I need some help

[Perry Winkle]

Originally Posted by lookout123

you are saying that most black americans are no better off than their predecessors 50 + years ago. that is just ignorance. enough said.

What I'm saying is that few have taken hold of all of the opportunities available to them.

Originally Posted by lookout123

and the idea that people who are utilizing ebonics don't want to be "let up"... what a load of crap. these are the same people complaining about being held down. you can't be held down if you aren't trying to stand up to begin with.

That's only true of literally being held down. It's a convenient fiction so that they can excuse themselves for not even trying to stand up in the first place. It's a similar argument that obese people and school kids tend to use their lack of self control and discipline.

[Perry Winkle]

Cool statistics on socio-economic comparison of minorities to non-hispanic whites.

Fair Data

Some surprising results.

[lookout123]

What I'm saying is that few have taken hold of all of the opportunities available to them.

how do you figure? have you even looked at the make up of american businesses today compared to 50 years ago? of course, you aren't likely to find any success stories who will speak to you in ebonics... outside of sports or hiphop.

[Queen of the Ryche]

Originally Posted by grant

Cool statistics on socio-economic comparison of minorities to non-hispanic whites.

Fair Data

Some surprising results.

And this has what to do with ebonics?

[Bullitt]

Ebonics to me is along the same lines as Scientology.. whatever turns you on, but that doesn't mean it necessarily holds water.

[Queen of the Ryche]

dare I say it?
...............like a Tanzanian irrigation ditch?
oooohhhhhh - I am evil.............

[Perry Winkle]

Originally Posted by lookout123

how do you figure?

How do you figure they have made full use of their opportunities?

Originally Posted by lookout123

have you even looked at the make up of american businesses today compared to 50 years ago?

No, have you?

I never said that they weren't better off today than 50 years ago. I only said that not many of them have done all they could to rise higher. Things have improved greatly for them but mostly in the arena of opportunities.

Just so we don't have to go over this again:

• Blacks are better off in general than they were in the past.
• Blacks still have a long way to go to achieve a level on par with whites.
• Blacks are better represented in business than they were 50 years ago.
• Placeholder for a couple of other things I probably forgot.
• lookout123 is very nearly illiterate.
• lookout123 doesn't understand the concept of context.

Can we now get back to the interesting aspects of this argument and leave the hostility behind us ( or at least find some statistics to back up the arguments so that we can have some closure to the hostilities at some point )?

[Perry Winkle]

Originally Posted by Queen of the Ryche

And this has what to do with ebonics?

Nothing, it is in response to l123's tangent.

[Perry Winkle]

Originally Posted by Bullitt

Ebonics to me is along the same lines as Scientology.. whatever turns you on, but that doesn't mean it necessarily holds water.

Tell that to Noam Chomsky.

You do realize that you're basically insulting every language on the planet, right? Ebonics got a bad name in the 90's when some jackass thought it would be a good idea to teach it, or accept it, in school.

What if I went to some Hill-Town in Tennessee and started forcing those people to speak SAE? I'd be dead in a second, yet we go into the inner city and do the same thing and expect to be lauded as saviors of all that is Good and American.

My only hope with all of this shit is that I can convince one person that AAVE is just as valid as SAE and is only frowned upon because our society tends to frown upon the people who speak it.

[Bullitt]

Originally Posted by grant

Tell that to Noam Chomsky.

You do realize that you're basically insulting every language on the planet, right? Ebonics got a bad name in the 90's when some jackass thought it would be a good idea to teach it, or accept it, in school.

So you're saying even though it is just as valid a language as any other, it shouldn't be taught in schools?

Originally Posted by grant

My only hope with all of this shit is that I can convince one person that AAVE is just as valid as SAE and is only frowned upon because our society tends to frown upon the people who speak it.

Have fun with that.

[Perry Winkle]

Originally Posted by Bullitt

So you're saying even though it is just as valid a language as any other, it shouldn't be taught in schools?

Of course it shouldn't be taught in school. Do we teach Redneck American English in school? Should we? No fucking way.

Teaching the society's dominant language is important, people already know how to speak at home and on the streets.

Originally Posted by Bullitt

Have fun with that.

Yeah, I've come to realize that the Cellar is largely populated by insular, narrow-minded, dim-wits. Just about to give up on any half-way intelligent conversation here. I know it's the internet, but I thought maybe the Cellar could be different.

[Queen of the Ryche]

Actually I've found a large portion of the Cellar to be very bright, well educated, and open minded. Just becasue their opinions differ from yours, and they may not have taken as many linguistics couses as recently as you, does not indicate anything to the contrary - It just emphasizes your narrow mindedness for not accepting that yours is not the only version of the truth.

[Perry Winkle]

Originally Posted by mrnoodle

Okay, I get the idea that people have different accents and speech patterns and such based on the subculture they grew up in. I do, too. But those things don't have an accepted written form. We spell them phonetically, or as apostrophe'd English. I tell people I'm "fixin' to" do things all the time. But when written, colloquiallisms like "fixin' to" are obviously shoddy and unacceptable for anything more important than instant messenger chat.

It's racism to say that Trevor from Compton should be entitled to have written tests and schoolwork translated from "Jack and Jill went up the hill" to "Jack be runnin up dat hill ovah deah wit Jill" just because that's how they say it in his neighborhood. If some white kid from the Ozarks wanted every vocal inflection and mispronunciation he uttered written down so he wouldn't have to learn that nasty grammar stuff, the debate would last all of 2 seconds.

Exactly.

This entire thread since we hijacked it has been about spoken english. There's nothing "wrong" with your language as long as your intended audience/social-group understand what ideas you're trying to convey.

[OnyxCougar]

Get this:

For African American students whose primary dialect was Ebonics, the Oakland resolution mandated some instruction in that dialect, both for "maintaining the legitimacy and richness of such language [sic]... and to facilitate their acquisition and mastery of English language skills." Teachers were encouraged to recognize that the "errors" in standard American English that their students made were not the result of lack of intelligence or effort, and were not "errors," but due instead to the fact that the dialect which they normally use is grammatically different from SAE. Rather than teaching standard English by proscribing non-standard usage, the idea was to teach standard English to Ebonics speaking students by showing them how to translate expressions from AAVE to standard American English.

Yet for some reason, they dont have a special grading curve for students in Hill-town, Tennessee, who speak, ... what language again?

I dont understand this.....

[Queen of the Ryche]

wow. I finally agree with Grant for agreeing with Noodle. Well said bof y'all.