(09-08-2017, 09:41 AM)Warren Dew Wrote:(09-08-2017, 08:15 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: If one is black and one wants to 'act white', then that is a right. Just don't expect bigoted white people to recognize your effort.
Of course there are white people to imitate and white people to avoid imitating at all costs. But you should know that. White people do not form a monolith, which may explain why I hate being called "The Man"!
I don't think you understand what "acting white" means. "Acting white" means things like studying and speaking with correct grammar and getting good grades. I think it's seen as caving in to the culture that values those things, which is considered to be "white"; "acting white" is perhaps seen as making blacks who don't bother with those things look bad.
Wrong. I know plenty of white people who show contempt for learning, who use atrocious grammar, and do not apply themselves to their schoolwork. Those white people would fare far better if they acted like Jamaican-Americans, who typically have less white ancestry than the typical American black descended from antebellum slaves. (By the way -- I got that data from Charles Murray in his infamous -- to liberals, at least --The Bell Curve).
I have been in a largely-black classroom in which one student complained that I was asking black kids to 'act white'. I told them what losers some white people are. For example, white people use more drugs, use worse drugs, and mess themselves up even worse than do black people. Black people just can't get away with drugs as white people can. Add to that, illegal drugs are expensive. I live in a community awash in meth. White users, as a strict rule. I told that kid that I didn't want him to act white. I told him that I wanted him to act like a Chinese-American. I have also subbed in a largely-white district with lots of Hispanic kids whose parents do cr@ppy jobs... the Hispanic kids are toward the top of the class.
Achievement does not depend upon skin color. We have Neil deGrasse Tyson. We have Colin Powell. We have Barack Obama. We had Ralph Bunche and Martin Luther King. We had Maya Angelou. Need I go further?
Quote:So, if you value correct grammar enough to use it in your writing, you are validly referred to as "The Man", because you're part of the "white" culture that "imposes" those values as societal values.
Every language has its own standard of grammar, and one adheres closely to that standard or one is looked upon as a loser. It has nothing to do with race. Cajun French (which is not a standardized language) does not get respect in France, Quebec, Haiti, or Francophone parts of Africa. Amish dialects are substandard in Germany, so that has nothing to do with race. Anyone who uses bad grammar might as well affix a paper sign that reads "KICK ME!" because such is practically the treatment that one will get. For a black person, using proper grammar associated with any mainstream dialect is one of the cheapest ways to get respect. "Ebonics" does not get respect, and it won't get respect until we start seeing literary masterpieces in it. Was W.E.B. DuBois "The Man" for using standard English grammar? I think not.
Since almost all Americans have practically the same syllabus in school to K-8, we might as well have the same standards. "My great-great grandmother was a slave and my great-great grandfather was a white man who raped her" is not an excuse for bad grammar.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.