AAE & Creole scholarship?

[Kephart, Ronald]

On 9/20/10 10:24 PM, "Steve Bialostok" <stevebialostok at YAHOO.COM> wrote:

> Well, McWhorter seems to have become the unofficial go-to for just about
> everything lately.

He's a conservative African-American; that makes him golden. And of course his very close to "blame the victims" ideas about the causes of problems of AAVE speakers in schools is sad, and unanthropological, but fits the US folk model just fine.  I have told him this, by the way, so he knows how I feel.

At the same time, though, I can't help like liking him on some level. He gave me some good feedback on a paper at the SCL meetings in December.  I have most of his books on my shelf, and there's good stuff all through them. I guess none of us can be right all the time. But... and this is something I notice especially when I go to SCL.... even when we disagree on details of origins, etc., we find ourselves united in the quest for Respect for these languages we work with, even my old Appalachian. It's a good feeling, even if it is, apparently, a quest Don Quixote would sign up for in a second.

Ron
PS: I forgot: Some may not know that SCL is "Society for Caribbean Linguistics." If you already knew this, please accept my humblest apology.