What up Homey? Yo-Yo Mr. Tom, you be talkin’ trash and dissin’ da Brothaz when ya’ll sez they be talkin’ dialect ‘stead o’ bad English. You muddafuckers ain’t got no clue to where da brudders is at! A’ight. Wha’chew think beatin’ daown da White man’s language is? Black bruddas and sistahs be speakin’ the soul talk. Got dat Holmes? Black brotha’s got POWER, man, and Black sistahs is pure Nubian Royalty. Who you think you be, Cracker, callin’ Black Soul language a dialect?
Broken English. Dialect might be another term for it, but it all boils down to friggin’ butchered up English. Deliberately butchered up. Kind of like the old Bronx English. I recall when a’ight made its debut from all right, in the Black language.
I think the point we’ve been arguing on is the interpretation of dialect. I consider it broken English. I consider the way Bostonians speak as dialect along with the odd way many Minnisotians end their words on the up tone. The difference is – the two examples speak English while the Black hodge podge consists of fractured and made up words. Much like the deliberately affected ‘cool limp.’
The thing of it is, most people using ‘dialect’ correct it when they want good jobs. Most Black people don’t. I worked with a Black professional woman who used excellent English – almost too excellent because she had to deliberately accent ending consonants on some words – almost like she was spitting them out. I was with her one evening after work when she met some of her Black friends and instantly, she was back to the ‘Jive’ talk and had changed from mature professional woman capable of handling thousands of dollars in business a day to ‘shuckin’ and jivin’ and acting as Black as Black can be. I did not like the change at all, BUT I admired her ability to conform to general society in the working place.
I used to have a strong Southern form of speaking years ago, complete with ain’t, ain’t got no, and so on. When I entered a business dealing directly with wealthy clients, I received complaints about the way I hashed up the language. So, I concentrated and changed it. I found that I got much more satisfactory results from people both in and out of business when I did not act like a ‘hick.’ The Southern ‘dialect’ I used was butchered English – plain and simple.
There are articles written in Psychology Today, People, JAMA, the Times, the Post, News and World Report and many other publications which deal with how the White male, especially, is starting to develop various problems because suddenly it is ‘in’ to blame HIM for all of the ills the newly termed African Americans suffered ages ago. There are articles written about how White people are bending over backwards to not offend, slight, or look down on the Blacks, which generated the Politically Correct era.
Through all of this, the Black people, attitude wise, are changing very slowly, though their general status in life is increasing rapidly.
With communications technology reaching into almost every nook of American society, there has been established an average standard of beauty. On the extreme end are the professionals, for whom beauty is not just a way of life, but often unobtainable for the average person. On the opposite end is the more realistic, generally obtainable form which consists of essentially various influences averaged out according to economic standing and availability.
We have people in the US from every nation in the world and they have their traditional customs, styles and so on that cling to them at a certain level. The closest variant to the Big ‘Beautiful’ (Black) Woman that I have come across are among the Eskimos, whose hefty size in women is common because of their need for fat as insulation and because of a tradition of having to go long times without food. Then comes certain American Indian Tribes.
I have also learned over the years that hefty women and often hefty men are most common among poverty populations where the cheapest food in the largest availability is very starchy.
BUT to my knowledge, the incidence of heavy women and men is highest among the Black communities. No where else, among any of the various peoples of the world, have I ever observed the strange and ‘ethnic’ hairstyles as accepted among Black women and Men nor what often appears to be ‘clownish’ attempts of applied decorations.
Some time back, the average Black man started dressing and looking more within the general ‘norm.’ (Mature males.) The only ‘style’ I noted to be radical was that it has become ‘in’ for Black men to shave their heads bald. Lately, they are starting to get body art, but then, so are people of many races.
Black women, however, seemed to lag behind, often ‘inventing’ odd ‘African’ hairstyles that had they been on White women, would have drawn laughter. Now, more and more Black women, instead of concentrating on ancient traditional styles, have begun to accept the more average styles of the general population, whiletastefully incorporating some African influence.
Every society has an average ‘normal.’ It has been obvious since sometime in the early 80s that the Blacks have been concentrating heavily on their ‘roots’ in Africa and demanding separation, yet acceptance on a racial level while demanding equality from the norm. The combination does not work.
A classic example is a photograph of Diana Ross in her television show tonight. She is clad in an expensive and flattering dress of modern design with an African motif, but her mass of hair is spread out in some vast apparently flattened afro explosion that, to me, makes her look like a jerk and I doubt was ever seen in Africa. Her earlier styles when she was singing steadily in the 60s and 70s were less Black Pride and more stylish and accented her face far better.
In conversations with some Black people I know concerning styles and such among the Blacks, I’ve discovered that often the Blacks themselves find certain styles they wear abhorrent but because they are supposed to be Black based, they wear them.
Now, if I were talking about some other peoples, say, like the French, I would not get half the shit I’m getting now and the French are known for being rude, their designers of woman’s’ clothing often should be shot and probably are woman haters and, for a time, they did produce some wacko hair styles for woman.
But, here again. That’s OK, because they’re White. Since I am discussing Black people, anything negative I say is considered a frontal, racial attack.
Some mornings, it’s just not worth chewing through the leather straps.
