McWhorter interview

[Jonathan Lighter]

I meant to add that, in general, Wilson is absolutely correct.  There is
something exceedingly stupid (and in some participating brains, stupidly
racist) about the idea that "Ebonics" means "dope lingo."

But, as Sarah Palin wisely observed, English is a living, changing
language! So why should we care?  Embrace the new! (Goak.)

JL

On Tue, Sep 7, 2010 at 3:23 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: McWhorter interview
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Tue, Sep 7, 2010 at 7:53 AM, Paul Frank <paulfrank at post.harvard.edu>
> wrote:
>
> > Ebonics
>
> What's up with this continuing conflation of drug-dealer jargon/code
> with Ebonics/Black English (Vernacular)/African-American (Vernacular)
> English, or whatever TF the ridiculously-laughable hip term is, these
> days? Just from the samples that I've seen quoted here, I have to ask,
> How the fuck is a nigger going to be able to translate that shit,
> merely on the basis of his being a nigger? *I* certainly don't know.
> If being a black speaker is all that's necessary for this job, why
> isn't McWhorter himself jumping at it? It can't be that his salary is
> sufficient unto his needs. As William Cosby, EdD, once asked, "How
> much money is *enough* money?"
>
> How is McWhorter not able to see the racist assumption behind this
> search for Ebonics-speakers: that any nigger is hip to the drug trade?
> There's no decrypting that coded language without one's being a part
> of that life! What makes the DEA think that all it needs to do is to
> hire somebody out of the 'hood and then everything is going be
> everything? And why is that black fool, McWhorter, giving this typical
> example of everyday white mischief - "If one does it, they all do it"
> - his imprimatur?
>
> A chump with a PhD is still a chump. The phrase, "disgrace to the
> race," has not outlived its usefulness. Prof. McWhorter is the worst
> kind, because he isn't some ordinary black man off the street. He's an
> expert, a professional man, a PhD, not some junior-flip pimp. And he
> teaches at a *white* school, besides!
>
> If he's so down with the DEA, then anything that it does *must* be
> completely unbiased. A colored fellow with a doctorate have done
> *said* so! Own In-Pee-Ahra!
>
> If Paul, who has no dog in this fight, sees the situation so clearly
> that he has very wisely underlined the fact any resemblance of this
> stupidity to any opinion of his own, public or private, is
> non-existant, how can it be that "Doctor Tom" McWhorter is stupid
> enough to endorse it?
>
> Lord have mercy!
> --
> -Wilson
> –––
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"––a strange complaint to
> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> –Mark Twain
>
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