I grew up in Ohio which is 85% white last time I checked and I still had black friends. Now that I live in Southern California, I have less real-life black friends because I’ve only met like 10 black people since being out here. I’ve kept up with some of my black friends from Ohio through livejournal or phone chats but most of my Ohio friends have faded away because of the distance.
When I first moved out here, I only knew Asians and for a while, I was the only white girl in my friends group. I lived in the projects of LA where I was surrounded by Asians and Mexicans. Once I went to the local McDonalds and saw another white person. We both stared at each other. Since then, I’ve met white people along with many other ethnicities.
hmm. Interesting discussion. To answer correctly, I would need to know how “friend” is defined. I consider myself lucky that I have 3 good friends–a friend to me is someone who wouldn’t mind being woken up by me at 0300 and to come get me because my car broke down, and vice versa, of course.
So, according to that criteria, I have several people at work who are black that I am friendly with, but only one who would qualify as a friend.
As for the other discussion going on here–I come down more on the side of Rsschen or whoever it was that said that she doesn’t become friends with people who don’t share her speech patterns etc. I highly doubt that this is unusual in anyone, and IMO, it’s more a function of class or SES than race (although in the USA, one could argue that class and race are hopelessly intertwined). I cannot speak to the intelligence of anyone who speaks “street”, but I know I don’t want to befriend them. Does that mean I want to do them down or see them fail? Of course not–it means I am not comfortable with their manner of expressing themselves (and yes, I now feel like an old fart).
I don’t see slang as “cool” or poetry or anything like that. I don’t view poor grammar etc as indicative of hiding a genius–I see it as uneducated and even, at times, a sign of stupidity. I see this in the white people at work, who speak a strange Chicago-ese, as well as the blacks at work. None of them are doing themselves any favors when words are misspronounced, sentences poorly constructed and street terms used in a professional setting. These are not immigrants who learned English as a second language, these are Americans who are lazy in speech and lack the vocabulary to express their thoughts–I don’t care what race they are. They may be the greatest people in the world, but they don’t come across that way.
As for the quote above: and just what is “keeping it real”? Is a black person compelled to code switch? Does Condi loosen her tongue when with her friends?(or Colin Powell or Sidney Poitier?). Just what is it to be black–is it the stereotyped image seen on TV or is it being free to be however you like? Can’t a black person be the equivalent of Martin Mull? Or is it required that because they are black, they must conform to some cultural approach or social behavior to “prove” their blackness?
I am not trying to be a jerk here, but I am curious. I ask this not only because of this thread, but because of conversations I have participated in at work. There is a large immigrant population at my hospital, mostly Nigerian and Ghanain (sp?)–and they overwhelmingly reject the hiphop/rap stuff, as well as the “playuh” image so touted on MTV etc. Their teens (from their reports, so who knows) stay in school, speak “properly” and mind their parents. This is veering waaaay off the topic, but I am curious. I have witnessed vehement arguments and scathing criticisms from those from Africa to African-Americans, one woman going as far to say, “you will not corrupt my son with your music and your talk.” Something is going on here, for sure.
Sorry, didn’t mean to hijack, but it is related. If we pick our friends from people whose values (or interests) we share, and if language or speech is a barrier to that–what to do?
We all have our work talk and our at home talk–but what is wrong with wanting those to be quite similiar? I don’t get it. I hate rap music–am I racist? No–why do I have to approve of the ebonics or whatever to not be racist? This makes no sense to me.
Frankly, I’m astonished you don’t get it. It’s not that deep.
The more appropriate question is why would I feel the need to bring up my aversion to satanism and incest in response to a question about my friendships with white people. The mere act of throwing that out there suggests I think these practices go hand in hand with being white, thereby making it evident that I only make friends with exceptions to the rule.
OP: Black people, do you have white friends?
ywtf: I make friends with all colors. One of my best friends is white. Now, and I hate to say this, but if upon introduction he’d told me likes to kill random people and bury them in his basement like John Wayne Gacy the Clown, we would not have been friends. But he isn’t like that. I love him.
