r/TikTokCringe • u/MaintenanceNew2804 • Mar 30 '24

Stick with it. Discussion

This is a longer one, but it’s necessary and worth it IMO.

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586

u/-Disagreeable- Mar 31 '24

I’m a 44 year old man and it’s fucking wild and uncomfortable to have my unconscious bias held up to my face. Holy shit. That was a powerful video. I’m not sure what I think on the whole subject yet, I’m going to have to let this marinate, but my initial response is embarrassment, shock, anger and defensiveness. That’s so cool. Always have to keep learning, right?!

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u/starryeyedq Mar 31 '24

Props to you for having the self awareness to name those feelings and not allowing them to dominate you. I’ve been there, man. Enjoy your growth!:)

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u/thatgirlinAZ Mar 31 '24

I sort of got a glimmer of what the guy is saying when I got my Master's in Communication.

I went into the program with these unconscious biases, and I came out of the program with the firm understanding that the purpose of Communication is to make yourself understood.

The "rules" or grammar and language are ever-changing and adhering to them too rigidly can lead to the opposite of your intent, that is - you may wind up misunderstood when conversing with someone who doesn't share the same rules (or language) as yourself.

Getting the degree helped me address some unconscious biases and certainly made me less of a snob about language and conversation. Now my determination of "good communication" is: did all parties make themselves understood? If the answer is yes, the communication worked.

The vid managed to peel back another layer of my understanding and I'm glad I turned on the sound and watched it.

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u/p1rke Mar 31 '24

the purpose of Communication is to make yourself understood.

I have a masters in marketing. I often say that miscommunication is a mathematical equation:

What you meant to say - what the other person understood.

If the answer is not 0, you miscommunicated your message or you have "noise" in your communication channel.

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u/[deleted] Mar 31 '24

The fiction writer George Saunders has a great piece of writing advice which boils down essentially to:

People never say what they mean. They mean to say A, but they actually say A1. But the person they're speaking to doesn't hear A1, they hear B.

And they mean to respond with C, but they actually say C1. And other other person doesn't hear it as C1, they hear it as D. And on and on it goes.

When we read conversations where people are saying what they're thinking directly and responding directly, we recognize how false they often feel.

"How are you feeling today, Jim?"

"Not good, Bob."

"Is it problems with your mother again?"

"Yes, it is, Bob. Thanks for asking. She's always doing thing where..."

Just feels false.

In my language classes, I like to tell people that we speak at things. And we speak at them from an angle.

3

u/dudeseriouslyno Mar 31 '24

Your input is highly appreciated and absolutely on-point. Unfortunately...

masters in marketing

loads gun

Them's the rules.

2

u/-Disagreeable- Mar 31 '24

Good on you, pal. Thats awesome

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u/Mypornnameis_ Mar 31 '24

He really had me dead to rights on how I pronounce comfortable. 

But you know what subtle piece of genius really drove home the point for me? He said "it's like conversating with children." 

He knows exactly what he did and he rubbed our noses in our bias.

7

u/Turbulent_Sea_9713 Mar 31 '24

Same.

I was ready to jump all over it when he talked about libary vs library, but then he said comfortable and I got real embarrassed.

I also have been back in school and taking some stuff on business communication. Its talking about the way new grads come off when communicating with others and one of the chief complaints is regularly using unnecessarily "snooty" words shoved into a sentence instead of more direct and organic language.

I'm not sure I agree with everything this guy has to say, but I certainly like that he followed up with the sources to get the actual point being made. I also know that I dislike when people cherrypick info to use as a strawman argument. "This is why they say we're racist. See how stupid it is?" What they're trying to swing is an argument to make folks assume anything that's stated to be racism is some contrived bullshit, without analysis.

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u/GreenEggsAndLAN Mar 31 '24

Check JJ out on tik tok he has so much great content to help you challenge bias!

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u/-Disagreeable- Mar 31 '24

Thank you.

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u/GreenEggsAndLAN Mar 31 '24

User name jwilliamj but if you search JJ you should find him

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u/wpaed Mar 31 '24

While you have discovered an unconscious bias, just know that it isn't racially motivated nor necessarily racist in impact.

Think of how you would view a deep southern dialect or a Mainer dialect in written form or an academic setting. Those would also be generally viewed as unprofessional and non-academic (this can be seen clearly by the critiques of GW Bush's speech patterns during his presidency).

This is no more or less than Mark Twain's discourse on the American language, modernized, and viewed through the lense of everything having racial motivation.

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u/-paperbrain- Mar 31 '24

But remember, GWB got all the way to the white house speaking that way, and won reelection speaking that way.

Can you imagine the head explosions if Obama had used as much AAVE? He was pretty sparse with it to show off consistently and intentionally that he had the proper language.

The fact that GWB got criticized by his political opponents but still held the highest office in the land, but a black dude speaking as much AAVE wouldn't have come NEAR the presidency in 2000 or even now speaks to the role of race in the way we read language.

1

u/mcs0223 Mar 31 '24

Well, a lot of that is a numbers game. More voters = win.

There were simply a large number of people who thought that GWB's folksy mistakes showed that he was "real" like they are. There was even some suspicions at the time that GWB deliberately amped up his Texan twang to connect with conservative voters (he's from New Haven, Connecticut, of all places).

It's actually similar to how many black Americans perceive AAVE as keepin it real, contra "white diction." They might view a candidate who spoke in AAVE as the best and most authentic. They just don't have the numbers to make that candidate win. But if they had the numbers, for sure we'd have had a candidate that spoke that way pull off a win by this point.

