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"If you haven't gotten that English thing down pat, walk swiftly to the nearest exit anytime you see the news reporters looking for people to interview. Don't embarass yourself or let others embarass you."
Hi everyone, I haven't posted in a while, but I do still check in a read pretty much everyday. This thread is one that I felt I HAD to respond to. The one thing (right now) that really bothers me about my beloved people is how badly we speak. I work in an academic setting, a college to be exact, and as I walk down the hallway my ears hurt. I hear the most broken english and more four letter words than regualr ones. I cannot understand what we have to speak sub-standard english all the time. I also don't understand why it bothers me so much. I suppose it because I know we can do better and that all of us don't speak this way. But when we do, it gets so much attention and it feeds the already insulting stereotypes. I asked my mom about it and she told me that pretty much the way we talk is a dialect that has been passed down in various forms from the era when blacks were not able to read and write by law, then on to the times when we were unable to attend schools with qualified, educated teachers and the ones who were trained were not as adaquately trained, due to segragation, as white teachers. I understand this, but isn't there SOMETHING we can do about this now? I just hate that embarrassed feeling when I am around people who don't speak properly and whites because its like I can hear what they are saying in their minds about us. I feel the same way when I watch the news and they bring someone on live to comment on something that has occured. Its terrible. Don't get me wrong, I care more about us helping each other get pass the problems of the past which have led to many of the problems we face today such as literacy than I do what some white person thinks, but it is embarrassing and I have to admit that. For instance, when someone makes a generalized statement such as "black folks can't speak english" or "black people are ignorant and can't learn", it irritates me not only because I know it isn't true obviously, but more so because how can we continue top argue for all of the things we do as a community when our young people DO do the things we are joking about in this thread or like I see everyday which is sit in classes day in and day out but speak incorrectly in the classes and among each other. I have to cut this off now, but I think you all get my drift.
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