers more or less everything and everybody native to most of this planet from the Chukchi peninsula to Ireland and from Nome to Tierra del Fuego.
So I wouldn't generalize over this racial shit. Quality is where you find them what's made of the right stuff. Whether it's on the basketball court, the arts, in a unit of the US armed forces, teaching your kids geometry or american history in school, or running and maintaining complex computer networks. I got over racism before it ever got its hooks into me, back when I was a kid who knew all kinds of black kids and got on with them okay.
I think most Conservatives balk at "multi-culti" because of the moral equivalency that M. Scott raised above: all cultures are equally good, except for the US, which is the spawn of Satan and should be criticized whenever possible. If multiculturalism really meant learning about other cultures, judging them fairly, integrating their good ideas into our own culture -- that would be an entirely different thing.
And I have to say I'm not baffled by "black" attitudes, I'm baffled by the attitudes of people of any color who seem to think that just being alive entitles them to everything their small hearts desire. The problematic attitudes in our society aren't confined to any particular race or ethnic group, the last time I checked.
There's a lot of sense here among the babbling. I know a teenage girl who likes to dress Goth and dye her hair interesting colors. She told me that she's tired of people judging her by her appearance, and I called her on her hypocrisy: by choosing to dress so far out of the mainstream, she is forcing people to assess her on her appearance! Isn't being "in yo face" with your wardrobe and grooming choices a statement? What exactly does such a statement say? To her credit, the young woman took my points under consideration. And when she needed to get a job, she dyed her hair back to a more natural color, realizing that wearing a facade that screams "anti-social, and proud of it!" makes it kind of hard to get a job.
Her friends accused her of "selling out" but she rebuffed them. She wants to work, she has a lifestyle she'd like to maintain. Even at 16 years old she realized that if you want to be a part of society, you have to act that way.
What we think of a standard english and proper grammar aren't "white".
Anyone who's spent a signifigant time in the backwoods of any part of the country, most especially the south, will recognise real white speakin' and tawkin' when that hear it.
From someone who's from Oklahoma I can first hand attest to it. This place was settled by white immigrants from all over, many fresh off a boat looking for land of their own. Cultures far and widely spaced from all over the eastern US and assorted folks from Europe.
In less than a couple of generateion we all say: Yalll, Howdy, and listen to country music. (Ok not all of us, but you get the picture.)
Redneck is the defalt white culture.
What we call acting 'White' is just being civilized.
I am also "bi-cultural" - my Dad was from West Virginia, my Mother from Cleveland, OH. I heard dialect all my life, and am comfortable moving between standard and "West-by-God-Virginia" talk.
I also do a mean English/transatlantic accent, thanks to several childhood friends whose parents were British subjects. Also, due to living in a "diverse" neighborhood when young (Who knew?), I picked up a little Yiddish. Comes in handy when talking to New Yorkers.
There are few places I don't feel at home in. That's an advantage I have over some of the black kids I've taught in the past - they have only 1 language, Ebonics. They can barely understand standard English, let alone speak or write it. I consider that monolingualism to be a decided disadvantage in an increasingly multi-cultural world. By emphasizing (actually, OVER-emphasizing) the kids' Black heritage, they've limited them in moving into the mainstream. It's a fine line to straddle.
You have to be able to move among the cable channels, not sticking to those with people who speak just like yourself.
Well if you're going to do anything proper with ebonics in the schools, what you do is teach the teachers how to understand it, and how to challenge the children in appropriate ways to learn the mainstream dialect. Problem is that proposals like that cause so much anger on both sides, no one really listens.
You are speaking to regionalism. By that I mean your categories do not apply nationwide. A black in San Jose could go to Chicago or Cicero, Illinois and find cultural shock quite easily within their own ethnic group.
Ebonics in some areas is endemic while in other areas non-existent. I'm not sure I understand Cobb's complaint. I think he is saying KW hasn't met criteria for racist charges on a political correctness level especially by non-black bloggers. He may well be correct based on that criteria. In any event he goes further and suggests that popular non-black bloggers "to be more effective in disseminating information about blackfolks and black culture than those which are black owned and operated." I presume he means an element of editorial disinformation or at least misinformation. He may well be correct there as well.
