Saturday, September 25, 2010

#36. Demonization of Ebonics

Black people love being Black. Every negative stereotype that white people whisper about in hurried, hushed sentences - for fear that a Commissar of Black Run America (BRA) might be near - is but a point of pride that Black people revel in without reservation or hesitation.

A rebellion against Pre-Obama America occurred in the linguistic sector, as Black people developed a vernacular indigenous to their rhythmically-enhanced communities; and this form of dialect has proliferated and gained increasing acceptance in academic circles, though it is borderline indecipherable:
The term Ebonics (a blend of ebony and phonics) gained recognition in 1996 as a result of the Oakland School Board’s use of the term in its proposal to use African American English in teaching Standard English in the Oakland Schools. The term was coined by Robert Williams in 1973, but it wasn’t until the Ebonics controversy that Ebonics became widely used. Most linguists prefer the term African American English as it aligns the variety with regional, national, and sociocultural varieties of English such as British English, Southern English, Cajun English, and so forth.
Ebonics is a true language rebellion by Black people against the totalitarian and imperalistic cultural norms of acceptable communication enforced by oppressive sons and daughters of Albion. The Queen's English is a burden to Black people who, in an all-out effort to "keep it real", deigned speaking proper English just another form of slavery and freed themselves from the constricting shackles of grammatically correct sentences and intelligible spoken word.

Thankfully, a Web site has been created that offers translation of English into Ebonics, so that those unfamiliar to the foreign language spoken with such fervency in the Black community can grasp the concepts governing this growing tongue.

It has been postulated that Ebonics is the language that might finally help build the bridge to overcome the racial gap in learning that no amount of money has yet to construct. For this simple reason, Black people are incredulous that an attempt to create an authentic Black vernacular has been met with such a negative response by the American people. Worse, many white people snicker and find humor in the inability for Black people to intelligently put together a coherent sentence.

Indeed, it is that rare Black person who speaks recognizable, lucid and consistent English that is deemed articulate in the eyes of white people. Some have argued that a reliance on Ebonics has damaged Black people's prospects in the job market even, which could help explain the onus barbershops must face when it comes to employing vast numbers of dialectically-deficient Black people.

One entity that does value Ebonics (or, those who can understand Ebonics) is the Justice Department of the United States of America. Understanding crime statistics and the propensity Black people find themselves committing acts that run counter to laws governing civilized society, the Justice Department has realized that they lack the manpower to properly translate Ebonics to help solve crimes:

The Department of Justice is seeking to hire linguists fluent in Ebonics to help monitor, translate, and transcribe the secretly recorded conversations of subjects of narcotics investigations, according to federal records.
A maximum of nine Ebonics experts will work with the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Atlanta field division, where the linguists, after obtaining a “DEA Sensitive” security clearance, will help investigators decipher the results of “telephonic monitoring of court ordered nonconsensual intercepts, consensual listening devices, and other media”

The DEA’s need for full-time linguists specializing in Ebonics is detailed in bid documents related to the agency’s mid-May issuance of a request for proposal (RFP) covering the provision of as many as 2100 linguists for the drug agency’s various field offices. Answers to the proposal were due from contractors on July 29.

In contract documents, which are excerpted here, Ebonics is listed among 114 languages for which prospective contractors must be able to provide linguists. The 114 languages are divided between “common languages” and “exotic languages.” Ebonics is listed as a “common language” spoken solely in the United States.

Ebonics has widely been described as a nonstandard variant of English spoken largely by African Americans. John R. Rickford, a Stanford University professor of linguistics, has described it as “Black English” and noted that “Ebonics pronunciation includes features like the omission of the final consonant in words like ‘past’ (pas’ ) and ‘hand’ (han’), the pronunciation of the th in ‘bath’ as t (bat) or f (baf), and the pronunciation of the vowel in words like ‘my’ and ‘ride’ as a long ah (mah, rahd).”
Detractors reject the notion that Ebonics is a dialect, instead considering it a bastardization of the English language.

The Department of Justice RFP does not, of course, address questions of vernacular, dialect, or linguistic merit. It simply sought proposals covering the award of separate linguist contracts for seven DEA regions. The agency spends about $70 million annually on linguistic service programs, according to contract records.
In addition to the nine Ebonics experts, the DEA’s Atlanta office also requires linguists for eight other languages, including Spanish (144 linguists needed); Vietnamese (12); Korean (9); Farsi (9); and Jamaican patois (4). The Atlanta field division, one of the DEA’s busiest, is the only office seeking linguists well-versed in Ebonics. Overall, the “majority of DEA’s language requirements will be for Spanish originating in Central and South America and the Caribbean,” according to one contract document.