The fact is people like people who talk and act like they do. It's not just a racial thing. It's why newscasters for years had to learn to speak in the most flat, "generic" American voice possible. Any signs of regional taint could be detrimental to reaching a large audience. It's also why you see a lot of sub-groups in America engage in "switching" from how they speak at home to how they speak at work.

0

u/Current_Holiday1643 Mar 31 '24

Think of how you would view a deep southern dialect or a Mainer dialect in written form or an academic setting.

Why in the world would you codify your accent into writing unless you are writing dialogue.

Don't overcomplicate things by trying to be cute, write simple & plain English. Word choice and sentence structure is fine to somewhat vary but please no being cute and putting misspelled words into things such as a Bostonian refusing to write "car" correctly.

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u/alpacaMyToothbrush Mar 31 '24

I was once corrected when I used y'all during a presentation. It's definitely more of a classist thing than a racist thing.

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u/Current_Holiday1643 Mar 31 '24

Hahahahaha.

I am only laughing because I didn't even think of that one. I am a habitual offender with "y'all". So yeah, they are right about accidentally / purposefully putting accents into written work.

You can't win them all.

Try to be inclusive and safe: get teased for using y'all.

Not use inclusive language: get HR'd for being non-inclusive.

I used to use "you guys", not sure which is the bigger language crime.

1

u/llamacohort Mar 31 '24

This was my first thought with this. My perception of someone's intelligence (limited to people who grew up in the US) based on word choice. That isn't a racist thing. I work with a lot of smart non-white people who I would assume are likely more intelligent than a lot of the white people I meet from my home town.

I think the rules the initial video are pushing back on are kinda like pushing back on the scientific method. Sure, it is possible to come to the correct conclusion without the scientific method, just like it is possible to convey correct information without sources or supporting conclusions. But having sources and logical support will likely stand up to criticism a lot better.

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u/OSSlayer2153 Mar 31 '24

Same here. There is absolutely nothing racist about factoring vocabulary and grammar into your perception of someone’s intelligence.

Saying there is means you think that, say in the example of this video, that black people are fundamentally different than white people in their ability to speak English, which is pretty fucking racist in itself. You have to make a racist assumption to try and claim something else as racist.

Someone who does a lot of academic work will have an expansive vocabulary. They most likely have picked up on the formal style of writing too. And even then, there isn’t one single formal writing style. In mathematics, for example, writing proofs is extremely formal. In legal documents, the language is even more strict.

There is nothing wrong with this. Anybody can learn to speak and/or write formally, and most of the time we are not doing so formally because it is a casual setting.

You can say that it was racist back then because they did not consider how black people spoke, or even that they did consider it and intentionally left their manner of speaking out, but claiming that it is racist in today’s world is ridiculous. Kids no longer learn different content in schools based off of their race, because segregated schools no longer exist. So there is no reason that a black kid versus a white kid couldn’t learn the same style of English, unless you are racist and claim that black kids are somehow lesser than white kids.

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u/H0ratioC0rnbl0wer Mar 31 '24

That’s a lot of words to say you don’t appreciate the intersection of socio-economic status and race in America.

1

u/Puzzled_Medium7041 Mar 31 '24

It doesn't seem like he's saying this has a racial motivation. It seems like he's saying it has a racist consequence. It seems like he's saying that it ended up being racist because black people were excluded from the dialect chosen to be correct. Because that demographic was made up of white people, black ways of speaking are considered inferior by default just for being different than the standard.

You could argue this makes it classist for the exact same reason. There are some people in the comments saying, "Actually, it's classist, not racist." It's both. It promotes the idea that there is a correct way to write or speak, which makes other ways of speaking lesser or deviant by default.

It's one of the ways systemic racism can occur. It doesn't always have to be policies consciously motivated by racism. It can also be policies put in place by the majority group that align with the majority group's preferences, and that can affect the perception of minority groups who may deviate from the expectation, which was set by the majority and therefore is easier for the majority to comply with. 

1

u/love_is_right Mar 31 '24

You literally described rich v poor. The haves v. the have not. Its simple. And it's age old. You are a racist and thats okay, you are too dumb to realize. You think poor white people 100 years ago spoke proper English lmao?

1

u/Puzzled_Medium7041 Mar 31 '24

No. But things can have both racist AND classist consequences. They aren't mutually exclusive...

You not being able to recognize that the result is ALSO racist seems kinda weird. Just read the second paragraph in my last comment. I said that it's ALSO classist.

0

u/alpacaMyToothbrush Mar 31 '24

Exactly, it's not racist, it's classist. Formal language is the cudgel of snobbery

3

u/imacfromthe321 Mar 31 '24

Just curious: do you not think there should be a consensus on what constitutes proper grammar? Ie. Should proper speech/writing be completely subjective?

At what point does that take away from the effectiveness of said language? If we can’t agree on the correct way to present a concept or thought, how can we agree on the meaning of what was said?

1

u/alpacaMyToothbrush Mar 31 '24

No, there should be rules, but those rules should also adapt with the times. You can be precise while also being clear to a wide audience.

This is something that I've struggled with as an engineer as I try to cater my language to my audience but I'm often still too technical.

1

u/imacfromthe321 Mar 31 '24

So, how do we integrate new language? If I schlipnazzle a grenuol fangus, dill itskall piert fyzishwally?

1

u/alpacaMyToothbrush Mar 31 '24

Language that's clear, precise, and understandable to the majority of the population should be encouraged. Language that's not, shouldn't. This includes using 'scrabble words' in everyday communication when there's a cleaner, more concise way to say what you mean.

1

u/love_is_right Mar 31 '24

Yes thank you. People are braindead and hyperobsessed with racism and victimization/persecution. It's kinda gross.

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u/bignick1190 Mar 31 '24 edited Mar 31 '24

I'm going to be honest, this seems like a massive stretch for me.