Therein lies a dilemma. I grew up in Detroit and left at age 26 for the military. So I have a lot of years of experience within black community structure and once worked at Detroit General Hospital. I'm sure I understand Cobb's point of view with greater clarity than your own.
From a personal perspective, my 12 year old grandson came to live with us this summer. We had very, very interesting discussions. He has never heard of the word ebonics. He is black, and he lives in Los Angeles, he is bright, very bright. I wouldn’t present your (post) ideas to him because I do not think they apply to his situation.
So I'm just presenting a few ideas and don't know how they mesh with some of your generalizations. I do not see bloggers as a cohesive group but largely independent but certainly one's target audience is where one's interest’s get communicated. Apparently, Cobb’s interests lie in reaching his target audience, the Conservative Brotherhood or prospective members thereof.
Yet, he says: “"The root of my problem devolves to one essential fact - whites are too popular.”
I think we should strive to move beyond having a "black culture" or "Latino culture" or "white culture." That kind of self-limiting, self-stereotyping race-based thinking does no one any good. This country is a melting pot, and that's what's made America great: the ability to take the best parts from all cultures and let everyone enjoy them.
That's all well and good TallDave but we haven't let all the vegetables and meat simmer long enough to build a good stock. And with folks aways stirring the pot at the wrong time (or turning up or down the heat at will), the stew in the pot can never come out right. It's all Cooking 101 my friends.
My nickname has always been T-Steel. That's a staple in the black community among black men: nicknames taking the first letter of a person's first name adding a hypen and the completing nickname with various letters from the person's last name. Example:
Tyrone Steels II - "T-Steel"
Dean Esmay - "D-Es" or "D-Smay" (like that!)
That's all culture baby and feels so good. It's all about if we choose to respect a culture or not. And black culture is hardly a cancer in America. But the punk-asses that take black culture, twist it, and use it in negative fashion are the cancers.
Dean, I think I have a unique perspective on this topic, but I'm not sure what to think about some of your ideas.
For instance, do I lose black readers who have me pegged right away as a white boy by the way I write? Does that turn some people off? Probably, but obviously it doesn't effect everyone, because based on some of the comments and emails I get, some people never see my picture (even though I don't hide it).
On the other hand, am I effected negatively by some sort of "unpopularity" as Cobb refers to it, apart from the language I use? I seriously doubt that - in fact the exact opposite is one of the founding premises of the blog: that people would come to read me - based on their suppositions from the title alone - for the sheer novelty of it. I think my "popularity" (such as it is) wouldn't be nearly so high (such as it is) if I named a blog "The White Irishman".
Now that I think about it, the stats for "The Black Madonna" (our sister blog, written solely by me, centering on Catholicism) do lend weight in that direction. Granted, I don't post nearly as much there, and I don't think the content is up to the same quality, but saying that also makes a certain point: if you provide popular content, hits will come.
Dean's observation is why I think universalism is the only rational answer:
What we think of a standard english and proper grammar aren't "white".
I was pretty sure I said that. In any case, within parts of the black community, that's how it's associated.
And it doesn't stop with that. Chris Rock has a whole bit on how education gets no respect in the black comunity because it's viewed as trying to be white. Again, that attitude is self-limiting and self-stereotyping, and hurts individual blacks who shouldn't feel pressured to conform to a standard that injures their standard of living just because their skin happens to be a certain color.
We've all done our share of assimilating here in the U.S. I don't know exactly what % of the ancestors os present-day Americans were originally English speakers, but I bet it was a lot less than half, maybe as low as 10%.
That's why I think all these race-based advocacy groups need to go. If we all stick together in our sides of the pot, we'll never have a stew.
McKiernan: I would agree with all of that save one. The phenomenon I'm speaking of is sort of "regionalism" and sort of not. While the cultural difficulties we're speaking of usually follow regional lines, they don't always, and in this case they don't.
I would not be surprised if your grandson has never heard the word "ebonics," because it's a word invented in the 1980s to describe what had previously been called "Black Vernacular English" or "African American Vernacular English." "Ebonics" was a rather PC way of relabling that backfired badly. But what they were describing existed long before the controversy ever existed--and will continue to exist long after we're both gone.
