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textualdevianceBut forcing me to learn how to speak properly is KILLING MY CULTURE, MAN.
I fucking hate that. It usually comes from the same people who like to pretend that being a violent, misogynistic gangbanger is some sort of legitimate subculture.
For the record, I support bilingual education for immigrants. There's no sense in shortchanging a child's learning in other fields just to bang English into their heads. It's entirely possible to teach someone to speak English at the same time they're learning math and science in Spanish, Russian, Tagalog or whatever. And whatever someone wants to speak at home is fine with me. I also don't have a problem with immigrants or tourists speaking in their native language in public. No one is entitled to eavesdrop on someone else's conversation.
However, those things are not the same as someone who deliberately misuses English when their family has been in an English-speaking country for six generations. Accents? Regional or subcultural colloquialisms? Whatever. But bad grammar and spelling ARE NOT A CULTURAL THING. They are a symptom of several problems: poverty, poor education or a cultural lack of respect for education.
I understand that the school system is part of a larger "The Man" morass that a lot of oppressed subcultures fear and mistrust, but it's not going to do them any good to encourage that fear and mistrust. Legitimizing crappy language skills by slapping a Culturally Protected label on them is only fucking over people who really don't need to be fucked over any further.
This isn't about assimilation--there are plenty of legitimate cultural and subcultural distinctions. Improper use of the language is not one of them.
Ugh. This sort of cultural relativism is why I could never go into anthropology. And why I'm working my ass off to correct the problem of "all opinions are equal" in the media. Education, empiricism and expertise have to count for something, or we are well and truly fucked as a species.
I fucking hate that. It usually comes from the same people who like to pretend that being a violent, misogynistic gangbanger is some sort of legitimate subculture.
For the record, I support bilingual education for immigrants. There's no sense in shortchanging a child's learning in other fields just to bang English into their heads. It's entirely possible to teach someone to speak English at the same time they're learning math and science in Spanish, Russian, Tagalog or whatever. And whatever someone wants to speak at home is fine with me. I also don't have a problem with immigrants or tourists speaking in their native language in public. No one is entitled to eavesdrop on someone else's conversation.
However, those things are not the same as someone who deliberately misuses English when their family has been in an English-speaking country for six generations. Accents? Regional or subcultural colloquialisms? Whatever. But bad grammar and spelling ARE NOT A CULTURAL THING. They are a symptom of several problems: poverty, poor education or a cultural lack of respect for education.
I understand that the school system is part of a larger "The Man" morass that a lot of oppressed subcultures fear and mistrust, but it's not going to do them any good to encourage that fear and mistrust. Legitimizing crappy language skills by slapping a Culturally Protected label on them is only fucking over people who really don't need to be fucked over any further.
This isn't about assimilation--there are plenty of legitimate cultural and subcultural distinctions. Improper use of the language is not one of them.
Ugh. This sort of cultural relativism is why I could never go into anthropology. And why I'm working my ass off to correct the problem of "all opinions are equal" in the media. Education, empiricism and expertise have to count for something, or we are well and truly fucked as a species.
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(frozen) Hello!
The fact that white kids who fuck up grammar don't get a cultural pass when black kids do is evidence enough that this is just something someone dreamed up to keep people from having to actually pay attention in school. I'm sure I could argue that my halfwit relatives who think "I done got me" is a legitimate English phrase have some sort of valid cultural reasons for thinking that way. I also hope people would laugh their asses off if I tried to argue that.
Whites who speak an Appalachian English as well as whites who speak Creole are often seen as stupid--just as you see black people who speak AAVE, Appalachian English or Creole are seen as stupid and uneducated.
AAVE, Appalachian dialects and Louisiana Creole didn't begin because of a lack of education. It began when groups who spoke 2 separate languages blended together creating a pidgin. The children of these people used the pidgin, adding grammar to create a stable creole. This has nothing to do with one group being uneducated or not. Creoles have nothing to do with education.
This is not just something unique to black or white Americans--this is something that happens all over the world, regardless of education (or lack thereof). Creoles of English exist on every continent, in places where English colonies existed.
I learned how to speak AAVE from my parents. They learned AAVE from their parents, and so on. I learned to speak Standard American English before I entered primary school, when my mother made my siblings and I read from dictionaries to learn how to speak Standard American English.
Why should I be forced to speak it at home, where I feel comfortable? Or around my friends?
American English is a creole of English.
"Standard" languages, though they may be constructs, are still very real, and will be for the forseeable future. They are the currency of every economy and formal social situation. Without a thorough understanding of that currency, people get left behind. The practical effects of embracing Ebonics (or the euphemistic acronym of AAVE) are to keep people from succeeding.
There is nothing wrong with AAVE. The only problem would be if AAVE replaced Standard American English, which has not happened. Most speakers of AAVE speak or can understand both Standard American English and AAVE.
And just to let you know: the term "ebonics" is not a standard way to refer to AAVE, and is actually one of the later terms used to describe AAVE.
Kids whose culture already invites them to disregard education aren't going to understand the point of linguistic cultural theory. All they know is that they now have an excuse to blow off paying attention in class. Sorry, teacher. You can't tell me to speak correctly because it's MY CULTURE to speak like this.
Black culture invites black children to disregard education? Where do you see this? You say you are a "bleeding heart" but all I see is someone spewing more stereotypes about a people you don't really want to understand.
Just because something is traditional in an identifiable subculture doesn't mean it's a good thing. It's traditional in the subculture I came from to down a half rack and beat the shit out of your wife and kids. That doesn't mean I should argue that that behavior is valid.
I don't understand the comparison between beating your wife and kids and speaking a valid dialect.
Poor grammar is a cultural thing in that it represents a group who have had little access to (or interest in) education. That should be cause for alarm, not celebration.
It is not poor grammar. AAVE grammar pulls from various sources to create its own unique grammar.
(frozen) Re: Hello!
In casual communication, sure. But not in formal communication. And considering how hard English is in the first place (considering how bastardized it is from several other language roots) I don't see any reason to confuse kids about what is and isn't correct.
Black culture invites black children to disregard education? Where do you see this? You say you are a "bleeding heart" but all I see is someone spewing more stereotypes about a people you don't really want to understand.
Where did I call it "black culture?" The culture I'm referring to is a subculture created by poverty and poor education. That crosses racial lines.