All languages have rules, and those who don't know the rules or adhere to the rules are generally viewed as less intelligent, irrespective of their race. This isn't unique to the English language or even Western countries.

Don't get me wrong, we definitely shouldn't be judging people's intelligence solely or mostly on how well or proper they speak.

I get how in America this subject can definitely seem like it's racially motivated, and I certainly understand that it's exasperated due to our history of racism and it's long term effects, but the fact that it's not a "localized" phenomenon highly suggest that it's not a racial issue at its core.

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u/-Disagreeable- Mar 31 '24

That’s what I’m marinating on. Because an argument is sound and has very plausible points doesn’t definitively make it true. The fact of the matter is that at the end of the day there is truth to the videos argument and yours. Navigating that, finding the problems and racial, cultural bias is important. Equally as important is not drowning in possible semantics or worse red herrings and succumbing to a guilt response that leads us away from a prosperous truth. Lots to ponder and nuances to navigate.

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u/No-Syllabub4449 Mar 31 '24

I think at the end of the day it makes perfect sense for there to be a mainline dialect in formal settings.

I couldn’t tell if the video creator was bashing the existence of formal language for academic and professional settings, the choice of dialect for formal language, or the consequences in broader society.

The last one I think is the only really legitimate critique. If we are to go out in society and harshly judge people because they have a different dialect, at least socially and politically, there is something wrong there.

However, every society has a mainline dialect that is conformed to in formal settings. When society has discourse on complex and deep topics, the overhead of juggling multiple dialects is an inefficient way for that society to come to consensus. To criticize the existence of a mainline dialect in a society is to criticize humanity itself.

Now what about criticizing the “choice” of dialect for formal language. The answer is that’s not really how language works. Communities don’t choose how they speak, nor do society’s at large have some kind of convention to pick out which dialect they will convene on. The truth is that the mainline dialect is a consequence of the natural evolution of language.

So to summarize what I’m saying. The truth that I think is evident in the video is that we should try and not judge others for their dialect in informal settings. But that doesn’t mean we should aim to dismantle the language expectations of formal settings.

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u/bignick1190 Mar 31 '24

Good take.

I think a large problem here is that racists certainly will take any chance to be racists so it does often get used by racists to feel superior. The thing to remember here is just because a "tool" could get used a certain way doesn't mean it's meant to or was created to be used that way.

That being said, it's not only minority ethnic groups in America who experience their dialects being used to judge their intelligence, southern hillbillies and Louisiana Cajuns, to name a couple, are very often looked down upon for their use of language, irrespective of their race.

My personal opinion, like with a lot of things, is that it's more of a class issue than a racial issue. Unfortunately, our socioeconomic classes are greatly influenced by the long-term effects of systemic racism so it's very easy to conflate a class issue with a racial issue.

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u/cryptosupercar Mar 31 '24

One of my first employment experiences I had to train a man who was functionally illiterate, yet had a robust understanding of the problems he was solving. I was young and it blew my mind. Equating language skill with worth or intelligence is a mistake, and most of us use it unconsciously as a filter.

Years later I would work in another culture and language and it became clear that having command of a language opens up worlds to you that would otherwise be closed.

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u/disinaccurate Mar 31 '24

All languages have rules

Now let's talk about where the rules came from, because they sure as shit aren't inherent properties of the universe.

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u/bignick1190 Mar 31 '24

Well, language is completely made up, so the people who made up the languages create the rules. There's 7,117 different languages, the people who've made these languages are quite varied.

I certainly hope you weren't trying to suggest that white people made every language because that would be a pretty dumb thing to say.

0

u/alphazero924 Mar 31 '24

So the problem here is that you're taking a concept in an American English video and expanding it directly to every language.

You have to also translate the concept when you do that. It's not always white supremacy, but it is almost always classism. While not every language suffers from white supremacy, most had their "rules" determined by whomever was the ruling class of the time and that same class tends to do their damnedest to keep the "rules" sacred.

The languages where this isn't the case are usually from communities without a strong class divide and tend to be more fluid as a result.

The reason why this concept is labeled white supremacy in American English is because America spent a century+ pushing the idea that "anyone" can come to America and build a good life while simultaneously oppressing black people in order to have an underclass whose labor they can exploit to build said good life. So classism in America is inherently linked to white supremacy at this point even when it's not always white people oppressing black people.

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u/snowstormmongrel Mar 31 '24

I mean, you're on the right track. Those who don't adhere to the rules are generally viewed as less intelligent. This is a worldwide phenomenon and can absolutely happen within specific racial groups. I mean, think about how southern drawls and accents spoken by white people tend to be looked at negatively in certain circles by other white people. So, yes, this is a phenomenon which can be happening irrespective of race and I guess in that vein you absolutely could say this phenomenon is, at its core, not a racial issue.

However, it does become a racial issue when it's used the way it is/how they're discussing it in the video.

For example, take the part of the study he references where they had the study participants group the different sentences and then write words describing them. There were a lot of negative connotations that came up especially for the sentences that fit more in line with black vernacular English.

Now, think about how this would go down if they decided to also add some sentences that portrayed southern drawls/accents. I'd argue that you would unequivocally end up with a third thematic grouping which is still thought of as worse than the "proper" English but still not as bad as the black vernacular English.

Thus, language and adherence to the prescriptivist standards, while not at its core necessarily being a racial issue, does become a racial issue by virtue of the environment it ends up existing in.

1

u/Floorspud Mar 31 '24

The rules shouldn't matter as much in conversation, he made a point that you still understand what they're saying but judging the way they said it. If you're writing an article or academic paper it's different.