The roots of African American Vernacular English go back centuries. It mostly existed in the rural south. In the mid-20th century, however, there was an explosion of black people moving out of rural areas and into America's major urban areas. It is one of the biggest and most significant social phenomena that happened during that century, and it is rarely remarked upon. But what you had by the 1970s was an enormous number of black kids born in the cities whose parents and grandparents were from the country, usually down south. You also had black kids who didn't have such roots, but the ones who did came to vastly outnumber them.
There are thus of course different variations of AAVE in different regions, but at the moment anyway they share more in common with each other than they do with mainstream English. Thus kids from Detroit, South Central LA, and Harlem can pick up each others' lingos pretty quick, just like a white kid from, say, Kentucky doesn't have too hard a time adjusting if he moves to Biloxi Mississippi. He notices differences in how the people speak there, but people from both areas both recognize immediately that they're both basically southern and share more in common with how they speak than, say, someone from Chicago.
I don't know when you were in Detroit because you don't say. I know you're in your 70s now, so I'm just guessing: if you were in Detroit in the 1960s, well, it's just not the same city now as it was then. Racially or culturally.
Black vernacular is real. It is not slang. It is not stupid or illiterate. It's an immediately identifiable cultural marker. It actually has more in common with the way rural southern white people used to speak than modern mainstream English, but most people don't recognize those similarities--and it's still different for all that.
Black kids who grew up in mostly-white neighborhoods, who who hail from families like, say, Colin Powell's, never really learn much of the lingo. They don't need it and never have. But those kids are often treated with mistrust or contempt if they go into certain black communities. I imagine your grandson would have serious issues if he walked into the wrong parts of Chicago or Detroit or LA, because as soon as he opened his mouth they'd consider him an alien. They'd probably also instantly assume he was wealthy and snooty and thought he was better than them--doesn't matter if that's a fair assessment, that's the prejudice he would immediately face.
Anyway, what we think of as mainstream culture is something that certain black people think of as "white culture." They're wrong about that on several levels, but that's the label they use; in fact it is just as alien to white hicks from rural areas, to Eastern European immigrants, and so on. My wife's polish parents were as different from that so-called "white" culture as any black kid from Highland Park in Detroit.
Understanding these cultural differences is the rosetta stone for understanding a lot of the racial dificulties we still face. Problems that are getting better all the time mind you, but....
Ancestrally, I'm pure Northern European as far as my genealogies have been worked out (and my Aunt Frances has worked them out to excruciating detail, genealogy is her "thing" as spectrumology is mine). It would be nice to have some Jewish ancestry, I'd probably be smarter (e.g., Nobel Prizes in physics). I'd probably be better-looking if I had been born a mesomorph instead of an ectomorph turning into an endomorph. I'd look better with darker skin. I'd love to be a good-looking Lesbian. But I'm just what I am, take it or leave it.
I'm also, as I wrote here in another thread, a Pacific North-Westerner by region, which also makes a difference in the way I look at things.
America (all of the Americas) is necessarily "multi-cultural" in the sense that we are a European culture on top of Native American tribes plus the Africans we originally brought over as slaves. But I continue to maintain that anyone, dark or light, can choose to be fully Western in his or her values. E.g., Thomas Sowell doesn't write in "Ebonics" but in lucid English. I am not a "multi-culturalist", as I believe that our Western culture is superior to any other now existing on this planet. I am an imperialist. All or nearly all the good music in the world was composed by Europeans, most of it by Germans, mostly before 1870. Our styles of architecture, etc.. Other things that I value highly.
But, yes, what we call our "Western" culture is itself multi-layered. We could trace it all the way back to Mesopotamia and Egypt, it certainly includes the Greek (Hellenic) and the Roman, the Jewish and the Christian (in the West, divided now between the Catholic and the Protestant), and the Celtic-Gothic-Norse ("Faustian") strain. All these go to make up the West as we know it. The style of the West. The Ego in the Infinite.
We should stop apologizing for our Western heritage.