The Department of Justice RFP includes a detailed description of the crucial role a linguist can play in narcotics investigations. They are responsible for listening to “oral intercepts in English and foreign languages,” from which they provide verbal and typed summaries. “Subsequently, all pertinent calls identified by the supervising law enforcement officer will be transcribed verbatim in the required federal or state format,” the RFP notes.

Black people love being Black. Ebonics is a source of pride for Black people who find the parroting the Queen's English just an extension of verbal slavery that the creation of an authentic dialect can help end. That Black people who speak recognizable English are patronized as being pillars for their community is the reason that the demonization of Ebonics is included in Stuff Black People Don't Like.

To act white is to speak coherent English and this intolerable offense must not occur in the Black community, thus the prevalence for Ebonics. Sadly, Rosetta Stone has yet to release a language software to help non-Ebonics speakers learn the rules that govern this form of speech.

To "keep it real" Black people created a language that no non-Black person can really understand. It's debatablewhether Black people can even understand it.  Well, save that chick from Airplane!







31 comments:

Blue Eyed Devil said...

Lemme axes you a question? Where I git sum skrawburry's and urnges at? It's Awwwwight! Yo dawg what up? The list goes on and on. Some of the phrases can be deciphered.

I stopped by a convenience store the other night and had the pleasure of hearing a fat congoloid mammy going off about something. The only words I could make out in her diatribe were "mah fucker" which popped up quite frequently irregardless to all the other customers in line. She was gettin her black on near as I could tell. Whatever. I chalked the experience up to a getting back at YT moment. Of course, don't say nothing about it, or bring it up in here as a comment lest you "be a muh fucking racis" LMWAO woot! woot!

Anonymous said...

Ebonics is A poor excuse for a failure to grasp the basics of english. When in doubt, throw an "izzle" sound in the middle of any word of just string random thoughts together and insinuate that they actually mean something. When backed into a corner, you can always claim that it has something to do with a sort of symbolism or is a defining trait that makes your race great, versus own up to the fact that it is essentially laziness at it's finest.

SBPDL Datz rayciss!

Sheila said...

When most blacks try to speak standard English, they truly cannot. I recall a semi-educated black I worked with years ago, who asked me to correct her English when necessary. When I told her "he do not" was incorrect, she was genuinely puzzled. I've since noticed that same lack of correct verb conjugation numerous times since, always among semi-educated or well-spoken blacks.

There is another variant of ebonics that is extremely prevalent, and it is used extensively by all the black talking heads and "intellectuals" and, of course, Obama, It is speaking to impress, rather than express. Just use lots of big words regardless of meaning, make what you're saying sound like soaring oratory, and all blacks and many whites will be unduly impressed by your brilliance. People in general (yes, whites included) are stupid.

Desiree (keeping it real) said...

The reporter-turns-'ghetto' video shows the intelligence and power of black people: we can move in and out of white society when needed.

And that is where the fear comes from, doesn't it?

Blacks joke about our 'white voice' all the time. We know what we have to do to survive, to make it in Whitey's world. Seeing that I am from a Bay Area suburb with a Stanford educated mother, I do not have the deepest of 'ebonics' inflections in my voice. But I still sound black.

But the problem is this: why do we have to have two voices? It was a month or so ago that someone from this very site called me on the telephone (I won't name name's but, no joke, he's a beautiful person, even if our friendship didn't work out). But, autonomically, I used my 'white voice' because that is what whites are comfortable hearing.

It's like you people have us trained and I don't like it.

My favorite Pan-Africanist thinker, Brother Del Jones, discussed the ridiculousness of bashing ebonics. Ebonics is basically akin to a foreign-language speaker speaking English. When, in centuries past, blacks could only speak their native dialects and were in the process of learning Whitey's tongue, they spoke pidgin English. Why should ebonics be demonized, then, if blacks were then kept uneducated and separate from the white culture, unable to 'learn' proper speech?

It's as wrong as criticizing someone's accent. They cannot help it.

Black people are chameleons and your fear is justified. Whites cannot appeal to other segments without force, brutality, and use of brainwashing techniques (ie. mass media projecting the fallacy 'white is best' the moment). However, blacks can fool Whitey by speaking his dialect of English and still 'keep it real'.