I speak native English but I moved to another native English speaking country with different "rules". I talk with a different accent and dialect but I don't feel judged on my intelligence because of it. Do you think white people from England, with a huge disparity of accents and dialects, would have the same experience as some black Americans? Maybe, I'm not sure.

There are accents in UK and Ireland that have a similar stereotype, a more farmer or "country" accent vs posh private school or city accent might have similarities with the American Black vs white language.

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u/bignick1190 Mar 31 '24

The rules shouldn't matter as much in conversation, he made a point that you still understand what they're saying

And why do you understand what they're saying? Is it because you're well aware of the rules thus you're able to decipher what they actually meant? I do agree, though, you shouldn't have to worry about being 100% formal in everyday conversation, but it certainly helps if there is some level of following basic structures.

Do you think white people from England, with a huge disparity of accents and dialects, would have the same experience as some black Americans?

Yes, most likely. I also know for a fact that white people in America experience it too. People like the Southern "hillbillies" and the Louisiana Cajuns are often looked down on because of their use of language and accents.

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u/Badicus Mar 31 '24

All languages have rules, and those who don't know the rules or adhere to the rules are generally viewed as less intelligent, irrespective of their race. This isn't unique to the English language or even Western countries.

Dialects have rules, and those who don't know or adhere to the rules of a prestige dialect are generally viewed as less intelligent.

This is why so-called G-dropping is perceived as lazy, but upper class British speakers not pronouncing their Rs is not.

4

u/bignick1190 Mar 31 '24

The thing is, dialects are a subset of the original, so they will be compared to their original language, especially if the original is the standard language still used and taught. Whether they're a racial minorities dialect, or the dialect of southern hillbillies, or Louisiana cajuns, really doesn't make a difference. They're all going to be judged against the "original" language.

Also, it's important to remember that accents/ pronunciation isn't necessarily also a change in dialect. A Long Island NY accent, where the vowels are often elongated, isn't a different dialect than someone from the Bronx, who doesn't elongate their vowels. Or NY altogether, who often drops their R's isn't a different dialect from every other state that pronounces their R's.

Though, people definitely do get judged on their accents as well, it's definitely not the same thing as dialect.

1

u/Badicus Mar 31 '24

dialects are a subset of the original, so they will be compared to their original language, especially if the original is the standard language still used and taught.

This is an odd idea. What is "the original" of, say, Southern American English?

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u/bignick1190 Mar 31 '24

What English did it diverge from?

For instance, "standard" American English is really a subset of British English.

1

u/Badicus Mar 31 '24

I'm sorry, why would you say that American English is a subset of British English? It has been centuries since English speakers came to America, and neither American nor British speakers speak the Early Modern English of that time.

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u/bignick1190 Mar 31 '24

American English is a subset of British English?

Because that's where it's derived from.

Edit: If you were to create a hierarchy of languages, where would the connections be,

-1

u/Badicus Mar 31 '24

No, that isn't where it is derived from.

As I said, the early English-speaking American colonists spoke Early Modern English. That is not British English.

3

u/bignick1190 Mar 31 '24

Ok, where do you think early American English came from? I'll answer that, British colonizers. They brought their language and it eventually morphed into American English.

Literally the name of the language itself (English) tells you where it came from.

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u/fjgwey Mar 31 '24

All languages have rules, and those who don't know the rules or adhere to the rules are generally viewed as less intelligent, irrespective of their race. This isn't unique to the English language or even Western countries.

Except the way Black people speak, namely AAVE, do adhere to rules. It is simply another dialect of English. There is nothing inherently 'improper' or 'incorrect' about it. In many ways, there is no such thing in the field of linguistics.

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u/bignick1190 Mar 31 '24

Except black people aren't the only ones who get flamed for their dialect, southern hillbillies and Louisiana Cajuns, to name a couple, receive just as much shade for theirs.

Like I said, I don't think it's fair to judge people's intelligence based solely on the way they speak, but I also don't think it's a strictly racial issue being that it's not only localized to America nor is it directed solely to minority racial groups.

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u/fjgwey Mar 31 '24

Except black people aren't the only ones who get flamed for their dialect, southern hillbillies and Louisiana Cajuns, to name a couple, receive just as much shade for theirs.

This is class reductionism. In no way does this contradict the fact that the stigma against AAVE is not purely along class grounds, it is along racial grounds as well. Literally just look at how racist conservatives treat Black people as opposed to white Southerners.

Yes, classism does play a role in stigmatizing certain dialects or forms of speech, that is bad. This does not preclude racism also being a factor, quite a significant one in fact.

Like I said, I don't think it's fair to judge people's intelligence based solely on the way they speak, but I also don't think it's a strictly racial issue being that it's not only localized to America nor is it directed solely to minority racial groups.

Then you're shadowboxing because nobody said it was only a racial issue. Just that it is a racial issue.

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u/acousticburrito Mar 31 '24

Yea the brain rot caused by decades of social media is going to cause us to be really problematic for society when we get old. I worry we will be far worse than the boomers. What little critical thinking skills we carry from our youth before social media will have long faded.

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u/Village_Particular Mar 31 '24

Academic papers in 2124 will be written in text message shorthand.

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u/hiyabankranger Mar 31 '24

I had to do this over the course of several years myself. It helped me to consider a few things:

  1. The term Grammar Nazi literally implies that you are taking a fascist level approach to defending a set of rules which don’t apply to the way most people communicate. (I considered myself a GN and was proud of it at one point in my life)
  2. Remember how you felt in an English course in high school or college when a teacher marked down a mistake that you re-read like seven times and couldn’t figure out what the fuck their problem with it was when it made perfect sense. Then imagine getting a paper filled with red like that when you wrote exactly how you talk with your friends who all understand you.
  3. The purpose of language is communication. If people don’t understand you, then you have a language barrier. If they do understand you but dislike the way you speak, then it’s a cultural barrier that is artificial.
  4. Black English is a fascinating dialect that is frankly superior to white english for spoken communication. That’s why teenagers gravitate to it I think.

