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Word up.
The thing is, it is virtually unintelligible to a native English speaker who doesn't speak Patois. You definitely need an English/Patois dictionary to understand any of it. So is it a dialect, or a language?
Whatever it is, I found it beautiful and believe it definitely worth preserving -- eventhough it is obvious that anyone who speaks only Patois and cannot speak correct standard English will be doomed to a life of poverty.
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Attempting to deliberately isolate one’s ethnic group from the mainstream when that group possesses no economic power is truly a recipe for disaster. Had an outside group attempted to have done what the “Afrocentric” leaders have accomplished, they would be held in the same regard as the Nazis.
In reading the examples of ebonics, I was struck by how amazingly inefficient it is, often using 2 or 3 phrases to express the same thought.
On the bright side, fluency in ebonics can be useful in communicating to your co-worker on the back of the garbage truck.
Owl_Eagle
”Guns Before Butter.”
And where on the chromosome bees that gene?
He said: "If I'm goin' to be im-poh-tent, I wanna look im-poh-tent!"
If you want on (or off) of my black conservative ping list, please let me know via FREEPmail. (And no, you don't have to be black to be on the list!)
Yo.Ho. Han me dat blade I be cutting dis ol groobedy thang here. No, Ho. Not dat groobedy thang dis here groobedy mofo thang. Oh S**T! Now dey be suin' us. I'll be makin sho dey sue yo too, yo ole honky ho, yo be a nurse den I be de King of Sweden.
One can only hope that it will be a proponent of Ebonics on de table. it is one thing to appreciate a dialect and another to try to intentionally use it to separate the people you are trying to fleece from the population at large. parsy.
Okay, fine, don't correct them then. But in 30 years, don't start complaining why grown men and women who talk like this aren't CEOs of major companies
The Left has declared war on American blacks. It appears that they have won.
You better be careful though,stands2reason and connectthedots will be along anytime to call all you hataz a bunch of racists.
"Experts" tell us that ebonics is three things: 1) an African language that is genetically passed on among blacks; 2) a vocabulary that has grown out of the encounter of African slaves with Irish immigrants; and 3) a wholly new dialect created since the 1960s by young blacks to separate themselves from whites.
"Ebonics" is not a language from the African continent, nor from anywhere in sub-Saharan Africa, contrary to what the warlords will try to tell you. It has nothing to do with some contrived "encounter" with Irish immigrants. All it is, in the pure and simple form, is black slang. It differs from some other forms of slang, but somewhat closely parallels southern slang. This is because, in many cases, blacks migrated to other parts of the country from the south. All the race warlords and their intellectual footsoldiers are trying to do is to dress up slang and couch it in collegiate psychobabble.
I would strongly suggest that anyone who wants to study the true issues behind this debate take a look at Dr. John McWhorter's "Word on the Street: Debunking the Myth of "Pure" Standard English." McWhorter looks closely at the "ebonics" debate, and the excuses used by the race warlords and black academics who defend this faulty premise. McWhorter also touches on this subject in his more widely read volume, "Losing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America." In the latter book, McWhorter indicates that reliance upon "ebonics" as a crutch to support the learning of "the Queen's English" is a faulty reliance that does nothing but leave young minds further behind.
Rather than waste time on using slang to teach, all that is needed is for teachers to use standard English, period. Rather than waste time and money on texts written in slang in order to try to "get through" to the kids, how about teaching the kids using standard English. They certainly hear it when they watch television, and go to the movies, and they understand it just fine. The reason that they are having problems in school, is because the educators allow them to - at least in that regard.
My wife and I demand that our children speak to us and to other adults using standard English. We were brought up the same way.
"I don't care what you say around your friends, but when you speak to me or any other adult, you will speak clearly and make yourself understood, do you understand me?" My mother would demand this of me, and many other middle-class black parents did so as well.
This all goes back to the emphasis that is placed (or not placed as the case may be) on education in the black community. It is accepted to perform in a sub-standard fashion, since if you do well, then you are "acting white." The warlords accept this and promote this, albeit in a somewhat covert way. Jesse Jackson promotes this by speaking in rhymes and with slang, and expecting everyone to bend to his whim and will. "If Jesse does it, it must be OK."
By demanding excellence, by demanding acceptable speech, by demanding respect from my children as opposed to "trying to be their friends," my children are succeeding, in spite of the warlords and the sub-standard environments that exist within the schools today.
Ebonics is a pillar of Afrocentrism. It is a movement which, using intimidation, violence and pseudoscholarship, has dumbed down the education of black children beyond recognition, illegally barred whites from teaching black children and deliberately cut poor, black children off from the mainstream of American life.I'll freely admit that I use slang. We all do at varyiing points and to varying degrees. But as a professional, I do not do so within a business setting. I know where I can and cannot do so. It is incumbent upon the educators within our society to teach students where they cannot use that slang. When teachers use "ebonics" as a teaching tool, they are dumbing down the curriculum, and by doing so, they are setting back opportunities for those students across the board.
Afrocentrists such as George Washington University professor Robert Williams, who coined the term "ebonics" in 1973, maintain that it is an act of disrespect for a white teacher to correct a black child. Professor Charles Coleman of the City University of New York's (CUNY's) York College has argued that remedial education is harmful to black students.
Progressive white educators who support Afrocentrists insist that it is wrong to correct students' usage and grammar. Unfortunately, this approach leads teachers to give passing grades on writing-proficiency exams. The CUNY remedial students then are permitted to take college-level classes despite possessing only semiliterate reading abilities.
Many middle-class blacks like to sometimes "go ghetto" and use street slang. But these professionals can speak standard English — in many cases, better than I can — and can always go home. The poor and working-class blacks to whom Afrocentric educators have refused to teach standard English, however, have nowhere to go.
With their continued reliance on this sort of failed teaching method, is there any wonder why the students are not prepared for the standardized examinations that measure whether or not they have learned the necessary skills from grade school? Is there any wonder as to why many black students that do make it to college, spend their freshman year mired in remedial classes, trying to make up the remainder of the skills and knowledge that they should have gotten in high school?
It sounds to me like many of the "educators" need remedial coursework themselves.
Yo! H-Dog in da house. Don't be feedin' me dis here jive. I got me a gig as Accountz Reeceevable Supahvisah at Midstate Office Supply. And damn if I ain't the baddest stone-cold supastah in da joint. When it comes to puttin' togetha fly Excel spreadsheets, tha H-Dog got skeelz, ya know what I'm sayin'? Don't mess wit' da H-Dog. Word.