One of the most loathsome sounds to my ears is the voice of a whitewashed negro in a gaggle of whites. Ugh! I have had many a black friend infected with the seemingly congenital disease 'Sellout'. (It is typically passed on through the Negro mother and father, esp. the mother; notice the use of 'negro' over 'black'.)

Seriously, SBPDL, wouldn't you prefer a black 'chameleon', one who can move in and out of the dominant paradigm but prefers their own people, or a 'Sellout', one who, by virtue of their blackness, will always be cooler than you while confirming to the dominant paradigm, thus being better than you?

Choose choice one. For your sake and black people's sake... Yes, it is as it sounds: I would not want an ebonics-speaking doctor. I cannot help this choice as I am thoroughly suburban. A 'chameleon' is what I want.

Desiree (keeping it real) said...

As evidenced by the above comment of Blue Eyed Devil, many whites on this site, for their own edification, should take ebonics courses, if available.

As a writer, I know the importance of having a good ear when writing dialect. You have to have a good ear or else the insult is meaningless.

That is a tip from a black writer; please, take heed.

By the way, Blue Eyed Devil, 'irregardless' is as fictitious a word as 'skrawburry's'.

Anonymous said...

If you would put this much focus on something positive and worthwhile, you actually may accomplish something in life besides this weak excuse for a site.

Percy Kittens said...

"Reporter Turns Ghetto In 3 Seconds" is something I see on cable news even today. If you watch CNN and you happen to catch Don Lemon or TJ Holmes, they'll "talk white" when reading the teleprompter or interviewing a white guest. But, and this has happened on more than one occasion that I've noticed, when they start interviewing a black person or making chit chat with a black co-host or guest, often they start to backslide into Ebonics. I've even seen them do the fist-bump or the reverse-handshake and the thumb-wrestle when meeting another black person either on location or on-set.

And it's not just black-on-black Ebonics either. I remember when Hillary Clinton was campaigning in the South back in 2007 and the early part of 2008 and she suddenly developed a southern accent in front of both black and white people who came to her campaign rallies. It's a subtle form of intellectual laziness that I have tried to avoid myself when being around friends and family that live even deeper in The South than I do.

I constantly try to avoid using "y'all" and "fixin'" in my vocabulary. I'm proud to be southern, and I love my southern heritage, but in a professional setting I always try to be conscious of using a regional-neutral accent as much as possible. A strong southern accent is as unprofessional as a strong Northeastern accent or a Southern California/Valley accent, or using Ebonics.

A couple of interesting things about the DOJ's request for translators: #1 if such a request had been made by a Conservative or Republican white Attorney General the NAACP, Congressional Black Caucus, Rainbow-PUSH Coalition, and MSNBC would be loudly screaming about how racist that Attorney General was. But since it's coming from Eric Holder's justice department, to use an Ebonic expression, "it's all good".

#2 Most of the requests for translators were for *REAL* languages. Spanish, Vietnamese, Korean and Farsi are real languages. They're not "slang" versions of existing languages like Ebonics is. What's worse, black Americans aren't the least bit embarrassed that a request has been made for translators to help non-black people understand what black people are saying, and they should be.

Finally, my company had a summer cookout a few months ago and when I went through the line to get my hamburger I was asked by the black woman working the line what I wanted on my burger. Recalling the line from AIRPLANE!, I told her "Drag it through the garden, baby." She laughed because she understood what I was saying, but also because it was coming from a white guy.

Blue Eyed Devil said...

"By the way, Blue Eyed Devil, 'irregardless' is as fictitious a word as 'skrawburry's'."


It was bait to draw you out......nuff said.

Stick to the things you know, like useless ramblings that will in no way sway anyone here. That was easy.

Anonymous said...

Desiree is correct for once.

There is no such word as "irregardless." Neither is "reiterate" correct since "iterate" already means "to say again." Also begone ye who say "mandantory" when you mean "mandatory" meaning "required." Off with their heads, those who say "pacifically" when they mean to say "specifically."

I'm just venting some pent up grammar angst here. Now if someone would please explain to me why it is that blacks say "scrawberry" and "strews" when they mean "strawberry" and "screws."

--Mencken--

John T. said...

I personally don't have a problem with anything blacks do to further culturally sequester themselves from whites. After all, isn't that what we as conscious whites want?

As I have said before, I have no desire to "keep the black man down" or be involved with them as a collective in any way shape or form. Blacks who adhere to the mindset fostered by black identity politics are welcome to pursue that path so long as they don't interfere with me and mine.