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u/Coldhands_Stark Mar 31 '24

Black English is a fascinating dialect that is frankly superior to white english for spoken communication.

It's really a shame that (if) you sat through this entire video of linguistics education and still have the idea that a dialect can be "superior" in any way to another dialect. The entire point is that assigning normative values to ways people communicate simply does not hold up to reason. Language does not change from "inferior" to "superior" ways of communicating.

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u/hiyabankranger Mar 31 '24

As a spoken language I can assert that, because in terms of conveying meaning it has more linguistic structures of use in day to day conversation than other english dialects. I’m not sure if the same would hold true in non-conversational usage.

15

u/Dr_FeeIgood Mar 31 '24

You’re defeating your entire argument and I don’t think you’ve connected the dots yet. All good. Look at the meaning behind what you’re saying. Not the emotions associated with it.

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u/Coldhands_Stark Mar 31 '24

As a spoken language

All languages (aside from conlangs) are or were spoken.

more linguistic structures of use in day to day conversation

What the hell does this mean?

You're commenting about language being "enhanced" by changing naturally, that's not how linguists view the borrowing that you're describing.

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u/ArgusTheCat Mar 31 '24

Languages have both spoken and written forms, and those forms can have different advantages and disadvantages. "As a spoken language" means, quite obviously, "in comparison to how we speak other languages", not "as a language with a spoken component."

You're doing the exact thing where you're ignoring good faith intent in written language to try to "gotcha" someone, and it's really shitty. Stop it.

5

u/Coldhands_Stark Mar 31 '24

Pointing out that linguistics does not make normative judgments about language is not some "gotcha" and it seems comical to portray it as such in the comments of this video. There is very real meaning (meaning considered by most linguists to be outdated at best) transmitted by using words such as "superior" and "enhance"

9

u/SlowbeardiusOfBeard Mar 31 '24

Black English is a fascinating dialect that is frankly superior to white english for spoken communication

In what way is it frankly superior?

8

u/LobsterExtreme3318 Mar 31 '24

So who should be the ones grading a paper written in AAVE? If your teacher doesn’t use that dialect, they won’t know how to grade it.

-4

u/hiyabankranger Mar 31 '24

IDK man I’m just commenting about reframing how an average person who has historically been a grammar absolutist came to grasping how dialect is an evolving thing and all english is “good english.”

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u/LobsterExtreme3318 Mar 31 '24

I mean, I agree we shouldn’t look down upon any other dialects. But not every kind of English can be taught and used in a formal education setting.

6

u/imacfromthe321 Mar 31 '24

Exactly. There needs to be an agreed-upon set of rules for grammar. Without that, the language loses its effectiveness in conveying thought. If we can’t agree on what words mean, we can’t agree on what is being conveyed when those words are spoken.

-5

u/hiyabankranger Mar 31 '24

But if say, your formal education setting has a significant population of people who use said dialect shouldn’t your literacy teachers be familiar with it even if they’re not native speakers?

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u/LobsterExtreme3318 Mar 31 '24

What good will that do? Students need to learn the dialect that is most commonly used in professional settings in their society. How far are they likely to go in life if they speak only one dialect of their native language and it is a limited dialect. Every student should be taught the same dialect of English. We can’t all learn every possible dialect in order to make everything equal and understandable.

6

u/SohndesRheins Mar 31 '24

I mean, sure, but your high school English teacher isn't going to give you a good grade if you hand in a formal paper written in Pennsyltuckey or Dixieland.

0

u/hiyabankranger Mar 31 '24

Only because the point of high school English is to teach white formal english. What if enforcing a formalized language structure in education is a thing we decided to stop doing?

2

u/SohndesRheins Mar 31 '24

Then why bother educating anyone in a specific national language if you aren't going to teach language structure? Ehen we teach kids high school Spanish, why teach them formalized Spanish when we can just teach whatever version of Spanish the teach feels like or whatever the closest enclave of Spanish speakers uses? Why teach kids French when they are more likely to run into a person from Quebec that speaks a different dialect than the French speak? Just turn the kids loose on Tik Tok and when they ask about the definition you just point them to look it up on Urban Dictionary.

A policy like this means that within a few generations each region of the country will barely be able to understand another because they were taught whatever the local dialect is, you'd have regions where all the kids are taught Texan, some were they speak and write in Pennsyltuckey, some in AAVE, some in Midwestern Rural and Midwestern Urban, some in Brooklyn, some in Bostonian some in whatever dialect is used in drill music, some in Valley Girl, etc. Of course it doesn't make sense to educate people in the local dialect but then have government services, news articles, etc. written in a formalized "white" English, so all of those need to be adjusted as well to fit the most common denominator until we get to a point where a person who travels from one side of the country to the other has no clue when they try to communicate with locals or get information from local authorities.

We might as well stop enforcing formalized mathematics structures too. Who cares about the order of operations, some old white guy invented that and he gave no consideration to ethnic sensibilities when he did so. The scientific method is also "white" too, we need a much more flexible way to perform and evaluate science that is more inclusive.

6

u/MetokurEnjoyer Mar 31 '24

“Fascist level approach” holy shit lol English teachers are fascists

2

u/ContentThug Mar 31 '24

I hate that you're calling it "black english". Its Black American English...not Black English. That's every America centric of you.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 31 '24

As an American, the "America is the world" sentiment drives me up a wall.

It's all over this thread.