C’mon, Its 2005. My grandson lives in LA. No he doesn’t speak ebonics. He lives not in wealth.His school district is primarily hispanic.He does not need lessons in espanics, but most of his classmates do. And yes, I do know Detroit profoundly. I’m sure he would and well may have serious issues imposed on him by predominant minority factions wherever he lives. He will not be accepted in the black community except by his dad or his dad’s relative’s but he doesn’t usually live with him. He will not accepted by the asian community of his mother nor by another asian group where his grandparents live nor by the hispanic community where he lives. That is a scenario that one hopes does not happen with any degree of success. But he is a bright young kid with an excellent brain and a good personality and an eagerness to learn. I do not condemn black culture or society. I do understand cultural differences be they from Hamtramck, Highland Park, Harper Woods or Hastings street near Woodward..
You might say at my old age, I’ve done my homework although I am not yet in my seventies. I do not condemn black vernacular but it isn’t important for this child’s needs nor is it necessary for many other children’s needs. So we are working on his education and he is doing well and he is being introduced into karate and physical education to a high degree. Who knows, he will be able to defend himself and stand up without having to apologize for his existence. That is the crucible within which this child lives. So is it really necessary to learn the lingo that Colin Powell's children never did ?
McKiernan: I thought I answered that already. I said, "Black kids who grew up in mostly-white neighborhoods, who who hail from families like, say, Colin Powell's, never really learn much of the lingo. They don't need it and never have."
Of course I should have said "kids who grew up in neighborhoods where mainstream American English is predominantly spoken" and not "kids who grew up in mostly-white neighborhoods." Because that's much more accurate; there are many enclaves of mostly-black neighborhoods, or mixed-race neighborhoods without all that many white kids, where mainstream English is still the default. But you know what I mean.
The only need where one might need to introduce examination of AAVE is where you have neighborhoods where the overwhelming majority of kids all speak the dialect. The interesting thing being that those kids mostly understand Standard American English just fine, it's their ability to speak it that's harmed because no one's pointed out to them clearly that what they're taught in school is different from what they speak at home. Some of 'em figure it out but some of them never do, and for the latter it becomes a source of much resentment and misunderstanding.
Once again none of this is all that unusual, you see it everywhere where a non-standard dialect butts up against a more dominant dialect.
The problem with multi-culturalism is that it does not really seek to celebrate the myriad cultures that exist in America. By insisting that ALL cultures are equal, it attacks the supremacy of the dominant culture. I for one, believe that the dominant culture in America is something that is worth preserving.
I believe that culture is what has given us our freedoms, and it is what has protected those freedoms. The very hostility of some sub-cultures gives rise to the suspicion that equality is not what they seek. They seek supremacy.
Dean is correct. I am willing to adjust and adapt our culture to absorb others. But I am totally unwilling to tolerate the subversion of our culture in the false name of tolerance. We have no reason to be ashamed of our culture, regardless of its past errors. The very fact that we are willing to acknowledge those errors is one of the admirable qualities of our culture. But those who use those acknowledged errors to seek to invalidate our dominant culture must be resisted at all costs.
I think that Dean makes some very valid points here--he presents both sides without any bias, so no one could have room to say he's racist, etc. He's simply stating the facts. After reading this blog, my mother and I had a conversation about it and agreed that many Caucasian people do try to make other cultures assimilate to their culture and may not realize that other cultures find this wrong or are offended by it. Assimilation does happen—it happened to my Chinese grandmother whose parents taught her no Chinese, only English. She was assimilated to the culture, and not because she lived in Hawaii and saw Pearl Harbor attacked when she was eight years old, because back when my grandmother was growing up, it was less American to be bilingual. It is not like today, where in our culture it makes you a commodity or gives you a certain sex appeal (because it does) to be bilingual
So, what's the problem here? People are afraid to have these conversations because some minorities become easily hostile about these issues. Other people avoid this topic because he or she doesn't want to look stupid when foot-in-mouth syndrome occurs.
However, my question would then move to people from multi-cultural or mixed backgrounds. With increasing acceptance of interracial relationships, then what? Who would dominate the blog world then? Would “mixed” people, such as my mother who is half Chinese and half Caucasian then be expected to identify with one race? Or would the culture, such as the example Dean gave with India, be a better place because the multi-ethnic group could see both sides of the coin, adopt both aspects of his or her culture, and teach others to do the same?
both. preach on, brother.
Like you said, I too grew up in the 70s and view racism as wrong. I dated black girls - and still find them to be some of the most attractive women on the planet (Korean women being a close 2nd).
