Wednesday, May 06, 2015

english spoken here...?


kunstler |  Of course, the Freddie Gray riots in Baltimore last week prompted the usual cries for “an honest conversation about race,” and countless appeals to fix the “broken” public school system. So, in the spirit of those pleas, I will advance a very plain and straightforward idea: above all, teach young black kids how to speak English correctly.

Nothing is more important than acculturating ghetto kids out of their pidgin patois and into real English with all of its tenses, verb forms, and cases. It’s more important initially than learning arithmetic, history, and science. I would argue that it is hardly possible to learn these other things without first being grounded in real grammatical English.

When these kids grow up, their manner of speech will identify them and their prospects for success at least as much as the color of their skin and probably more, in my opinion. Their ability to speak English correctly will be the salient feature in how others assess the content of their character

I’m sure by now that the racial justice hand-wringers are squirming over this proposal. All dialects are equally okay in this rainbow society, they might argue. No they’re not. Have you noticed that TV news, business, show biz, education, and politics increasingly employ people whose parents came from India and other parts of Asia. Do they speak in a patois lacking in complex verb forms? Apparently not. Are they succeeding in American life, such as it is? Apparently so.

Notice that the speech issue — how people talk — is never part of the “honest conversation about race” that we are supposed to have. Has anybody noticed that in his public speeches Martin Luther King spoke regular English correctly, if with a Southern inflection? Has anybody noticed how important that was in his role as “a communicator?” Why is this crucial question of language absent from the public conversation about “the intractable problems of race in America?” Is it because both blacks and whites are too fearful, too cowardly, to face this particular problem of how English is spoken?

Perhaps this raises the specter of IQ. I’d like to know how any IQ test can be meaningful when the person taking it can’t speak the language that the test is given in. I’m sure that any ghetto kid drilled in English for two years would show substantial improvement in such a generalized test. But, of course, first the American people of all skin tones would have to admit that this is important.
We don’t want to. We’d rather wring our hands over “structural racism” and other canards.

5 comments:

Vic78 said...

Kuntsler doesn't spend too much time around black people. He hasn't spent time around poor people either. He should stick to talking about resources. Sociology isn't his strong suit.

How do you talk to the Morning Joke crew without being condescending? They're stuck on stupid. Of all the shows Phil's getting rid of due to ratings, Morning Joe's jerkoff marathon is safe in spite of the public's disdain. I know what the show's problems are. Joe has zero personality and looks like a shmuck while Mika seems like the most qualified for the gig.

CNu said...

Have you changed the fictional name of your blog, or, are you still peddling fraudulent hokum? You know, if you stick to the skid mark worn in your draws, mebbe you should warsh your arse and change em draws?

Constructive_Feedback said...

(None too surprised with your analysis about Morning Joe)

**********************************************

ADMISSION - I thought that you were talking about Attorney Kuntsler - who represented The Chicago Weather Underground. My words are thus tailored toward him.

BUT the I read the bio of the Kunstler that you all are talking about and saw that the words are still appropriate so I won't change them:

Kuntlser is a contributor to: The Atlantic Monthly, Slate.com, RollingStone, The New York Times Sunday Magazine,
***************************************

With regard to Kunstler - YOU might be offended that, as you say "He Didn't spend Too Much Time Around Black People Or Poor People".

PRAY TELL, why is it that HE IS A HERO on all of the Progressive Fundamentalist media organs that I monitor:

* Democracy Now

* Free Speech TV

* Tom Hartmann Show

* Mother Jones

* The Nation magazine

And since, by inference, the "Black Racial Services Machine" appear frequently in these forums as GUEST CONTRIBUTORS and NEVER as "Hostile Interviewees" treated as if THEY ARE CULPABLE for the condition of the 'Americanized Negro' after decades of diverting their harvest..................it is clearly true that your sentiments of Attorney Kunstler are not shared by the people you put your faith in to carry the ball against your ideological and political enemies in America.

Vic78 said...

You notice the difference between the two replies? The first one responds to the comment I just dropped. "Kuntsler's a jerkoff but he's right about x and the video proves what you can do with a sharp mouthpiece." It was short and to the point. You drop your response and go into some other shit. The topic at hand is what Kunstler is talking about in this isolated post. I don't care what else he's doing at this point. I just wanted to drop that comment and maybe say something about Granny Goodness(fucked up nickname) in another post. It never fails; you have to come along and bring your PROGRESSIVESECULARWHATEVERTHEFUCKPOSTRACIALALLIANCE into whatever the topic is.

You alright, dude?

makheru bradley said...

[The Koch brothers’ operation intends to spend $889 million in the run-up to the 2016 elections — a historic sum that in many ways would mark Charles and David Koch and their fellow conservative megadonors as more powerful than the official Republican Party.]

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/01/koch-2016-spending-goal-114604.html#ixzz3ZQ3eJpYa



These folks sway public policy.Voters are just along for the ride.

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