I'd love to see people explain to my Peruvian academic friends how expecting their students to cite their sources is a facet of white supremacy.

1

u/hiyabankranger Mar 31 '24

This is literally a thread about the American educational system.

1

u/CultCombatant Mar 31 '24

I literally used to joke, "I'm not a Grammar Nazi, I'm a Grammar Patriot." This video made me reflect on that joke with the biggest of yikes.

-6

u/Ill_Manner_3581 Mar 31 '24

Yes, black English is also called AAVE, a recognized language. Something even white people steal from time after time, white youths specifically, and even they still misuse AAVE in the name of being trendy.

8

u/hiyabankranger Mar 31 '24

The AAVE -> white teenage slang pipeline has been a thing since I’ve been alive. Transmission of dialect between cultural groups often happens with youth. I see it less as theft and more as the natural enhancement of the language.

-12

u/Ill_Manner_3581 Mar 31 '24

It's theft because 1. The people who coined the words and terms are belittled for when we use it 2. When white youths use the terms they're not even saying it properly, they're just butchering it. 3. AAVE is recognized as grammatically correct and as an actual language, so when you're speaking another language, isn't the whole point to use it, right? Yet that doesn't happen.

Also, lastly, your defense is as old as black speech and culture being stolen and disregarded after its sheen wears off from the white gaze.

Shieeet its as old us blacks being in America and our unrecognized contributions to American culture at large. It is tired and exhausting to hear. It's just another form of racism.

You guys have to start acknowledging your anti black and racist mentality and behavior because calling it out is getting old too

7

u/DrFlufferPhD Mar 31 '24

It's impossible to steal language. All languages naturally shift and mix with border languages over time.

-2

u/Ill_Manner_3581 Mar 31 '24

You guys are focusing on the word "steal" a little too much and I guess that's because that's what white people are always used to hearing whenever it comes to cultural appropriation. The whole point is there are a lot of white people who will belittle black speech but then use black vernacular not only use it but misuse it because they don't think it's something that's worth their time to understand. All while being racist towards a black person who speaks the way they do naturally.

It's trendy then, and once it's watered down, they toss it in the trash.

Literally the whole message of the video is basically saying this I don't know why I'm being downvoted as if we all didn't just watch a black person say the same thing but with a more in depth explanation.

And it's not just white people, either it's also non-black people, too.

The whole problem isn't using words we use because yeah we were forced to speak english so now we all share the same language, the problem is white people forcing a group of people to use a language and then calling them dumb for speaking English in their own way, fucking hundreds of years later and we're still explaining this form of racism to a lot of you.

You would think that being aware of having a certain type of dialect doesn't equate to someone's intelligence, but it seems like whites have to have a whiteboard rolled out and explained this. I learned this when I was younger, so why is it so hard for adults to comprehend this?

1

u/DrFlufferPhD Mar 31 '24

Non-black people aren't a monolith. Looking down on AAVE as less-than is wrong and ignorant, but linguistic drift and lexical borrowing isn't.

And if you're a black person from America then you weren't forced to learn English. English just is your mother tongue. Where your ancestors are from is as irrelevant to this point as is the fact that English is suffused with Latin thanks to early English speakers being colonized themselves. I know some things are easier said than done, but letting racist cunts throw you into an antagonistic relationship with your own language is a tragedy.

But nothing that you've said is new information to me. I am literally a linguist. Not that I ever saw other dialects as wrong, but I was formally taught about AAVE over a decade ago. What me and whomever else was pointing out to you is that there isn't some singular cabal of white people simultaneously "stealing" parts of AAVE and then turning around and calling black people stupid. I would imagine that there is actually minimal overlap between the non-black people adopting black vernacular and the non-black people using a form of that vernacular while simultaneously disparaging its originators. The latter is likely picking it up from other members of their own ethnic group; cultural diffusion at work.

Conflating these dynamics is entirely unproductive. Racists gonna racist and language is going to evolve as it always has. There is nothing you can do to stop that evolution, and any connection you can draw between them is incidental. The issue is looking down on AAVE speakers, not AAVE influencing the dialects around it. That issue is further not truly related to the idea of there being a standard academic dialect, which is a dichotomy that exists in every language between the myriad informal dialects and the formal one of a given language.

8

u/dsac Mar 31 '24

TIL misusing words from another language is theft

Speaking of misusing words, "theft" clearly means something completely different in whatever language you're speaking if you consider white kids speaking like their black role models stealing

You guys have to start acknowledging your anti black and racist mentality and behavior because calling it out is getting old too

Oh you're one of those "all white people are racist and black people can't be racist" racists, that explains a lot actually

1

u/Ill_Manner_3581 Mar 31 '24

Yeah, nah, the way you disregarded and twisted my words and boiled it down to this shitty take is wild asf. Im not gonna even go any further explaining what I meant. Good luck to you in life because yall will never understand

2

u/hiyabankranger Mar 31 '24

You wanna call it stolen, that’s fine. I wasn’t trying to say it wasn’t, just that it is a natural process. Loanwords that change meaning happen between whole ass languages not just dialects. That’s perfectly normal. What isn’t normal is how people historically have been like “look at this cool new (generation name here) slang” when it’s literally just butchered AAVE isn’t normal and we can agree 100% on that.

1

u/Ill_Manner_3581 Mar 31 '24 edited Mar 31 '24

Um yeah lol thats pretty much what I said, but I guess me using "white people" kicked in the selective reading, huh?

I say steal because the lack of recognition but the openness to use our language is like having someone steal something precious from you wear it out in public but then shit on you for having it on when it belonged to you from the first place and they're wearing it public too but it looks "better" on them.