To me, nationality trumps ethnicity. Don't get me wrong: I love ethnicity. America would be a very boring place without African-American music, Jewish comedy, Indian food, and liberal whining.
At any rate, the author talks a lot about Creole and Pidgin dialects that started, then flourished as many languages rubbed together during British expansion. Then how English fragments, then rejoins several times. And how it frames and enforces class distincitons.
A great book if you get the chance to hear or read it.
While I personally can't stand to listen to her, she speaks perfect mainstream midwestern English because that's the way they train you to talk in broadcasting. It's the way you get ahead in the business of TeeVee. Even the white folk from down heah in the south learn that lesson. Why do you think nobody knew that Peter Jennings was Canadian?
As to whether they train them that way because it's the most universally understood, somehow I think that might have had a smidgen to do with it, but more to the point, people react to TV folk based on their accent. Someone found out long ago that people with discernable accents got a negative reaction from TV viewers - not something you want when you're doing the news. So all the southern belles, boston beanheads, and SoCal surfer dudes and dudettes went to language coaches to hammer out their accents. And so do all the black folk, even Stuart Scott - who is like the anti-Oprah in many ways.
My skin color is dark brown, my hair could be mistaken for black it's so dark. I'm often confused for Greek, Italian, and / or Hispanic (of which, technically, I am). But my features are caucasian.
I grew up in the outlaying area of Atlanta. I grew up to hate racism because I saw it so blatantly - from the rednecks who had no qualms about lynching blacks, to the ghettos where being white was a death sentence. I grew up knowing I was a 'mixed breed', and trust me, there ain't too many of 'my type' to hang around.
I don't care what color your skin is, but I do concern myself with the way you present yourself. So, yes, the culture you identify yourself with can impact the way people see you, skin color be damned.
If you come to an interview with your pants down to your crotch and a full set of gold teeth that spell out 'SEXY', I'm not going to take you as serious as someone wearing business casual. If I have a hard time understanding what you're saying, regardless of the accent, I'm more apt to hire someone I can communicate with better. And none of that has anything to do with racism, regardless of how loud sime people holler about it.
Dean's World definitely shows that level-headedness does still exist.
Lest we confuse diversity with equality, there's a pretty strict social hierarchy in Switzerland based on language. Speakers of Hoch Deutsch look down on speakers of schwytzer tutsch. Romansch speakers are consider country bumpkins by practically everybody. And so on.
My family came over from Switzerland a long, long time ago but, oddly, we've maintained close contacts with the old country. Whenever any of us go over to visit the Swiss Schulers we see this hierarchy in action.
People need to get over this weird obsession with skin color. It's meaningless to who we are, to who we choose to be. Culture and character are far more important than our petty racial difference.
I think we should strive to move beyond having a "black culture" or "Latino culture" or "white culture." That kind of self-limiting, self-stereotyping race-based thinking does no one any good. This country is a melting pot, and that's what's made America great: the ability to take the best parts from all cultures and let everyone enjoy them.
So I wouldn't generalize over this racial shit. Quality is where you find them what's made of the right stuff. Whether it's on the basketball court, the arts, in a unit of the US armed forces, teaching your kids geometry or american history in school, or running and maintaining complex computer networks. I got over racism before it ever got its hooks into me, back when I was a kid who knew all kinds of black kids and got on with them okay.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
And I have to say I'm not baffled by "black" attitudes, I'm baffled by the attitudes of people of any color who seem to think that just being alive entitles them to everything their small hearts desire. The problematic attitudes in our society aren't confined to any particular race or ethnic group, the last time I checked.
There's a lot of sense here among the babbling. I know a teenage girl who likes to dress Goth and dye her hair interesting colors. She told me that she's tired of people judging her by her appearance, and I called her on her hypocrisy: by choosing to dress so far out of the mainstream, she is forcing people to assess her on her appearance! Isn't being "in yo face" with your wardrobe and grooming choices a statement? What exactly does such a statement say? To her credit, the young woman took my points under consideration. And when she needed to get a job, she dyed her hair back to a more natural color, realizing that wearing a facade that screams "anti-social, and proud of it!" makes it kind of hard to get a job.
