kunoichikaoru

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWUxPJQqiZs

Go forth and be amused!

No, it's actually about something serious this time.

For my French 302 class, we had to watch Obama's inauguration speech and paraphrase one sentence in French. (Exercise in direct vs. indirect sentences and how the verb tense changes.)

So I went to Youtube, found the speech, and watched it. And below, there was this conversation in comments.

Stupid idiot person #1: "Although black, Obama can speak! Yes he can!"

Stupid idiot person #2: "He's half black, half white. The white half is where his speaking skills come from."

Okay, I know people on Youtube are idiots. I know they are. But I am so deeply horrified by this conversation on so many levels, I can't even express it.

First of all, "although black"? What the hell? All black people are incapable of speaking correctly? Is that it?

And the second person? "He gets his speaking skills from the white half?"

Speech has NOTHING to do with race. It's not like white people are born speaking one way and black people are born speaking another. If you want to stereotype, black people more frequently speak a different dialect of English than white people. But no one's dialect or language is implanted in their brains from birth. It's not genetic. Children learn the language and dialect of the place they grow up. A native "black" speaker, someone who grew up speaking AAVE (African American Vernacular English, and I may date myself by using the expression, as I hear the term African American has been given way to in favor of simply "black", but this was what it was called in my linguistics book. It's hard to keep up with political correctness.) can learn Standard English (the "white" dialect, the one taught in schools) just as easily as a "white" or Standard English speaker could learn AAVE (probably more easily, in fact, as there are aspects of AAVE, like any dialect, that would be hard to pick up without a diction class or something of the like, and of course they're not offered.)

Not all black people speak AAVE, just as not all white people speak Standard English. That right there is a stereotype in and of itself.

In addition, there is no intrinsic reason why Standard English is better than AAVE. Both are grammatically sound and intelligible. There's a fuckton of political and economic reasons why Standard English won out, not the least of which is that is, in fact, more standard and therefore more universally intelligible. There's also some nasty stuff about slavery and racism, but I don't think I've made enough of a study of the history of AAVE to go on a diatribe about that, so. I'm just saying. Standard English is not a better language than AAVE, any more than Latin is a better language than French, or Chinese is a better language than Japanese. Those may in fact be false comparisons as AAVE is a dialect, an offshoot or cousin of English rather than another language altogether (though many linguists have made the case that AAVE shares similarities with West African languages and is in fact a creole), but fine. French French is not a better language than Canadian French. You get my drift. Many words commonly recognized as Standard English today came from AAVE, such as "hip" and "cool." How many times a day do you use the word cool?

And no. I'm not saying we should teach AAVE, any more than we should teach 133t in schools, because it would be a pain in the ass, and the fact of the matter is, Standard English is the prestige dialect. If you want to be taken seriously, you have to speak "proper" Standard English. Don't get me wrong. I love English. I'm a bit of a grammar freak (Though obviously not that hardcore, as you can see by the mistakes in this blog). I just wish people would stop being assholes and realize that they're not better than anyone just because they speak a certain dialect of English. Languages are all connected. There are not hard lines dividing them from one another. It may seem that way; French and English are different, but they share many cognates and have a common sentence structure. And they both borrow words back and forth. Fiancee. Bouquet. Prairie. Languages are always changing, adding and dropping words, melding and splitting. 

My point: People of the world, stop being idiot racist linguistic snob assholes. Mmmkay?

 

Ahahaha. Seriously. I am watching High School Musical: The What's What edition, and it is full of gems like this. WTF. :D

I want to do a  Chyan version where little boxes pop up talking about all the homosexual subtext. That would be awesome, no?

In other news, no matter what Bryan says, Merry Christmas Drake and Josh was awesome.

Also, gah, is Jerry Trainor in that Herbie movie with Lindsay Lohan? Movie = suck, but Jerry Trainor = rock. I love him; he's honestly the only reason I watch iCarly.

Annnd just when you thought I was going to trail off into an ellipse and go to bed--Nooo, I am not! (Fandom journal, remember?)

Ship manifesto is a comm where obsessive fangirls (and boys? IDK) volunteer to write quick, picspam-filled essays about their OTPs and why they inspire obsessive fannish glee and why everyone else should read them.

--Sorry, what was I talking about? I got distracted by I Don't Dance. Oh, god. How can anyone doubt the Chyan? I mean, really? Anyway, right, ship manifesto. So, I think this is awesome, and I read the manifestos related to my own fandoms, but sadly there were only a few. Speaking of, the Chyan manifesto was great. Go read it, fo' real. 

Sadly, there wasn't any bandom, which kind of shocked me, since it's this huge sprawling fandom. I volunteered to write a Peterick manifesto. ^_^ Hopefully the mod comments back soon. And dude, how cool would it be if someone did a PATD GSF? I don't know nearly enough about the band to try, but I really want someone to.

Okay, yeah, I think that about wraps this up.

Firefly. I sadly didn't know about it while it was airing, but it was a wondeful show and I now own it all on DVD. Thank to Fox, it got cut in its prime, and we never got any more hilarious, snappy dialouge, shiny new slang, awesome outerpace and/or western-style gun battles, strange futuristic steam-punk inventions, deep questions about the universe, or any more development of the complex relationships between the characters. This show had it all.

Okay, seriously, I'm embarassed to admit this, but I got denied to the "I Don't Dance" community, which is a Chyan ship.

I mean, really, it's not bad enough I applied, but I got turned down?

What more could I do? How much more like a grammar-impaired fourteen year old can I act??  (And okay, that's not fair, because I met a really cool, mature, perfect-English-speaking chick from Finland on that comm, but still.)

Just because I have a sense of common decency you guys, god! I love Chyan just as much as any of you! Maybe even more! I'm recruiting new people to the fandom as we speak!

(Oh, noun description of noun.)

Oh, internet. Oh, lj. Oh, HSM. *sigh*

I'm totally corrupting my friend Angie. Into a slasher. ^_^ No, seriously. We spent like half an hour after Japanese last week talking about homosexual subtext in High School Musical. Then she went home and made a Chyan icon.

It was precious.

Also, she agrees with me that Pete Wentz is clearly in love with his lead singer.

Because he is.

Bahahah!

...that is all.

Dude, what the hell? My fanfiction discussion topic got deleted on the Robin Mckinley forum. Apparently I misread the disclaimer. I was under the impression that we just couldn't post fanfic, not that the discussion of the subject was bad. But seriously, I just logged on, and there was an anouncement saying that any mention of fanfic was prohibited. (It was a good discussion! Both pro and con! I swear to god!) Not cool, forum. Not cool.

Oh, my god, and I just checked my e-mail--which informs me everytime someone replies to a topic I posted or commented on--and it was a really popular topic! Damn mods. Seriously, I fail to see the problem.

lj is now my fandom journal.

Because no one on deviantART will read, see, or care about it if I post the following.

I forgot how much I love the Sixteen Candles video! But Fall Out Boy as vampire hunters! Pete as a vampire who hates vampires! Andy as bait! Gangster vampires, punk vampires, weird tea-drinking English vampires duking it out in the streets! Bad eighties fashion on all the girls! Guest appearance by Panic! Patrick being adorable! All of this is for the win.

I found it again because of this whole 'verse of fic dedicated to it, not even kidding.

This place is pretty awesome.

...too tired to articulate more.

Momentous occasion. My first lj post. Just seeing how this works....


Oh, right, so I got a delicious account.

And how do I access my memories to tag them there?

I could've sworn I had more interesting things to say.  All in good time, I suppose.