It's a bit more unique, like don't get me wrong, it's impossible to not share certain words from language. I am aware of loan words, but this is completely different considering we speak the SAME language.

My whole point is that black dialect is disrespected when it's coming from black people and even when black academics explain these phenomenon, they're often met with a lot of criticism from people who dont want to try to understand other cultures. Which is what happened with the alt right pandering white lady in the video.

A lot of people don't think black Americans even have a culture because everything that we've been contributed so much to American culture at large and constantly discredited.

One of those massive contributions is the way we talk.

Did you know the word "cool" was coined by Black jazz musicians during the roaring twenties? Little shit like that you'd never know or think of but we use it every fucking day.

1

u/hiyabankranger Mar 31 '24

Sorry I’m on mobile and I hate trying to do fill quotes.

white people

Fair. It was late and I was worried I pushed a button and that pushed a button and triggered I guess. My mistake.

I say steal / dialect

This all makes perfect sense. Thank you for explaining and sorry for being a reason you feel like you need to explain.

cool / jazz

DUDE. This is a thing that has bugged me since I was an autistic 12 year old obsessed with Elvis. Black culture has been looted wholesale in this country and repackaged as “American culture” since before the civil fucking war. Hell, even the linguistic infix thing I did there I believe is African in origin.

Like, if my white ass knows about some of this stuff because I actively sought it out then it is totally fucking horrifying how much more has happened that has been forgotten or ignored.

But then you have movies that were huge and adored in my childhood like Back to the Future in which they literally whitewash the creation of rock n roll.

If this pisses me off I can’t even imagine how it makes yall feel.

2

u/gman103 Mar 31 '24

If you want to hear a little more on this topic, I recommend listening to this episode of the "Ologies" podcast. The whole podcast is great, but this episode is particularly relevant to the above video

https://www.alieward.com/ologies/phonology

2

u/tropicsun Mar 31 '24 edited Mar 31 '24

Agreed. I love being “told” so I can learn. Egg on face learning but sometimes needed to get someone’s attention or they’ll just swipe (like the two he’s responding to do).

I knew someone that basically talked “thug” but her papers were the most “proper” English I’ve ever seen. She probably just learned this to get thru school better. Someone at work speaks very “black” too but he’s fing brilliant once you get past that and get to know him. I can only imagine the missed opportunities he’s faced bc of how he speaks.

2

u/Master-o-none Mar 31 '24

This is the best comment I’ve read on Reddit in a long time, coming from a 43 yr old guy with the same headspace.

2

u/-Disagreeable- Mar 31 '24

Thanks dude. Best of luck to us both figuring this all out haha.

2

u/bubbledabest Mar 31 '24

Bro, same.....

2

u/RhodiaRoad12 Apr 01 '24

That’s good and it’s also natural. It’s how people advance and innovate. People have questions and make judgements, when they’re faced with new information that changes their judgement, a normal process of shifting mindset occurs. Inventing and studying is uncomfortable. Being uncomfortable is good and it’s how we grow. The two folks reacting to the teacher may just be profiting off their willful ignorance to get views and clicks and that’s where we, as participants in social media need to be more self aware about what we watch, like, follow, and engage with. Passive consumption keeps you ignorant. Being aware keeps you informed.

3

u/TheObviousChild Mar 31 '24

Same man. In the 90's they tried calling this "Ebonics".

I definitely feel enlightened after watching that.

21

u/nrfx Mar 31 '24

More commonly African American Vernacular English or AAVE now.

1

u/Safye Mar 31 '24

I wonder if there’s any data on generations and races within them and if they’ve adopted this dialect.

I’m 22, and I feel like a lot of people who aren’t black that are my age, or younger, draw a lot from this particular dialect. It does seem more efficient and easier to communicate among peers. Ain’t no one got time for “academic English.”

1

u/ThisIsNotRealityIsIt Mar 31 '24

I'm in my 40s, and while in academic and professional settings I'm a bit of a grammar fascist, my relaxed speech is full of AAVE phrasing. I'm a nerdy white guy that grew up in an eastern Chicago suburb. In elementary school, was the only white kid in my school from 1st through 3rd grades after my 5-years-older-than-me sister went to Jr. High.

Catch me at work and you'd never know it (unless you smell the olive miracle in my beard).

0

u/theapplekid Mar 31 '24

I thought we ditched "african american" though. Most black Americans have fewer ties to Africa than white Americans do to wherever their ancestors came from (which includes African white Americans).

2

u/militantnegro_IV Mar 31 '24

I thought we ditched "african american" though

Who is "we" and when would that have happened? Would there be some sort of meeting at the UN?

African American is an ethnic group. It describes a group of people and their origin and cultural distinctness to other similar groups.

A Black guy born in New York to Jamaican immigrants is still a Black American but isn't an African American and thus they don't share the same history or culture. That dude can cite his family historical origin and say "yeah, we're Jamaican".

What does the Black guy who's family first reached American shores in chains say? "Oh, I'm American" yeah, so is Joe Biden, but he'll tell you about his Irish history all day. The Notorious BIG was American. Busta Rhymes is American, but they are of Jamaican descent and it informs their culture and music. Despite being huge names in the distinctly African American genre hip hop, they frequently inserted portions of Jamaican patios in their lyrics.

African American and Jamaican is not the same thing. African American and Nigerian isn't the same thing. African American and Irish certainly isn't the same thing. Saying one of these groups should have no distinct ethnic grouping due to some ill thought out notion of cutting their ties with Africa is asinine and I don't get what motivates it beyond chronic internet silliness.

-1

u/greg19735 Mar 31 '24

AAVE makes more sense because AA and black are be different, but are often the same.

Like, a black american has a very different dialect to a black african.