If they see ebonics as a way to free themselves from the phantom "oppression" then so be it. It is worth mentioning that they will of course cry "racism" if denied a job based on their ability to communicate effectively,but so what? And that really is the point. Whites need to learn to say "so what" to charges of "racism" instead of bending over backwards to accommodate those who are impossible to accommodate.

Anonymous said...

Actually, much of ebonics is taken from the speech ways of the old Cavaliers, the first slaves owners. I can't recall them all, but patterns of speech including: it be, it do, it don't, and aks for ask are the way the old English aristocracy, and then the slaveholders, used to speak. In their effort to free themselves from white domination, blacks are imitating their old masters. The irony is just too exquisitely rich, though not unheard of for blacks.

The boxer, Cassius Clay, was named after a big-time Kentucky abolitionist. To throw off the chains of slavery, Clay converted to Islam and rechristened himself Mohammad Ali, after the Pasha of Alexandria, a world-class owner of black slaves.

Fischer's Albion's Seed, a cultural history of the colonial period, treats this matter in some depth.

Unknown said...

When somebody tries to speak with me using that garbage, I simply tell them "I don't understand what you are saying. Either speak real English or I will take my business elsewhere."
I simply refuse to waste my limited time on unintelligent people that refuse to learn proper English.
BTW, I find that most engineers have a poor grasp of English as well, but unlike most blacks, they tend to be intelligent, just grammatically challenged.

Miss Ann said...

Tsk, tsk, Desiree.

"Irregardless" can be found in the same online dictionary YOU cited as a source once before.

"The most frequently repeated remark about it is that “there is no such word.” There is such a word, however."

Can't have it both ways, negro.

Dr. Kwanzaa Mobatu Killawhiteyshabazz said...

Sheila is on to something. Overcompensation is the bane of semi- and even well-educated blacks. In order to make up for those not in the talented tenth, you get overly ornate and flowery language that has some hilarious results. Take this Cornell West quote for instance:

"Music at its best...is the grand archeology into and transfiguration of our guttural cry, the great human effort to grasp in time our deepest passions and yearnings as prisoners of time. Profound music leads us--beyond language--to the dark roots of our scream and the celestial
heights of our silence."

Two ironies here:

1) Even having said this, West would have the audacity to try to defend rap.

2) He basically used the most verbose couching to say that music is something that is beyond words.

At least Mike Tyson admits he's a fool. So that when we get a chestnut like, "My style is impetuous, my defense impregnable," we know to laugh.

Anonymous said...

Hey now, give Iron Mike some respect! The man's malapropisms are legendary, but he's actually fairly articulate. "My style is impetuous, my defense impregnable," is not only correct English, but also very expressive!

Anonymous said...

SBPDL,

I really hate to be the resident "trouble maker", but I have a few issues with this post.

First of all how can one decry the demonization of a made up concept.

Regional dialects are real. Slang is real. Ebonics is nothing more than a hustle and a sham perpetrated largely by black educators, who ironically speak standard English, very well. If you remember the Oakland "controversy". They sought the use of public funds for this nonsense, just like the ones used for bilingual education. That would lead to "special pay" for those trained teachers, just like those who teach ESL. This video illustrates just who really supports Ebonics and why.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kg_sPZV2ry8


I generally speak standard English, but on occasion I will slip into to slang around friends and family. When I'm at work, school, or in "mixed company" I will always use standard English. Nothing makes my skin crawl more than hearing a black guy say "Yo, what's up my nigga!" to some white guy.

The thing that most black people don't realize is that white people only "like" us on paper and in theory. In practice they hate our guts. The popularity of rap music and certain aspects of "urban culture" among a small, but significant number of suburban whites has given many DWLs and their token Negro lackeys a false sense of acceptance. It is pathetic.

The DEA needs these "experts" for two reasons.

Criminals of all races are using Ebonics as code to trip up investigators, especially when wire taps are involved.

Sense we have allowed this made up bullshit concept to be legitimized it sets up a legal precedence that could potentially compromise pending cases. Other than that it is a complete joke

-Black guy

Desiree (keeping it real) said...

What I find hypocritical is that whites like to 'demonize' ebonics, yet, they are silent about the speech of Bostonians, those from rural Maine, those from New Jersey, some New Yorkers, and a majority of Southerners. Or, God forbid, Londoners!

All of those are regional accents on the English language. 'Ebonics' is an accent; it is not a language.

The folly of blacks in this regard is that we, in our pride of our blackness, attempted to make this a language when it is nothing but an accent. In such a stupid move, Oakland blacks opened up the race for scorn by ignorant, myopic whites.

