So "We speak English" is racist, but "Hablamos Espanol" isn't? Uh huh then...

The BBQ Pit
1

(Not a lot of vulgarity on my behalf here, but I figure most things about racism and such end up here anyway-- plus everybody involved is a flaming fucktard…well, except me :smiley: ).

This evening, I made the fatal mistake of watching the local news. Apparently, the biggest happening in my fair city ('sides the 3.0 earthquake, LOOK OUT! :stuck_out_tongue: ) is that a gardener put the following words in his advertisement:

We Speak English

Within two days of this ad being placed in the paper, people have gone nuts. “Racism” is being thrown about all over the place.

The gardener (a white male) defended his choice, explaining that he hears endless complaints from people about how they simply cannot communicate with gardeners. I hear complaints like this all the time from friends, family, and our clients. Heck, even my dad can’t speak to our gardeners (how he hired them, I dunno)- he relies on the fact that I fluently speak Spanish.

A Hispanic female who runs her family gardening service (a seperate service) also defended the white gardener for the same reasons he gave. She added, “How is ‘We Speak English’ racist and unfair, but ‘Hablamos Espanol’ isn’t?”

So the reporter went the director of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and asked that very question. His enlightened reply?

“Well, ‘We Speak English’ is racist, that’s why.”

Well, I’ll be damned. It’ll makes sense now, you fucking idiot.
Perhaps someone can come in and explain to me why one is racist and the other is not? Does any logical person actually believe that?

I get that putting “We Speak English” may take away from only Spanish speaking gardening service, but “Hablamos Espanol” is just as likely to have the same effect in other settings.

THIS is why I shouldn’t watch the local news. Well, this and the urgent report about the 3.0 earthquake that ravaged the middle of nowhere outside of town. That poor cotton field was ravaged- RAVAGED, I tell you!

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It’s racist because the fucktard bleeding-heart offenderati say it’s racist. You can’t argue with that! :smiley:

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It would be impossible to say whether “Hablamas Espanol” is racist unless we knew the context. If the business saying “Hey, if you speak Spanigh we can serve you in Spanish here” or are they saying “Anglos need not apply”? The former’s obviously not racist; the latter definitely is.

Similarly, what exactly does “We Speak English” mean? Well, good for you. Are they saying they only serve customers in English? Or does that mean the applicants must speak English? Do they have to speak only English, or are bilingual applicants okay? If you need Anglophone employees why can’t you sort that out at the job interview?

4

I think that those who are complaining about the We Speak English advertisement are the racists.

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This is where the controversy probably originates. “We speak English” sounds exclusionary while “Hablemos Espano” sounds inclusionary. The motives behind the phrase are vague simply from the wording, so it’s easy to misinterpret it as more offensive than intended.

The rationale behind “We speak English” makes perfect sense and, contextually, is not racist, IMHO, but if you’re seeing the ad, it does sound like they don’t might not want non-English business. That’s the first impression I got, and we have a gardener that doesn’t speak English.

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The tone I got from the ad was “We speak English, so you don’t have to have an interpreter present when telling your gardener not to prune the hycinths.” This would be a major selling point, believe me!

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I wonder if there would have been this kerfuffle had the ad read: “Our employees speak English”?

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I guess you’re just not anybody these days unless your offended by something. REALLY offended.

Anecdote: I came home the other day when my gardeners were working. I don’t usually see them, so I just said to the one guy I encountered: “How’s it going?” He shook his head politely, smiled and said “No English”. I smiled back and said something like “Que pasa?”, but it did suprise me that the guy couldn’t even reply to “How’s it going?” in English. Maybe he was just nervous about getting himself involved in a longer conversation. At any rate, most of the people I know would prefer to have gardners who do speak English. I’m not sure if they’d be willing to pay more for that, but it would be a selling point.

Perhaps the source of the uproar about this case is the recent case where a bar owner posted something to the effect of: "“If you want to order a drink, you have to do so in English”. He claimed it was simply because he didn’t have any Spanish speaking staff, and it was not uncommon for some patrons to use Spanish when ordering a drink. A local judge ruled that the sign was discriminatory.