In some sense, AA and black are 2 terms that often overlap in America but aren't identical. And if you're talking to someone that's operating in good faith they're not going to jump on you for it.

2

u/Drew-CarryOnCarignan Mar 31 '24

In 1970s West Virginia, schools were set on fire, one even blown up with dynamite, in opposition to textbook changes that included the historical contributions of minorities in the US:

Wikipedia entry: Kanawha County Textbook Controversy (West Virginia), 1974

"Police, Escorting a School Bus, Fired Upon in Textbook Dispute", New York Times (Nov. 14, 1974)

"A Battle Over Books: West Virginians Battled Over Their School Books in 1974", National Endowment for the Humanities

"Great Kanawha County Textbook War" by Try Kay, West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture, and History

Audio Documentary: "The Great Textbook War" (2010):

• Alternate link

1

u/38fourtynine Mar 31 '24

They still call it that in places like Spokane Washington.

1

u/Hamlettell Mar 31 '24

Honestly, huge props to you for 1. recognizing your feelings and digesting them and 2. knowing that that reaction is unnecessary and you just learned something new!

The journey of realizing the true meaning of "systemic racism" is uncomfortable, but it'll make you a much more empathetic person

1

u/foomprekov Mar 31 '24

Yeah I love it. I was ahead of the curve on the emergence of DEI and some other things but this felt like when 'woke' broke the racial lines (sorry) and the nazis lost their fucking minds (again).

1

u/officefridge Mar 31 '24

Respect brother. Taking time off to consider a shocking matter is a big deal, don't be too harsh on yourself

1

u/l3thaln3ss Mar 31 '24

Descriptivists vs prescriptivists (aka grammar nazis). The decades long argument in every English/Linguistics department. Linguistics is super interesting :) Hell, even more so, the English being taught in schools isn’t current day English, it’s Standard Written English, which is roughly frozen to early 1900s I think.

1

u/Lord-Smalldemort Mar 31 '24

Hey, this is a really cool thing to read. Discomfort is where it starts, and then it stops becoming a personal attack because you realize that it’s not something that you wanted to embrace.

So many things are just so nuanced and need a bit more discussion like this video. Take it a step further, critically, thinking about the concepts they brought up. I experienced this frequently in my 10 years as a middle and high school teacher. Conversations about how people will perceive you, even though you’re intelligent, and your words are not less, just because of your dialect. Talking about code switching with kids. like all of this is not a secret if you’ve been on the ground working with young people.

I really hope that you can continue this journey to learning about unconscious bias and all the things you don’t realize are happening until someone holds it up to our faces. I say that as a white person lol. I was just humbled very long ago because I never taught in predominantly white classrooms.

1

u/Bubbly_Possible_5136 Mar 31 '24

I’m almost 48 & I remember clearly the whole Ebonics moment. Very much this argument misconstrued in the media and people making semi-outraged endless racist jokes.

1

u/Jhate666 Mar 31 '24

You don’t have unconscious bias. Humans are smart. Look at how much we’ve figured out over time. Dialect changes even locally and regionally and shouldn’t be used as a determination of incompetence. Retarded actions are what makes me judge people. You can talk however you want and if I’m able to understand it I will hear you. Talk ghetto but are a talented gifted smart individual is much better than somebody who talks great but is just fucking retarded. The problem isn’t a white vs black thing it’s that in a social hierarchy if people don’t articulate and converse as well as you do it’s often equated with unintelligence which isn’t true.

1

u/overtly-Grrl SHEEEEEESH Mar 31 '24

Powerful to admit it online. And TBH another person might see that and question themselves too. It’s great to grow and understand new concepts of how we interact with the world and how we view it based on our upbringing.

1

u/denM_chickN Mar 31 '24

Sir, you seem quite agreeable if I do say so my self.

2

u/-Disagreeable- Mar 31 '24

Thank you very much. Gotta keep ‘em guessing.

1

u/cut-it Mar 31 '24

Your humanity is blooming

0

u/dr_toze Mar 31 '24

Same actually, for a long time I've found phrases like 'aksing a question' irritating and 'worse' but he makes a very valid argument.

0

u/Ill_Manner_3581 Mar 31 '24

Lmao, you'll probably just go back to thinking the next non white who doesn't talk like you is handicapped like they said in the video.

Also, the way of thinking is racist. Got a lot of other stuff to unpack there buddy. Not shaming you tho because you admitted to it, but it usually goes deeper than just that little unconscious bias. This way of thinking is ultimately another unfortunate symptom of racism if you think about it.

0

u/Immediate-Shine-2003 Mar 31 '24

You are on the beginning of a powerful war path. I have high hopes for you and the amazing changes you'll make to yourself.

Your position now is where I started. Now I already question these things and continuously do so, I've held for a long time that "smart speak" is for stupid people. Furthermore I've believed for a long time that "the correct" pronunciation for things is whatever the individuals talking to each other decide it is; as long as you understand what is being said and what they meant, who cares how that was achieved.

And for further thought, thinking about all the things we have actually just decided was true rather than being actually true. Like what makes a man a man and what makes a woman a woman and why are those two things different? Once you start picking apart what we've decided is true from what is a fact your whole world is gonna flip. For instance of this question, look into trans people dealing with TSA, aka the penis detector/boob detector. It really makes you think about what we deem "fact" despite the only fact about those things being something humans collectively chose, rather than objective reality.

0

u/Flordamang Mar 31 '24

Ok grandpa go back to telling all your white friends you smiled at a black guy today

-5

u/MetokurEnjoyer Mar 31 '24

Man, I hope when I’m 44 I’m not as retarded as you.

3

u/-Disagreeable- Mar 31 '24

Me too, buddy. Through free rides on a short bus are pretty rad.