"AAVE is in no way a bad thing. It has its own grammar and everything, yet it gets popularized and misused by non-black teens who think it makes them sound cool or “ghetto.” "
“Popular”? Where is AAVE “popular” among non-black teens? Maybe you’re talking certain socioeconomic groups. I find it hard to believe upper middle class white teens find AAVE cool or worth emulating.
westofguam–I think I understand (but you tell me)–for example–people have green toenails which is frowned upon by society presently and causes job loss etc. And then green toenails is accepted by some OTHER segment of society/a different culture and suddenly it becomes a popular trend and is now acceptable.
Is that a fair assessment? Really trying to understand.
I googled it. Got it.
One word I noted on the site I saw was"y’all". That is actually a southern/Midwestern thing, though.
I had never heard the term AAVE before.
I saw a few things mentioned on the sites I looked at that seem generally Southern to me. Or at least common to my area of the South (there’s not a single Southern way of speaking). Some are things I hear my older rural white relatives say.
There are lots of cultural differences that need to be respected. But there are also many layers to culture that have nothing to do with country of origin or religion.
There are many business values (example) that need to be respected. That means dress, deportment, business acumen. You aren’t going up in the ranks at a business dressed in feathers. It’s a given (unless you’re in fashion). You need to speak the native language. You need to relate to those around you. James Bond blended in–good job. It’s not a secret as to expectations.
To expect others outside your circle to accept you–without making at least an equal effort to accept them and then (worse yet) condemning them for even trying is …well the norm…I expect more from people.
AAVE does come from the South.
If AAVE is the only way one can talk, then it is opportunity limiting.
It’s incredible that Americans can live in the US for generations, listen to the same speakers on TV, read the same books, and still be unable to conjugate the verb “to be”.
Pizzagirl I came out of high school a couple of years ago and am now at an Ivy, I constantly hear these things (not in class but in regular conversation), white kids frequently use it. I’m talking more specifically words that have become trendy, “bae, yasssss, yolo, af, etc.” I’m not an expert on language, but I think it would be natural that many words in AAVE would overlap in southern English, but I don’t know.
@gouf78 I don’t really think you’re getting it. I’ll try to do a better job at explaining it. (I didn’t really get whether you are talking about infection or nail polish in your example but either way I don’t really see how it’s the same since it is temporary.) Hmm, lets roll with your green nail example; assuming it is natural physical quality of a specific people what I would find unfair is if society said that they are inferior because of green toes and then the media, young people, celebs, etc. who have white toes decides that green toes are cool BUT ONLY when people with white toes paint their toes green. Now people with green toes aren’t necessarily given love, their toes are. They themselves are still different (assuming there is a way to tell the difference between people) it’s just that someone decided toes that look that way are cool. So they themselves are still facing discrimination but their toes have inspired a new, probably temporary, trend. So white toed people go around with green toes and are deemed cool, green toed people have inspired the trend but still are seen as icky. If you’re wondering why people don’t just accept the green toed people as well, know that I am too. This is precisely what black girls go through with hair.
AAVE is like a dialect of English, with its own grammar. Just because some of it differs from standard English does not make it incorrect. Some have even said it should be thought of as a creole because it has rules of grammar from other African languages, which don’t work the same as English. Whether or not you agree with that (I admit I kind of do) doesn’t mean you should automatically assume people don’t have the aptitude to learn to speak “correctly” it is what they were raised speaking, and what they grew up around. And it is limiting because society has made it so, not because of any action on the speakers part.
Gout again you missed my point. I am not asking anyone to accept me with this argument (though I don’t get why people can’t accept black hair on black bodies). I am asking people not to exploit my identity while refusing to accept me.
I don’t get what you mean by people not accepting black hair on black bodies. This is not the 1960’s. Wear your hair how you like, no matter what color you are. Maybe there are some ignorant bubbas someplace who “don’t understand” that lots of black women have naturally kinky hair, but why are you fretting over the opinions of ignorant bubbas
AAVE is opportunity-limiting because it’s not proper, standard English.
I make hiring decisions. If a job applicant cannot speak grammatically correct English in a job interview, I will not hire that person, period. I don’t care what color that person is. The job requires regular communications in the form of writing reports, giving presentations, speaking to clients.
It’s a scandal that the non-Anglos I work with overseas speak/write better Engish than so many born/bred Americans. The rest of the world is raising their children to learn English.
That’s a specious argument. Whether or not they have the aptitude is irrelevant. The issue is whether a person has the social skills to recognize that while its perfectly acceptable to wear comfortable sweatpants at home, you don’t wear sweatpants at a job interview.
Speaking a different dialect at home does not absolve any American from the need to learn/speak/write standard English. You are enabling people’s socio-economic immobility by elevating AAVE as an acceptable alternative to standard English.
Name-dropping that you are at an ivy does not give your argument any more weight.
