Today I'd like to talk about how superiority and discrimination can make themselves sneakily apparent in language and linguistics.
Full disclosure: I used to be obsessed with not doing anything at all ever that would potentially slightly disparage the image of black people. I had to be a "good black girl." Because I thought it was up to me to make black people "look good" in the eyes of other folks. Speech was part of that. I used to get furious at black people who didn't speak "proper English" because "it's not that hard" and "it just gives others more ammunition against us." But I have come to realize that it's not black people's fault that certain other people have problems with us. Just like rape is never the victim's fault, discrimination is never the target's fault. The only way to end discrimination is to demolish stereotypes, not by constantly contradicting them, but by teaching people that not all black people are gangsters and crackheads - some black people are Presidents! Or that not all Asian people are math geniuses - some Asian people are artists! Or that all white people are racists and bigots - some white people are good people!
More disclosure: I "talk white," meaning with "proper" grammar and word usage, etc. And that's the problem: applying words like "proper" or even "standard" to some aspects of American English. Because inherent in the word "proper" is the notion that anything arbitrarily labeled "improper" by the reigning socio-political hierarchy is wrong and therefore "lesser." And because to an awful lot of people in this country (black and white), from Idaho to Florida, saying "ain't" is, in fact, standard.
This is my issue with "ebonics" as an "academic area of study": according to Merriam-Webster Online, the word comes from somebody mashing the two words "ebony" and "phonics" together. The trouble with this is that it inherently associates "improper" English with black people, when plenty college-educated white folks "don't write well" or "can't spell" or "don't use English right." (That was intentional.) Yes, every language has its rules, but at the same time, languages simply cannot exist petrified in strict conformity with all their criteria: languages evolve, and the products of that evolution must be acknowledged not as the pet project of some university scholar pursuing a fellowship and not as a missile to be launched at black people's intrinsic worth, but as vibrant part of American history and contemporary society.
Many black people feel that they have to code switch, or talk two different ways, depending on the situation: in the office or in an interview vs. at home or with friends. (For a great take on black code switching, see Janelle Harris' article for Clutch online.) This needs to become unnecessary. "Ebonics" has evolved as a distinct form of American English, and must be treated as an acceptable, legitimate one, regardless of what the current linguistic doctrine demands.
So I challenge you to stop thinking of "black talk" as a marker of crudity, low intelligence, lack of sophistication, and/or lack of education, and by extension of all of those, brutality. This is one of the most fundamental components of how anyone (black or otherwise) views black people: it is a major aspect of how the social value of an individual black person is judged. Make that association, and then change your way of thinking, and, more importantly, your way of acting.
Wednesday 27 February 2013
Monday 11 February 2013
On Symmetry
My deepest apologies to anyone who reads for not posting more regularly.
Today I'd like to talk about physical symmetry - the balance of beauty.
Let me start off by saying that personally, I admire people with a little something "wrong" with them, a something a little "off" or some little "peculiarity." Or, hell, some big "peculiarity." (I am not, of course, saying that any body is better than another - I'm simply stating my personal view.)
I am not saying any of this to brag; I'm just saying this for all of you who have ever felt that there's something unpleasant, weird, funny, about you physically, something wrong with you, that you have too much of one thing or too little of something else - I want you to know that people like me exist.
But to move beyond the personal: there is nothing intrinsically good about physical beauty, defined any way you like. We all know that some form of beauty is what everybody from Gustave Eiffel to Jimmy Choo have striven and strive for. In reality, though, it is just a small facet of any person's being, and it only defines personality in so far as it affects self-esteem, positively or negatively. It does not make people nicer, kinder, gentler, or better in any way at all. Beauty is a relative social construct, our "Western" definition of which we have internalized through worship of ancient Greece.
One fact which I take as proof positive of the above statement is that every society - historical and modern - has had its own, distinct standards of beauty. This discrepancy in definition indicates to me that all "beauty" could defined as something else in another culture.
People (I am speaking of Americans here) tend to get so caught up in the tornado of changing fads and fashions that we cannot see that none of it means a damn thing. And the other main problem is that so many of these beauty standards are simply impossible for so many people and when they don't realize this inherent impossibility, they feel guilt because they continually "fail" to change themselves to meet idiotic standards of acceptability.
In reality, what needs to change is the way we look at the physical self.
Instead of spending our money and mental and emotional energy on vaginal plastic surgery, we should concentrate on sexual education; instead of working out to lose weight, we should focus on health for its own sake; instead of teaching young girls, boys, and kids in between that they should change their exterior, we must teach them to look inside themselves and others when something in their lives feels wrong. We as a society need to reevaluate our priorities. This has to happen immediately, so that these impossible standards don't keep hurting the people we love. And it starts with all of you.
Today I'd like to talk about physical symmetry - the balance of beauty.
Let me start off by saying that personally, I admire people with a little something "wrong" with them, a something a little "off" or some little "peculiarity." Or, hell, some big "peculiarity." (I am not, of course, saying that any body is better than another - I'm simply stating my personal view.)
I am not saying any of this to brag; I'm just saying this for all of you who have ever felt that there's something unpleasant, weird, funny, about you physically, something wrong with you, that you have too much of one thing or too little of something else - I want you to know that people like me exist.
But to move beyond the personal: there is nothing intrinsically good about physical beauty, defined any way you like. We all know that some form of beauty is what everybody from Gustave Eiffel to Jimmy Choo have striven and strive for. In reality, though, it is just a small facet of any person's being, and it only defines personality in so far as it affects self-esteem, positively or negatively. It does not make people nicer, kinder, gentler, or better in any way at all. Beauty is a relative social construct, our "Western" definition of which we have internalized through worship of ancient Greece.
One fact which I take as proof positive of the above statement is that every society - historical and modern - has had its own, distinct standards of beauty. This discrepancy in definition indicates to me that all "beauty" could defined as something else in another culture.
People (I am speaking of Americans here) tend to get so caught up in the tornado of changing fads and fashions that we cannot see that none of it means a damn thing. And the other main problem is that so many of these beauty standards are simply impossible for so many people and when they don't realize this inherent impossibility, they feel guilt because they continually "fail" to change themselves to meet idiotic standards of acceptability.
In reality, what needs to change is the way we look at the physical self.
Instead of spending our money and mental and emotional energy on vaginal plastic surgery, we should concentrate on sexual education; instead of working out to lose weight, we should focus on health for its own sake; instead of teaching young girls, boys, and kids in between that they should change their exterior, we must teach them to look inside themselves and others when something in their lives feels wrong. We as a society need to reevaluate our priorities. This has to happen immediately, so that these impossible standards don't keep hurting the people we love. And it starts with all of you.
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