See how bizarre this sounds? Of course I’m going for hyperbole now because the less outlandish stereotypes apparently failed to get my point across to you. But the basic principle is the same.
I had a couple of black co-workers that I would hang out with outside of work quite frequently, I’d say they were friends. We’d go out for drinks after work every Wednesday and Friday, go to each others parties, etc. I’ve fallen out of touch with them since I have left the rat-race, though I do get email from one every now and then.
Both of my black friends were from Africa, though - one from Tanzania and the other from Kenya. It’s not that I discriminate against American blacks, it’s just that all the black women I worked with were very stand-offish towards me and I always got the impression that any attempt to become friends with them was unwelcome. I got a lot of attention from black men, and I attempted to make friends with them, but in every case they were only interested in dating me and I’m not attracted to black men.
I’m white, but have had many friends of different races and/or cultures. The area I grew up in is ethnically diverse due to it’s close proximity to military installations.
I don’t decide to become friendly with someone because of race. Like most people, my decisions are based on common interests, intelligent conversation, warmth, etc. I don’t even think about someone’s race. I don’t understand people who do. That’s just me; so please don’t attack me for that statement. It’s who I am.
At this stage in my life, most of my closest friends are white, but that has more to do with neighborhood I live in, than anything else. In my wider circle of friends, I have friends that are Dominican, Mexican, Spanish, Guamese (?), Black, and Korean. Admittedly, I’m not as close them, as I rarely see them. My Dominican friend is currently in Iraq, although I see I his wife everyday. She’s white and we’ve become very good friends. We all go out together, or come to each other’s homes. They are both awesome friends that I am proud to have.
I have had black friends that I hung out with, or at least did lunch with, but they have all moved to different states.
My daughter’s circle of friends is quite diverse; Asian, Black, white, Latino, etc. They all hang out and go places together. They’ve been in each other’s homes, etc.
Would you say you couldn’t be friends with such people because they are unequal to you, uncivilized, and unlovable by you? Because RSSChen has said those things. Do you agree?
No one said it was cool or poetry. All we are saying is that it is no different from the fact that all over this country and this globe, people speak differently from one another, even within the same language. Yet in this particular case, it’s taken by some as being a sign of uncivilized ignorance.
i don’t know if we’re talking about the same thing. RSSChen’s example is people who say “dayum” a lot. Do you think people who say “dayum” a lot are also incapable of expressing their thoughts and feels? I grew up in the ghetto, and I’ve heard a lot of folks talking English a lot of different ways. None of them had any problem expressing themselves, or even had a particularly limited vocabulary. Indeed, from their perspective, is not the vocabulary of those who sneer at their dialects also limited in turn?
From here on, the rest of your post is best addressed by black folks, I think, since they have the experience to frame the answers in a personal way for you. But I would like to ask…Why should they change, and not you? Why shouldn’t you be the equivalent of Martin Lawrence?
You are the first person to use the word racism in this thread, I believe.
I think we’re touching on two different issues here. I now understand what you’re saying regarding Rsschen’sstatements about her neighbor being unsolicited and therefore out of place in this thread. Since you addressed it at the same time you were responding to me, I was a bit confused.
My comments about choosing not to hang around a certain cultural sect (I know some people want very badly to turn this into a race thing, but I’m not biting, so don’t even go there)was part of my response to another issue entirely.
Basically this thread has been hijacked and I’m one of the people holding an AK47. I do apologize for that.
But this is exactly the problem as I see it. You’re limiting yourself to people who have assimilated to your version of what is proper. And as you state, in this country, race and SES are totally conflated. When you say somebody speaks “street,” I’d need to know what that means. I live in Massachusetts and when I go to, say, Everett, the accents and terminology people use are quite far from the way Brian Williams sounds on the NBC Nightly News. That wouldn’t prevent me from befriending someone, even if it was initially hard to understand them. When I first met her, I couldn’t understand my best friend from high school’s mom very easily but now it isn’t a problem. Hell, plop someone in a foreign land and in a few days, they’ll have figured out a way to communicate.
