2 Detroit teens: I Don't 'Act White' . . . I Don't 'Speak White'

[kryptonite]

There are two choices.

Speak standard English.

Or have the appearance of being an illiterate jackass, and be prepared to accept the consequences as far as how one is treated by the rest of the world.

EMG - I loved that! You summarized the situation perfectly in one sentence. Well, maybe two sentences, my eyesight is not 100%.

[iheartthed]

There are two choices.

Speak standard English.

Or have the appearance of being an illiterate jackass, and be prepared to accept the consequences as far as how one is treated by the rest of the world.

There is no such thing as "proper English". What is standard American English in America is a bastardization of the language spoken in England. And even standard American English is constantly evolving. Nor does speaking a certain standard of English make someone "illiterate". Not to mention that the definition of "illiterate" has nothing to do with a person's speech patterns.......

[kryptonite]

No, I agree with EMG, using poor or terrible grammar gives people the impression that you are uneducated and unintelligent. That may not be the case, but that is the impression people will get.

[TKshreve]

No, I agree with EMG, using poor or terrible grammar gives people the impression that you are uneducated and unintelligent. That may not be the case, but that is the impression people will get.

+1

Pretty hard to disagree

[Downtown Lady]

Motto
Langston Hughes

I play it cool
And dig all jive
That's the reason
I stay alive
My motto
As I live and learn
Is:
Dig And Be Dug
In Return.

Hi Neilr -- please check your private messages. Thank you!

[Meddle]

Reminds me of the whole Ebonics issue from a few decades back.


What kills me is the upper class suburban white kid who has never even seen a ghetto turning his hat backwards and talking more 'ghetto' that kids who grew up in the 'hood.

[Michigan]

There is no such thing as "proper English". What is standard American English in America is a bastardization of the language spoken in England. And even standard American English is constantly evolving. Nor does speaking a certain standard of English make someone "illiterate". Not to mention that the definition of "illiterate" has nothing to do with a person's speech patterns.......

Uhh, EMG said , and I quote, "have the appearance of being an illiterate jackass". Lucy, you've got some splainin' to do. Well, actually re-reading but I couldn't pass up the oportunity to use Ricky's crazy Cuban dialect of English.

[Marlon_JB2]

I was tormented throughout my life in Detroit Public Schools for "sounding white". It's not my fault that my parents wanted me to sound halfway decent. That in itself is a little bit crazy because my mother is from Alabama [[despite my Michigan birth certificate...) and she can switch from Southern Slang / Accent to sounding exactly like a life-long Detroiter.

I cannot speak "hood" to save my life though. However if I go down to Alabama, after just a week I can tell I start to sound just like them.

It's crazy.

[tetsua]

I was tormented throughout my life in Detroit Public Schools for "sounding white". It's not my fault that my parents wanted me to sound halfway decent. That in itself is a little bit crazy because my mother is from Alabama [[despite my Michigan birth certificate...) and she can switch from Southern Slang / Accent to sounding exactly like a life-long Detroiter.

I cannot speak "hood" to save my life though. However if I go down to Alabama, after just a week I can tell I start to sound just like them.

It's crazy.

That's kind of how I am too ... my father is from the south, my mother is originally from Jamaica, then moved to England [[as a young woman) before coming to Detroit. It was important to both my folks that their kids spoke "proper".

I however can turn on the hood dialect, southern, Jamaican potois [[to some extent), and British accent when I feel like it.

[RealityCheck]

. . .the upper class suburban white kid who has never even seen a ghetto turning his hat backwards and talking . . . 'ghetto' . . .

Or a white film director embarrassing himself at the 41st NAACP Image Awards last weekend with that type of poseur stunt, as Mekeisha Madden Toby blogged in The News Wednesday:

Some audience memebers booed director Quentin Tarantino when he tried to use slang as a presenter. He said something crazy like "I know dat's right" and the crowd turned.

[Michigan]

Quentin Tarantino is a DB. While I understand that Ebonics is the dialect of many black people, really, why would anyone want to sound ghetto? Is there some benefit to it that I am not aware of?

[tetsua]

Quentin Tarantino is a DB. While I understand that Ebonics is the dialect of many black people, really, why would anyone want to sound ghetto? Is there some benefit to it that I am not aware of?

I think he just doesn't want to sound "white bread".

[iheartthed]

Uhh, EMG said , and I quote, "have the appearance of being an illiterate jackass". Lucy, you've got some splainin' to do. Well, actually re-reading but I couldn't pass up the oportunity to use Ricky's crazy Cuban dialect of English.

So I just re-read it and my response still stands. Illiterate is a person who cannot read. How does a person's spoken dialect give the appearance that a person cannot read? This is a serious question.

I'm really past the e-racial/class arguments so I'm gonna say what I have to say as nicely as possible and exit this thread. It takes a pretty bold prejudice to draw a line from a person's dialect to whether or not he or she can read. If a black kid from Detroit encounters just one person who will make such a judgment about him from the way that he speaks then that person probably isn't worth him speaking to. If he encounters a hundred people who will make such a judgment about him for that then his problems are bigger than just his dialect -- his problem is that he's a black kid from Detroit!

If you're a person who would automatically assume that a person's dialect says anything about whether or not he or she can read, then I hope that one day you take the time to sit in a quiet room by yourself and truly understand why you do that. It really is a very flawed way to determine whether someone can read or not. And erasing a cultural dialect won't do much of anything to change why other people develop these preconceptions about a black kid from Detroit who speaks black American English [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African...acular_English).