If you are going to bash ebonics, be generous and extend that most coveted scrutiny and pointless ridicule to the aforementioned. Regional accents are fine with me! I have no problem with someone saying 'muh fucka' just like I don't have a problem with Londoners saying 'bruhva' for 'brother' or the irritating speech patterns throughout 'The Departed'.

Anyone bitching over 'ebonics' is a little constipated.

Whitey, on behalf of all of my fellow negroes: I am sorry we are a proud race and have chosen to be proud in our cultural differences. That pride makes it difficult to 'tame' us, I know, to make us into black carbon copies of the dominant paradigm. Don't worry, though: black people can and do speak properly; those patterns are what we call our 'white voice' or our 'professional voice'. Like using 4-letter words and dirty puns, so-called ebonics emerges in a relaxed state...

@ Blue Eyed Devil:

Sure that was bait. No, no; unlike a typo, the use of 'irregardless' wasn't a mistake. It wasn't even a mistake akin to using 'their' for 'there' or 'right' for 'write'. You didn't know it wasn't a word. The use of 'irregardless' doesn't bother me in the least, by the way; many of my comments have typos and 'their/there/they're' errors; try as I might, many times I miss them before posting. I am not a grammar Nazi. However, it is just odd for you to have such a mental lapse while you are harping on 'skrawburry's', which is simply an accent, not a mistake. I doubt you'd bash a non-black if they said 'dirty tree and a turd' (33 and a third).

You wouldn't. You are just racist against blacks.

Anonymous said...

"What I find hypocritical is that whites like to 'demonize' ebonics, yet, they are silent about the speech of Bostonians, those from rural Maine, those from New Jersey, some New Yorkers, and a majority of Southerners. Or, God forbid, Londoners!"

Cry me a river you slutty goddamn bitch.No one cares about Bostonians because you can understand them.Bitch the cockney accent kicks ass.

"Anyone bitching over 'ebonics' is a little constipated."

Anyone bitchin' over "whitey" is a little constipated."

"You wouldn't. You are just racist against blacks."

You wouldn't.You are just racist against Yt.But we already knew that.

Anonymous said...

"The thing that most black people don't realize is that white people only "like" us on paper and in theory. In practice they hate our guts."

In practice, the black-on-white murder rate and the black-on-white violent crime rate clearly illustrate the depraved hatred that blacks have for whites.

Anonymous said...

"What I find hypocritical is that whites like to 'demonize' ebonics, yet, they are silent about the speech of Bostonians, those from rural Maine, those from New Jersey, some New Yorkers, and a majority of Southerners. Or, God forbid, Londoners!"

Blacks want ebonics taught in school, you fucking idiot.

Anonymous said...

"I am sorry we are a proud race and have chosen to be proud in our cultural differences."

Your race has the highest violent crime rate, the highest murder rate, the highest rape rate, the highest dropout rate, the highest illegitimacy rate, the highest illiteracy rate, etc etc etc.

Your race is proud of its inability to behave like civilized human beings.

Congrats.

Anonymous said...

"First of all how can one decry the demonization of a made up concept."

Blacks constantly whine about "discrimination", yet they behave in a way that invites it.
If you speak in a way that sounds uneducated and ignorant, you should not be surprised when people stereotype you as uneducated and ignorant.

Anonymous said...

"The reporter-turns-'ghetto' video shows the intelligence and power of black people: we can move in and out of white society when needed."

No actually, it shows how quickly you revert to your primal nature.

Anonymous said...

Ebonics was not taken from old cavaliers and slave owners. This is absolute nonsense and more than likley another fairytale arranged by blacks in an attempt to shift the blame of the invention of an idiotic, useless, dipshitted dialect onto white people. You can blame us for your murdering, poverty, raping and laziness, but you will not blame us for this retarded horseshit.

Anonymous said...

"In practice, the black-on-white murder rate and the black-on-white violent crime rate clearly illustrate the depraved hatred that blacks have for whites"

The most important thing you can do is grab a white liberal, shake him by the shoulders and tell him that blacks hate his guts. This is a hard truth for them to swallow after decades of brainwashing, but sometimes they will listen. I heard a white liberal woman say just the other day, "Black people are the most amazing people! They have been through so much and yet the have overcome it all. I love black people! What really scares me are crazy with people!". I showed her this site and a few other choice statistics.

