Posted on 11/21/2009 9:43:37 AM PST by Responsibility2nd
My name is ChaToyya Eryn ChaNayle. Through the years I've endured derision, cackles and mispronunciation. Let's ignore my middle names. Things might get a bit more complicated with those, but ChaToyya is pretty straightforward. Cha — as in Charlotte, Toy — as in a children's plaything, Ya — and if you can't figure that out, there is little help for you.
An introductory mispronunciation is fine. I've done it too, but this continual ignorance of what is my name is not. The subtext is my name is merely a stereotype, freely available as someone's punch line, ignoring that my name has a meaning and a history. And so what if my name was made up or an inventively spelled version of an existing name? At one point, someone made up Sarah as well.
After stumbling onto a thread about my publicly indignant ways on the Free Republic, I was subjected to a multitude of comments filled with derision for my name. Commenter KentrappedinliberalSeattle takes the insulting route claiming "That's not a 'name;' it's a winning Scrabble hand between two dyslexic stoners." Har har. Commenter McGruff takes the obtuse route asking "Cha Toyya [sic] Sewell? What da hell kinda name is dat?" A legal one, next. And then there are the mature commenters, such as Responsibility2nd, who said, "I wish these journo-wanna be's like Chew Toy would step up and name names." I get it, punny!
Events in this country do neither exist in a vacuum nor are they isolated from the past even as they march toward the future. African-American naming practices are not excluded from this. It seems logical to me after the forced separation from African traditions and culture and the forced assimilation to slave culture, there would be a movement to begin to exist on our own terms, names being an example of this.
But this is not a defense of African-American or other ethnic- and class-based naming practices. Not because I think ill of them but because I am more concerned with why people think they are appropriate to make fun of in the first place. Names are an inalienable part of people. Some hate theirs. Some love theirs. Some (like me) are fiercely protective of theirs.
When you have a name deemed "non-normative" or "non-traditional," people feel entitled to comment about it and ask you questions, like the non-physical version of touching my hair. Generally comments run along three types: First, you have the fawning types, the "that is sooooo cool, you black people are so creative with names types" — now, I don't take issue with compliments, but what I do take issue with is the monolithic brush all black people are painted with, as if we all do the same things.
Then you have your overly concerned types — the "I'm all for naming your children what you want, but these names hold them back. I've never seen a (insert stereotypical black name here) work in an office, etc." I'd like you to first think if telling someone to their face you think their name is damaging their opportunities is socially acceptable. I am aware of linguistic discrimination. I've been on the phone and heard the pitch drop at the sound of my name.
I don't think limiting the agency of black parents is any way to defeat the racism of others. And finally you get the rude ones, who generally repeat your name indignantly and begin laughing. There are rules for interacting with larger society, and I'm pretty sure one of them is not to laugh about people's names. If you don't have that social skill set, we probably can't be friends.
If you’ve never read “Unintended Consequences”, you should chase down a copy and find the origin of the name of a female ATF agent generally known as “Gigi”.
If you have read it, harken back to that one.
For years I worked with a guy, married with kids, named David. Yep, your regular pronunciation of David until one day he walked in and demanded it be pronounced DaVeed. He quit a few months later to open a cosmetic store. Whatever.
I don’t know why anyone would stick a kid with such an awful name. It screams ‘my mother was a ghetto crack ho’ to me. Sorry but that’s what pops in my head when i hear a name like that.
KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle
I think Mr. K.I.Liberalseattle should be proud of
his name after all it was the one he was born with.
This lil gal needs to get over herself,” Everything
is not about YOU honey, or your race”.
I remember a kid from boot came whose name as I recall
the drill instructor saying it was:
“Hey Sunburned through a Screen!” Pretty wierd eh.
Chaw toy ya Sewer. Your folks had to not like ya.
Poor woman
More hollering from the culture of made-up names....
By the way, whenever I see “the” Free Republic in somebody’s screed, I know they are not at all familiar with Free Republic. It’s always a dead giveaway.
Chew-toya, the reason why we’re making fun of made up ghetto names is because
People and places have names with meanings, it’s been that way since the beginning of time. My name means something. (Brave, noble, lionlike and insightful.) Jim Robinson’s name means something (Supplanter, son of man named after bird/son of a rabbi). Heck, even Barack Obama’s name means something. (Ironically, it means “Blessing to be twisted”). Names are supposed to carry a power behind them. You can name anything with a random toss of scrabble pieces, but it always ends up sounding artificial and fake. Case in point, Zzyzx, California. Zzyzx has no name meaning, other than it was named that way to get itself in the back of the dictionary. Every time you go to Zzyzx, you can tell that the name’s artificial, much like your name, chewtoy.
