Fwd: McWhorter interview

Thu Sep 9 21:41:26 UTC 2010

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Ronald Butters <ronbutters at mac.com>
> Date: September 9, 2010 5:39:51 PM EDT
> To: Ronald Butters <ronbutters at aol.com>, ADS-L <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Cc: ADS-L <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Subject: Re: McWhorter interview
> 
> I have tried to post this several times, but it doesn't seem to go through. Is anyone else having trouble with this? Sometimes my ,messages are posted, sometimes they just seem to disappear.
> 
> 
> On Sep 9, 2010, at 10:17 AM, Ronald Butters wrote:
> 
>> 
>> Like Paul, I don't like John McWhorter's politics, either, but I do think Wilson was unfair to him. JM is an intelligent, educated linguist who did NOT himself equate AAVE with drug lingo. The level of understanding of his interviewer may be shocking, but one has little control over the idiocy and unconscious bigotry of one's interviewers. One can of course refuse to be interviewed at all. But one always hopes that one can find a way to light a candle. 
>> 
>> I agree that it is hard to respect anyone who hangs out with "Krauthammer," who has the moral sense of Adolph Hitler. But McWorter on e.g. Invariant "be" is on the mark. 
>> Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Paul Frank <paulfrank at POST.HARVARD.EDU>
>> Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Date:         Wed, 8 Sep 2010 17:40:40 
>> To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Reply-To: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Subject:      Re: [ADS-L] McWhorter interview
>> 
>> Thanks for this, Wilson. I can't stand John McWhorter for all sorts of
>> reasons, starting with his association with the Manhattan Institute,
>> which endorses the views of the likes of  Charles Krauthammer,*
>> Charles Murray, and Clarence Thomas. And to equate the language(s) of
>> black speakers in the USA with the argot of drug dealers is obscene.
>> But as an uninformed layman interested in language, I thought a couple
>> of the things McWhorter said were interesting, though I'm not
>> qualified to judge whether he's right. This for instance: "She be
>> walking. Nobody would say that looking at somebody ambling by. That
>> means that somebody walks on a habitual basis. So you would talk about
>> somebody be walking everyday at 7 o'clock." And that Black English, or
>> any English spoken in America, is much closer to British English
>> dialects past and present than to West African languages is so
>> obvious, or ought to be, that it's not even worth mentioning.
>> 
>> Why did I have to mention the name Krauthammer? The name has an emetic
>> effect on me. I recall a memorable phrase Krauthammer used one night
>> in March of 2003: immaculate destruction. I jotted it down at the time
>> (I was living in a mountain village in Haute-Savoie, France): "It's
>> 4:30 a.m. Last night I watched television for a few minutes: bombs
>> were raining on Baghdad, a city populated by people. I went to bed
>> early and was tossing and turning until a few minutes ago, when I went
>> downstairs and turned on the TV set again. CNN announced that 1,500
>> bombs and missiles had been fired at Baghdad and Iraq during this, the
>> first night of the 'shock and awe' campaign. The TV screen showed
>> colorful images of bombs exploding. I remembered something I heard on
>> Fox News before going to bed: a man wearing a nice suit and tie said
>> that it was a good thing that the lights were on in Baghdad, 'because
>> we want to see this.' And it was quite a show. A few minutes ago I
>> turned on Fox News and heard Charles Krauthammer boast: 'We have a
>> campaign of immaculate destruction.' 'We have the technology and the
>> will to do it.' " I always think of this when I hear the name
>> Krauthammer. But I digress...
>> 
>> Paul
>> 
>> 
>> Paul Frank
>> Translator
>> German, French, Italian > English
>> paulfrank at post.harvard.edu
>> paul.frank at bfs.admin.ch
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Tue, Sep 7, 2010 at 9:23 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
>>> 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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>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>> 
>> 
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