Blacks are seething with hatred for whites. They will smile in your face, shuffle around a bit to seem pleasant, but inside there is a fire burning and they talk to each other in private about you like you are the devil. I have heard these conversations. If they find you outnumbered in any situation, they will victimize you. They teach their children to hate your guts and that everything in the world that has kept blacks miserable is your fault. The only thing holding them close to whites is the promise of welfare and our black president. If all that changes soon, which it will, we have a massive outbreak of violence.

Anonymous said...

“What I find hypocritical is that whites like to 'demonize' ebonics, yet, they are silent about the speech of Bostonians, those from rural Maine, those from New Jersey, some New Yorkers, and a majority of Southerners. Or, God forbid, Londoners!”

Desiree, is there an actual campaign by whites or organized whitery to demonize Ebonics? I don’t thinks so. Also, didn’t Jesse Jackson and Maya Angelou publicly come out against the Oakland school district’s plan to recognize Ebonics?

Your statement about global whiteness’ silence about other (white) people’s speech reflects your ignorance. There is a tradition of encouraging people who speak with strong New York accents, Boston accents, etc., to speak standardized English, minimize their accents or they way they pronounce words. Often this job fell to the school systems in the areas where these accents were prominent. But in some instances, the people who spoke with these accents took it upon themselves to change their accents.

People who speak with these accents, the various New York accents in particular, are viewed as course or stupid by other white people in the U.S. However, these people are still easier to understand than many Ebonics speakers.

As with many black people, some of the white people (and others who speak with these accents) are obstinate in their refusal to change the way they speak because it’s tied strongly to their identity.

In the case of the Cockney accent, white Britons aren’t the only ones who speak it. Black and South Asian Britons who come from the areas of London where that dialect is spoken speak it as well. Historically its speakers were seen as less educated by more educated, upper class Britons, and there were attempts in schools to get children to abandon that way of speaking.

“All of those are regional accents on the English language. 'Ebonics' is an accent; it is not a language.”

You need to tell that to Ebonics advocates who see it as an actual language.

Anonymous said...

"Ebonics was not taken from old cavaliers and slave owners. This is absolute nonsense and more than likley another fairytale arranged by blacks in an attempt to shift the blame of the invention of an idiotic, useless, dipshitted dialect onto white people. You can blame us for your murdering, poverty, raping and laziness, but you will not blame us for this retarded horseshit."

Did you wave a magic wand and click your heels together three times to make my remarks untrue?

Maybe if you try being a little nastier and use a few more obscene words you'll achieve genius level.

M Dunnyveg

Phalluster said...

Ebonics is a fascinating phenomena. I've argued before that it is a cognitive dissonance, since blacks in England, for example, where they are a much smaller population group, generally speak well and without anomaly (save the concentrated cockney accent of the chav class). In other words, blacks cling to ebonics to avoid being white.

I've also contemplated that it is just a compounding effect of stupidity left unchecked. The rape of English grows more perverse as it is allowed to continue by tip-toeing DWLs - a snowball effect.

Portuguese is sort of like an ebonics version of Spanish, in that it does not conjugate its verbs. I intend to study the origins of that language to explore the possibility of a cognitive convenience for this nuance.

I overheard a black on the subway ask another, "what he did?" Funny that this reads so easily in my sentence. However, this is not just an accent but an assault on cogent thought. Ebonics is a punchline for jokes about dumb blacks, not some sublime expression of individuality.

Anonymous said...

"Ebonics is a punchline for jokes about dumb blacks, not some sublime expression of individuality."

Well said, well said.

Blacks do not want to express individuality, that is just desiree attempting uplift the black people again. She must work to raise the self-esteem of little black children. To portray blacks as "colorful storytellers, culturally rich, spiritual, diverse, with a rich language, expressive, regal or royal is a big pack of made up lies to make blacks appear more interesting. This is much different from an attempt to not act white, which is really the primary concern of blacks.

Blacks only want to be black, period. That requires no expression of individuality. If you try to show any individuality in the black community, you are shot down immediately with comments like, "Who you think YOU is, nigga? Awl, you think you betta than me, huh, tryin' to talk all white and sheeeit.", then you lose your membership card.

Phalluster said...

like crabs in a bucket... all the more depressing...

Anonymous said...

Despite Bostonians being called ignorant, their accent is actually closer to the Queen’s Pronunciation than any of the other American accents. Only pseudo-intellectuals judge people based on their (acquired, not learned) superficial traits. The problem with Ebonics isn’t that it’s pronounced differently, but that it neither conjugates verbs nor differentiates between subject and object.