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I don’t think saying “We Speak English” is racist. I remember when we needed our roof done after a hail storm, the company sent Spanish speaking men to do it. They could not understand my father trying to ask them if they wanted water. At all. So he just set some out. It is hard for some people to communicate with others who do not speak their language. I personally would rather have a gardener, as the case is, that speaks English. I don’t give a rat’s ass if they are anglo or whatever, I’d just like to be able to explain easily where to plant the sunflowers. If someone starts speaking to me in German, I am not going to be able to understand a word they say. Would a German family that only spoke German want a person who could only speak English as their gardener? Probably not, because they couldn’t understand each other.

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Maybe it’s the poor use of gramar folks are picking up a bad vibe from.

The “We speak english” sounds dangerously close to “We speaky english”

As EddyTeddyFreddy points out; I think what the bussiness guy needs is a gramar lesson. Either that or quit being so damn cheap and spend the extra money it takes to add “Our employees speak english.” :smiley:

Hey! I just realized something. The hypersensitive actually help stimulate the ecconomy! They are good for something after all.

Again, :smiley:

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It could almost, just almost be construed to mean “We’re not non-English speaking wet-backs”. I did say almost.

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This guy’s probably going to make a fortune from all the publicity. Remember, there’s no such thing as BAD publicity.

He’s probably not going to lose any customers that don’t speak any languages other than English. He might be considered a racist by people who’s primary language is not English. And he’ll probably pick up a shitload of customers who are tired of trying to communicate with people that don’t speak clear English.

I deal with a LOT of Vietnamese people every day and I’ve learned to understand even the worst broken accent (you get that a lot with the older ones who didn’t start to learn English until late in life). But over the past 9 weeks, there’s been a lot of Mexican laborers in the New Orleans area doing roofing and construction and I’ve gotten so tuned to the Vietnamese tongue that I have a hell of a time understanding the Mexican accent.

If you don’t deal with people with accents on a daily basis, even the slightest accent sounds like gibberish.

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Context is everything. If the advertiser uses “We speak English” to mean “We try to address the issues our customers have raised” all well and good. If the advertiser uses “We speak English” to mean “Don’t worry about one of our gardeners stealing stuff from your garage because we don’t hire Mexicans” then it’s racist.

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:confused:

The phrase has potential negative connotations, true, but…it’s not bad grammar.

I don’t think it’s racist, though. It’s no different from predominantly English-speaking companies putting ‘se habla espanol’ in their ads. It just means they’re making an effort to expand their customer base.

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How can we divine intent in this case? Lacking the ability to do so, why are questions of racism even germane?

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Ya know, I’m Hispanic here. But this is also America and Spanish is certainly not the primary language. If someone who wants to work doesn’t bother to learn English well they should expect it to be difficult to find work.

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I know Espanol quite well (yet not perfectly, so feel free to correct me), but doesn’t “Hablamos Espanol” mean exactly: We Speak Spanish?

How is that any different than: *“We Speak English”? *

I understand ArchiveGuy’s inclusionary/exclusionary point, but the market here is predominantly English speaking. A certain workforce is not catering to the needs of that group, so an industrious dude comes along and points out that he and his workers all speak English.

If he worked in a very Korean town, would it be wrong for him to put “We Speak Korean” (but, ya know, in Korean) in his ad?

When I started working for my father, he added “Hablamos Espanol” to his newspaper ad. Is that racist? I can’t fathom how anyone could possibly say it is.

Little Nemo- I can assure you that the guy didn’t mean it like that at all. They showed the ad on the news. It was your standard ad:

JOE’S SUPER FANTASTIC GARDENING SERVICE
Specializing in lawn care, blah blah.
We speak English. Free estimate.
661-555-5555

The guy seemed like a normal, calm guy who was just explaining his point. He had heard a lot of complaints and addressed a problem.

Contrapuntal- according to the local Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the discussion of racism is germane because the ad is, um, racist? :smack:

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Español. You’re welcome.
:smiley:

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Wolfian
I knew some smart ass was going to come in and correct that. Did you think that maybe- just maybe- I was too lazy to figure out how to make “ñ”? :stuck_out_tongue:

Hell, I was so lazy that I just copy and pasted it out of your post!

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Fair enough, I reteact my last statement. At the time I was thinking “We speak english” was a fragmented sentence. I stand corrected.

I always got piss poor grades in english class. (As if that didn’t already show in most of my posts)