Your name means nothing other than the result of angry black Marxists who are angry enough at the “establishment” to try to create a separatist society, but not angry enough to move to Liberia and take their money where their mouth is. Some of the smarter ones who were angry at the same Ango-Saxon establishment took on exotic sounding French, Italian and Spanish names. The dumb ones who were also angry tried to sound smart and exotic, but failed and ended up with names like “Chewtoya”.
Guess which camp you’re in, Chewy.
I hadn’t read the original thread but ChaToyya has a legitimate beef, and then goes overboard with it. I’ve on several occasions posted in opposition to making fun of an INDIVIDUAL’S name. Normally it’s a cheap shot. To the extent that happened here we were in the wrong.
However looking broadly at the issue of making up names deliberately to be different and separate, I don’t think it very surprising when people take you at your word and respond accordingly. Complaining becomes hypocritical since to be taken as different is the objective. I don’t suppose it helps that these “cultural” names normally are seen in connection with some crime or other behavior unacceptable in any civil society.
As for “ChaToyya”, I thought it sounded Spanish/American-Indian. It’s not that far off the beaten track.
Her Twitter messages...Ecee
AHHHHHHH THERE WAS A CUCUMBER IN MY SALAD!!! SICK. (end emotional caps)
10:40 AM Nov 3rd from TweetDeck
Halfway to Frida, ya’ll!
6:16 PM Oct 31st from TweetDeck
I am gettin Tyra together in this weeks column!
Dear Maneater commenter: I am not a young lady and I am an adult woman, please refer in kind. k,thx bye.
8:13 AM Oct 29th from TweetDeck
I just got offered an amazing research assistantship on a project that mixes a gender/race critical lens, history, and biological anthro 1/2
12:21 PM Oct 28th from TweetDeck
1 billion dollars and we can’t update some shit? Just sayin
8:10 AM Oct 28th from TweetDeck
Uh, Chat, it’s ok if I call you that isn’t it?
Would Cootie be better?
I can give you some insight on Tarvaris’ first name. He was originally supposed to be named “Travis” but the name office screwed up.
Exactly.
And we go to primary care doctors named Sandeep. And engineers named Nguyen help build American buildings.
While Cha Toya fumes about our reaction to her silly antics.
I guess she wants to have it both ways, a typical “underpriviledged minority/middle class college student” approach. She can’t decide which she wishes to be at any given moment.
That said, she should bear in mind that black names were often actually supplied by white medical students as cruel practical jokes. H.L. Mencken says that white medical students who were doing some phase of their training in local city hospitals would often suggest names based on medical terms for the black babies that were born there. He cites “Urea” and even tells of a man who went through life as “Positive Wasserman Jones” because of one of these “jokes.” It was evil and cruel to take advantage of the trust of illiterate people to make their children into the laughing stock of the better educated (and, probably, the doctors) who would meet them in the future.
And it’s sad that blacks are now doing this to themselves. We recently had a young man appear in court under the first name “Regional.” I was wondering who would name their child “Regional” when a friend pointed out that the mother had probably meant “Reginald” but hadn’t known how to spell it.
I'm pretty sure if you have a made up name, your employment/advancement opportunities are severely hindered.
That’s how the name’s originally pronounced.
“...ignoring that my name has...a history...”
Not it doesn’t, your mother made it up. What history it will have is up to you, and you’re not off to a good start. And it will be detrimental to you in life if for no other reason than employers like names they can spell, not to mention how it reflects upon your probable upbringing and the education level of your parent(s).
But looking at your picture you might still be not guilty.
By ChaToyya Sewell
Published Sept. 15, 2009
It didn't really hit home until I read an article about how Michelle Duggar had been pregnant for the majority of her adult life. I mean even the “Jon and Kate Plus 8” parents and octomom had the distinction of having all or most of those herds at once. (Although if I went into in-vitro fertilization and came out pregnant with octuplets, someone would be getting a stern talking to. There is a thing called over-success.)
In some misplaced form of sympathy, it felt like my uterus balled into a fist and I thought about Michelle's body: What about the minerals leeched from her poor tired bones every time she got knocked up, what about her poor vagina? Is a modern woman's body even made to shoot out 19 children? All in a day of doing God's work, I suppose.
******
She really needs to mind her own business or at least worry about the out of wedlock illegitimate little bastards being popped out like rabbits where the taxpayers pay for them from birth to death for generations. No one paid a cent to the Duggars for anyone of their children so that makes it none of her damn business.
HEY! Watch it! “ChaToyya Eryn ChaNayle” are my middle names!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.