Her friends accused her of "selling out" but she rebuffed them. She wants to work, she has a lifestyle she'd like to maintain. Even at 16 years old she realized that if you want to be a part of society, you have to act that way.
What we think of a standard english and proper grammar aren't "white".
Anyone who's spent a signifigant time in the backwoods of any part of the country, most especially the south, will recognise real white speakin' and tawkin' when that hear it.
From someone who's from Oklahoma I can first hand attest to it. This place was settled by white immigrants from all over, many fresh off a boat looking for land of their own. Cultures far and widely spaced from all over the eastern US and assorted folks from Europe.
In less than a couple of generateion we all say: Yalll, Howdy, and listen to country music. (Ok not all of us, but you get the picture.)
Redneck is the defalt white culture.
What we call acting 'White' is just being civilized.
I was pretty sure I said that. In any case, within parts of the black community, that's how it's associated.
I also do a mean English/transatlantic accent, thanks to several childhood friends whose parents were British subjects. Also, due to living in a "diverse" neighborhood when young (Who knew?), I picked up a little Yiddish. Comes in handy when talking to New Yorkers.
There are few places I don't feel at home in. That's an advantage I have over some of the black kids I've taught in the past - they have only 1 language, Ebonics. They can barely understand standard English, let alone speak or write it. I consider that monolingualism to be a decided disadvantage in an increasingly multi-cultural world. By emphasizing (actually, OVER-emphasizing) the kids' Black heritage, they've limited them in moving into the mainstream. It's a fine line to straddle.
You have to be able to move among the cable channels, not sticking to those with people who speak just like yourself.
You are speaking to regionalism. By that I mean your categories do not apply nationwide. A black in San Jose could go to Chicago or Cicero, Illinois and find cultural shock quite easily within their own ethnic group.
Ebonics in some areas is endemic while in other areas non-existent. I'm not sure I understand Cobb's complaint. I think he is saying KW hasn't met criteria for racist charges on a political correctness level especially by non-black bloggers. He may well be correct based on that criteria. In any event he goes further and suggests that popular non-black bloggers "to be more effective in disseminating information about blackfolks and black culture than those which are black owned and operated." I presume he means an element of editorial disinformation or at least misinformation. He may well be correct there as well.
Therein lies a dilemma. I grew up in Detroit and left at age 26 for the military. So I have a lot of years of experience within black community structure and once worked at Detroit General Hospital. I'm sure I understand Cobb's point of view with greater clarity than your own.
From a personal perspective, my 12 year old grandson came to live with us this summer. We had very, very interesting discussions. He has never heard of the word ebonics. He is black, and he lives in Los Angeles, he is bright, very bright. I wouldn’t present your (post) ideas to him because I do not think they apply to his situation.
So I'm just presenting a few ideas and don't know how they mesh with some of your generalizations. I do not see bloggers as a cohesive group but largely independent but certainly one's target audience is where one's interest’s get communicated. Apparently, Cobb’s interests lie in reaching his target audience, the Conservative Brotherhood or prospective members thereof.
Yet, he says: “"The root of my problem devolves to one essential fact - whites are too popular.”
Am I making sense or just rambling ?
That's all well and good TallDave but we haven't let all the vegetables and meat simmer long enough to build a good stock. And with folks aways stirring the pot at the wrong time (or turning up or down the heat at will), the stew in the pot can never come out right. It's all Cooking 101 my friends.
My nickname has always been T-Steel. That's a staple in the black community among black men: nicknames taking the first letter of a person's first name adding a hypen and the completing nickname with various letters from the person's last name. Example:
Tyrone Steels II - "T-Steel"
Dean Esmay - "D-Es" or "D-Smay" (like that!)
That's all culture baby and feels so good. It's all about if we choose to respect a culture or not. And black culture is hardly a cancer in America. But the punk-asses that take black culture, twist it, and use it in negative fashion are the cancers.
HOLLA! (more "ebonics" for ya...)
For instance, do I lose black readers who have me pegged right away as a white boy by the way I write? Does that turn some people off? Probably, but obviously it doesn't effect everyone, because based on some of the comments and emails I get, some people never see my picture (even though I don't hide it).