[East Detroit]

People on the phone from various parts of the USA notice the different way that "dot com" is said in Michigan.

The judgmental stuff comes later when they find out if you're black or white.

[East Detroit]

If I were hiring someone and they came off with "I axed her how she do all dat", that would be all I would need to hear. NOT WORKING FOR ME. [[of course I work with the English language). Sorry to me, it just sounds stupid and ignorant. If your in America and cant speak proper english; like Bill Cosby said "How can you expect your children to get a good job when they cannot form a coherent sentence". Just my feelings.

I feel the same way about people who can not spell or use proper grammar in a prescriptive manner when expressing themselves in written form.

Call me crazy, but not code speaking crazy.

[Ravine]

I'm glad that I jumped in and logged a few [[rambling, I admit) comments, earlier.
I'm thinking that the over/under on the survival of this thread is shrinking quickly.

[terryh]

I have a youtube video in my favorites Black Sterotypes but dont know how to post it

[East Detroit]

Funny thing: If a couple of black individuals sit together as part of a larger group [[i.e., a meeting), they speak in plain, midwestern-accented English to each other. If those same two people are alone in an office, they converse in a very different dialect of English. I'm white. If I happen to join these two in the office, most times, their language reverts to "regular" English as if to include me in their discussion.

Funny thing, everybody does that, not just people of certain colors. It's called register switching.

[Ravine]

I have a youtube video in my favorites Black Sterotypes but dont know how to post it

Whew!! Thank Godpher's mall favors.

[MaxDetroit]

Years ago I asked some people in L.A. where I could find a cab, which rhymes with scab in my Detroit accent. They looked at me like I was from Mars and clearly had no idea what I was talking about. After I described what a "cab" is, they said "Oooo...you mean TAXI!" I'm white, so were they.

[East Detroit]

Years ago I asked some people in L.A. where I could find a cab, which rhymes with scab in my Detroit accent. They looked at me like I was from Mars and clearly had no idea what I was talking about. After I described what a "cab" is, they said "Oooo...you mean TAXI!" I'm white, so were they.

Did they judge you like we see so much of in this thread?

[MaxDetroit]

Did they judge you like we see so much of in this thread?

Well they clearly judged me to be from another part of the country. Whether that was negative or not I have no idea.

[EMG]

So I just re-read it and my response still stands. Illiterate is a person who cannot read. How does a person's spoken dialect give the appearance that a person cannot read? This is a serious question.

I'm really past the e-racial/class arguments so I'm gonna say what I have to say as nicely as possible and exit this thread. It takes a pretty bold prejudice to draw a line from a person's dialect to whether or not he or she can read. If a black kid from Detroit encounters just one person who will make such a judgment about him from the way that he speaks then that person probably isn't worth him speaking to. If he encounters a hundred people who will make such a judgment about him for that then his problems are bigger than just his dialect -- his problem is that he's a black kid from Detroit!

If you're a person who would automatically assume that a person's dialect says anything about whether or not he or she can read, then I hope that one day you take the time to sit in a quiet room by yourself and truly understand why you do that. It really is a very flawed way to determine whether someone can read or not. And erasing a cultural dialect won't do much of anything to change why other people develop these preconceptions about a black kid from Detroit who speaks black American English [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African...acular_English).

Don't even try pulling that B.S. about "black American English" as if it were some legitimate separate language. It isn't. At best, it is "a dialect" - but one that is not considered acceptable for use in the workplace by the vast majority of American corporate personnel, and it is one that when used would cause the vast majority of American corporate personnel to significantly lower their opinion of that person's value as an employee and which would make it extremely difficult for that person to obtain a job.

That is a fact, and attempting to pull the race card isn't going to alter that fact one iota. This is not about "a black kid from Detroit who speaks black American English." It is about ANY person from ANYWHERE on the planet who proves by his speech that he's either too stupid or too lazy to make the effort to speak like anyone else, or simply has a chip on their shoulder, and the person who stubbornly goes around using so-called "Black English" in the workplace is just one of many possible examples of people who do just that. Most corporations and most corporate personnel in hiring positions expect their employees - regardless of race - to adhere to a certain standard of communication in both speech AND writing, and just as the amount of melanin in one's skin has nothing to do with one's qualification for employment, neither does it give anyone a free pass not to adhere to the same linguistic standards required of everyone else.

[Hermod]

Years ago I asked some people in L.A. where I could find a cab, which rhymes with scab in my Detroit accent. They looked at me like I was from Mars and clearly had no idea what I was talking about. After I described what a "cab" is, they said "Oooo...you mean TAXI!" I'm white, so were they.

Lots of regionalisms:

soda vs pop
bag vs sack
green beans vs snaps
aunt [[ant) vs aunt [[awnt)
lettuce vs salad

I grew up in Detroit and went to the southern mountains for college. You get used to the vocabulary and accent changes. I still speak like a midwesterner, but can do well culturally in "southern". My wife is Asian and with her friends who might not be real fluent in English, I do a lot of "subject-verb-object" simple sentences without a lot of the modifiers and clauses which typify Standard English.

[detroitjim]

It bees hard to fied peir pressha. Yalls juss keeb id ub.
Dems udder peeps wonts to keeps yall myed in day sty!

Unfortunately at this time you are the absolute minority.
Once you start thinking like an individual ,you will realize that you are following the correct path.


Joshua ,Taylor , keep as cool as you can,face piles of trials with smiles and keep on
THINKING FREE!