Westofguam, I appreciate your point of view. The problem, however, seems less with the white person “appropriating” culture than with the larger societal response to that appropriation. If people fawn over the white girl who comes back from vacation with her hair in dreads, but refuse to hire a black woman with natural hair, that’s an issue - but the white girl isn’t the person to blame in that scenario. The answer to larger issues of stereotyping can’t be to say that we must put a stop to the natural cultural borrowings and adaptations that occur in any diverse society. It just isn’t reasonable to decree that black-associated musical styles, or traditionally Asian martial arts, or ethnic foods are off limits to people who don’t happen to be members of that group.
Eating “curry” is not a defining characteristic of Indian people. Maybe it’s not stereotyping to say that people who eat a lot of curry are more likely to smell, but it certainly is when you apply that to Indian people.
Also, defecating in public is not part of Indian culture. I’m not even sure where to start with that idea.
@GMTplus7 I don’t think you understood me or maybe I misunderstood you. I said it is not the fault of the people who speak AAVE (there is no fault in my opinion, but I’m guessing you would beg to differ). It is society that said how they speak is wrong (not throwing blame just stating my opinion). Standard English is used in professional settings and those who don’t speak it are, unfortunately, at a disadvantage. For the aptitude part, I said that because you said something like “they can’t teach their children to conjugate properly” or something. I said nothing about accepting anyone in a place of work, so I don’t really understand where this is coming from. I said it’s wrong that people are looked down upon for possessing some quality, when others who appropriate that quality are praised. And I was not name-dropping, I think pizzagirl said something like “what upper class white kids use AAVE?” I was just showing that I am in a pretty white area and I hear AAVE often, never said it gives my argument more weight.
@apprenticeprof I don’t think I said it was hypothetical her’s fault. She probably didn’t know any better, but I still believe that she could have educated herself a little before doing that. (This is another problem in America though I don’t want to go into it, white children are seen as more deserving of chances/more innocent than minority kids.) However, I’m not going to scream at her. If I feel like it, I’ll tell her why I think it’s wrong; if I don’t I won’t, end of discussion. I just feel that it is taken way too lightly in society. People have actual concerns and I think others should acknowledge them. (However, I don’t know how natural or two-sided those “cultural borrowings” have been historically.)
“Also, defecating in public is not part of Indian culture. I’m not even sure where to start with that idea.”
I did ethnographies this year where I traveled to villages in Uttar Pradesh and talked to people about their hygiene habits (among other things). They most certainly were using fields (where their waste then hit the water supply) and not using the toilets the NGOs were building. It’s a folk belief that it’s considered healthier. The women don’t go in the fields after sundown due to the risk of attack, which causes problems both for their digestive tracts and repro tracts. There are quite a few recent NYT, WSJ, BBC, and Economist articles on sanitation in India and how it’s a priority for Modi who ran on a platform of trying to eliminate open defecation by 2019. I know what I’m talking about, thanks.
The toilet issue in India has been in the media a lot. FYI, from the Washington Post a few months ago:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/india-is-building-millions-of-toilets-but-toilet-training-could-be-a-bigger-task/2015/06/03/09d1aa9e-095a-11e5-a7ad-b430fc1d3f5c_story.html
@westofguam, in my experience nowadays it is black women who are obsessed with their hair, no one else. Remember how black women commented vociferously and negatively about Gaby Douglas’ hair during the Olympics? I remember everyone else saying, “What? She does these incredible things and you are talking about her HAIR??”
I am old enough to remember when the idea that Black is Beautiful first became a public campaign. When black people, especially women, started wearing their hair in natural styles, and celebrating it. I remember when black models first became successful in “mainstream” (ie, white) magazines such as Vogue, not just in the pages of Ebony. Honestly, in my entire life, and I am 62 years old, I have never heard a white person make a derogatory remark about a black woman’s hair.
Now, I realize that the hair thing exists because of people trying to adapt to the standards of beauty of the majority culture. I realize that negative messages are delivered in subtle ways. I’ve known plenty of white women who also expended lots of time and money trying to achieve “good hair,” when their natural hair was very curly and/or frizzy. They didn’t feel that their hair was acceptable either.
Frankly, unless you are a female, you probably don’t realize the messages ALL women receive about their bodies, and how lousy a huge number of them feel about those bodies. In no way is that restricted to black women.
This is the first time I’ve heard of aave. Both of my father’s parents were immigrants from the same non-English-speaking country. When he was little, they stopped speaking that language in the home, so that he would enter school as a native English speaker. He graduated first in his class from HS and was accepted to H, Y, and P with full scholarships. You may think that was a bad thing. He should have retained his parents’ native language and lived on the fringes of mainstream American society. I disagree.
FWIW, when my S was in HS, he and others thought that the white kids who adopted black speech styles/dress were pretty ridiculous.
I don’t think white kids are praised - in the workplace - for speaking AAVE. A lot of “white” speech patterns, dialects, or accents don’t work very well in a professional workplace either.
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Frankly, unless you are a female, you probably don’t realize the messages ALL women receive about their bodies, and how lousy a huge number of them feel about those bodies. In no way is that restricted to black women."
Amen.
I’d like to report back on the Bollywood-themed corporate party I attended this past weekend. Most of the guests (me included) were non-Indian and came dressed in theme. A wonderful cultural appropriation good time was had by all.