On the other hand, am I effected negatively by some sort of "unpopularity" as Cobb refers to it, apart from the language I use? I seriously doubt that - in fact the exact opposite is one of the founding premises of the blog: that people would come to read me - based on their suppositions from the title alone - for the sheer novelty of it. I think my "popularity" (such as it is) wouldn't be nearly so high (such as it is) if I named a blog "The White Irishman".
Now that I think about it, the stats for "The Black Madonna" (our sister blog, written solely by me, centering on Catholicism) do lend weight in that direction. Granted, I don't post nearly as much there, and I don't think the content is up to the same quality, but saying that also makes a certain point: if you provide popular content, hits will come.
Hmmn. Now I think I'm the one rambling.
;-)
What we think of a standard english and proper grammar aren't "white".
I was pretty sure I said that. In any case, within parts of the black community, that's how it's associated.
And it doesn't stop with that. Chris Rock has a whole bit on how education gets no respect in the black comunity because it's viewed as trying to be white. Again, that attitude is self-limiting and self-stereotyping, and hurts individual blacks who shouldn't feel pressured to conform to a standard that injures their standard of living just because their skin happens to be a certain color.
We've all done our share of assimilating here in the U.S. I don't know exactly what % of the ancestors os present-day Americans were originally English speakers, but I bet it was a lot less than half, maybe as low as 10%.
That's why I think all these race-based advocacy groups need to go. If we all stick together in our sides of the pot, we'll never have a stew.
I would not be surprised if your grandson has never heard the word "ebonics," because it's a word invented in the 1980s to describe what had previously been called "Black Vernacular English" or "African American Vernacular English." "Ebonics" was a rather PC way of relabling that backfired badly. But what they were describing existed long before the controversy ever existed--and will continue to exist long after we're both gone.
The roots of African American Vernacular English go back centuries. It mostly existed in the rural south. In the mid-20th century, however, there was an explosion of black people moving out of rural areas and into America's major urban areas. It is one of the biggest and most significant social phenomena that happened during that century, and it is rarely remarked upon. But what you had by the 1970s was an enormous number of black kids born in the cities whose parents and grandparents were from the country, usually down south. You also had black kids who didn't have such roots, but the ones who did came to vastly outnumber them.
There are thus of course different variations of AAVE in different regions, but at the moment anyway they share more in common with each other than they do with mainstream English. Thus kids from Detroit, South Central LA, and Harlem can pick up each others' lingos pretty quick, just like a white kid from, say, Kentucky doesn't have too hard a time adjusting if he moves to Biloxi Mississippi. He notices differences in how the people speak there, but people from both areas both recognize immediately that they're both basically southern and share more in common with how they speak than, say, someone from Chicago.
I don't know when you were in Detroit because you don't say. I know you're in your 70s now, so I'm just guessing: if you were in Detroit in the 1960s, well, it's just not the same city now as it was then. Racially or culturally.
Black vernacular is real. It is not slang. It is not stupid or illiterate. It's an immediately identifiable cultural marker. It actually has more in common with the way rural southern white people used to speak than modern mainstream English, but most people don't recognize those similarities--and it's still different for all that.
Black kids who grew up in mostly-white neighborhoods, who who hail from families like, say, Colin Powell's, never really learn much of the lingo. They don't need it and never have. But those kids are often treated with mistrust or contempt if they go into certain black communities. I imagine your grandson would have serious issues if he walked into the wrong parts of Chicago or Detroit or LA, because as soon as he opened his mouth they'd consider him an alien. They'd probably also instantly assume he was wealthy and snooty and thought he was better than them--doesn't matter if that's a fair assessment, that's the prejudice he would immediately face.
Anyway, what we think of as mainstream culture is something that certain black people think of as "white culture." They're wrong about that on several levels, but that's the label they use; in fact it is just as alien to white hicks from rural areas, to Eastern European immigrants, and so on. My wife's polish parents were as different from that so-called "white" culture as any black kid from Highland Park in Detroit.
Understanding these cultural differences is the rosetta stone for understanding a lot of the racial dificulties we still face. Problems that are getting better all the time mind you, but....
I'm also, as I wrote here in another thread, a Pacific North-Westerner by region, which also makes a difference in the way I look at things.
America (all of the Americas) is necessarily "multi-cultural" in the sense that we are a European culture on top of Native American tribes plus the Africans we originally brought over as slaves. But I continue to maintain that anyone, dark or light, can choose to be fully Western in his or her values. E.g., Thomas Sowell doesn't write in "Ebonics" but in lucid English. I am not a "multi-culturalist", as I believe that our Western culture is superior to any other now existing on this planet. I am an imperialist. All or nearly all the good music in the world was composed by Europeans, most of it by Germans, mostly before 1870. Our styles of architecture, etc.. Other things that I value highly.
But, yes, what we call our "Western" culture is itself multi-layered. We could trace it all the way back to Mesopotamia and Egypt, it certainly includes the Greek (Hellenic) and the Roman, the Jewish and the Christian (in the West, divided now between the Catholic and the Protestant), and the Celtic-Gothic-Norse ("Faustian") strain. All these go to make up the West as we know it. The style of the West. The Ego in the Infinite.
We should stop apologizing for our Western heritage.
C’mon, Its 2005. My grandson lives in LA. No he doesn’t speak ebonics. He lives not in wealth.His school district is primarily hispanic.He does not need lessons in espanics, but most of his classmates do. And yes, I do know Detroit profoundly. I’m sure he would and well may have serious issues imposed on him by predominant minority factions wherever he lives. He will not be accepted in the black community except by his dad or his dad’s relative’s but he doesn’t usually live with him. He will not accepted by the asian community of his mother nor by another asian group where his grandparents live nor by the hispanic community where he lives. That is a scenario that one hopes does not happen with any degree of success. But he is a bright young kid with an excellent brain and a good personality and an eagerness to learn. I do not condemn black culture or society. I do understand cultural differences be they from Hamtramck, Highland Park, Harper Woods or Hastings street near Woodward..
You might say at my old age, I’ve done my homework although I am not yet in my seventies. I do not condemn black vernacular but it isn’t important for this child’s needs nor is it necessary for many other children’s needs. So we are working on his education and he is doing well and he is being introduced into karate and physical education to a high degree. Who knows, he will be able to defend himself and stand up without having to apologize for his existence. That is the crucible within which this child lives. So is it really necessary to learn the lingo that Colin Powell's children never did ?
Of course I should have said "kids who grew up in neighborhoods where mainstream American English is predominantly spoken" and not "kids who grew up in mostly-white neighborhoods." Because that's much more accurate; there are many enclaves of mostly-black neighborhoods, or mixed-race neighborhoods without all that many white kids, where mainstream English is still the default. But you know what I mean.
The only need where one might need to introduce examination of AAVE is where you have neighborhoods where the overwhelming majority of kids all speak the dialect. The interesting thing being that those kids mostly understand Standard American English just fine, it's their ability to speak it that's harmed because no one's pointed out to them clearly that what they're taught in school is different from what they speak at home. Some of 'em figure it out but some of them never do, and for the latter it becomes a source of much resentment and misunderstanding.
Once again none of this is all that unusual, you see it everywhere where a non-standard dialect butts up against a more dominant dialect.
This Wikipedia article is surprisingly clear and comprehensive on the whole subject.
I believe that culture is what has given us our freedoms, and it is what has protected those freedoms. The very hostility of some sub-cultures gives rise to the suspicion that equality is not what they seek. They seek supremacy.
Dean is correct. I am willing to adjust and adapt our culture to absorb others. But I am totally unwilling to tolerate the subversion of our culture in the false name of tolerance. We have no reason to be ashamed of our culture, regardless of its past errors. The very fact that we are willing to acknowledge those errors is one of the admirable qualities of our culture. But those who use those acknowledged errors to seek to invalidate our dominant culture must be resisted at all costs.
So, what's the problem here? People are afraid to have these conversations because some minorities become easily hostile about these issues. Other people avoid this topic because he or she doesn't want to look stupid when foot-in-mouth syndrome occurs.
However, my question would then move to people from multi-cultural or mixed backgrounds. With increasing acceptance of interracial relationships, then what? Who would dominate the blog world then? Would “mixed” people, such as my mother who is half Chinese and half Caucasian then be expected to identify with one race? Or would the culture, such as the example Dean gave with India, be a better place because the multi-ethnic group could see both sides of the coin, adopt both aspects of his or her culture, and teach others to do the same?