I wouldn’t want to be befriend someone who is dishonest, untrustworthy, or bigoted.
But I don’t understand how language is a function that disqualifies someone from potential friendship. It stands to reason that you might not be best friends with someone with radically different cultural and linguistic patterns, if you prefer to be close to those more like you, but to make friendship impossible because of someone’s language isn’t like yours… a little puzzling. Maybe we have different definitions of friendship here. A friend to me is someone you can confide in, who you help out in times of need (and vice-versa), someone you share an interest or two with (kids, gardening, video games, whatever). Someone you’d open your home to, house-sit for, that kind of stuff.
Now if you knew for a fact that this person was talking in a way to deliberately confuse you, or in some adolescent rejection of dominant culture, fine, I get that. But how do you know from a one-off meeting?
I guess you have to define how slang is being used. When I’m around Texans I don’t say “I’m about to have a beer,” I say “I’m fiddin’ (fixing) ta get a beer.” Because that’s a word we tend to use, indicates informality. I speak that way holding an Ivy-League degree. Again, I’ve been exposed to different places and cultures so I would not order a beer in the same way in East Boston. Are you saying that people talk in completely incomprehensible slang, or are they dropping a slang term or two into their vocabulary that most people know, or can figure out through context?
The funny thing to me is that I’m more disturbed if someone writes poorly. If your office mates write a letter to the mayor full of informal constructions, just like they talk, I might think something’s going on there. Language is supposed to be effective and quick, I think, in everyday usage. If people get your meaning it’s fine by me.
I don’t know any of those people, nor do I know how they act in private so I can’t answer that question. I have some Black friends who tend to speak in a very formal manner at a conference but also at a barbeque. Others may use colloquialisms from their neck of the woods or phrases their parents or grandparents used to say, but you don’t hear every day in the ivory tower. If the person who talks formally is doing so because that’s how he or she feels like talking, and that’s how he or she talks all the time, that person is keeping it real. If he or she feels the need to “Blacken up” around Black folks, that’s corny. It’s basically a variant of “Be yourself.”
When I was younger I certainly felt a need to conform to what I saw as Black culture - dress, speech, music, and so forth. While some of those preferences were genuine some were rather contrived (I’m embarrassed to admit). Today, I make no bones about the fact that I love Public Enemy, and The Smiths - that’s who I am. As a teen I would have hidden The Smiths CDs and thrown in a couple of hip-hop artists “just because.” I know young people like this, and I assume they’ll grow out of it. Among my Black friends we often will talk about something that’s stereotypically White - like watching Seinfeld, liking AC/DC - and we’ll “come out the closet” and say, “Yeah, well, I actually have Back In Black at home.”
Media plays a huge role in defining our perceptions of what “Black culture” is. Rebellion is part of adolescence, and I think African Americans, through the arts especially, have less apprehension about rebellion than Whites. Example - rock 'n roll as articulated by Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and their ilk talked about sex, drugs, and antisocial behavior. White artists used that platform to do the same, from Elvis to Eminem. I do think country music is an example of Whites doing the exact same thing. But for some reason people refuse to see, say Mike Jones, as anything but a rap artist. He might also be a student, taxpayer, hourly employee, grandson. Blacks are caricatured as being simply manifestations of a specific cultural movement. I taught in inner-city Houston… guess how my kids reacted when they got a good grade, or understood a concept? They got excited and happy - just like every other kid does. People want to act as if a young Black kid in baggy clothes listening to Li’l Jon is somehow an alien with different morals and life aspirations… that kid wants to be respected, wants to be smart, wants his peers to like him.
My students were from the most economically depressed area of Houston but with very few exceptions, they respected their parents and adults in authority (of course they would test limits as kids always do). They certainly had identifiable accents but could speak standard English, as they did in the classrooom. (Some kids would ask if they could “use it.” In two weeks, they raised their hands and asked, “May I use the restroom?” It just takes a teacher/adult to expect them to do it that way. “Use it” might be fine and valid in one context, just not in the school.)
Sounds like some of the people you’ve encountered have bought into the hype and believe that African Americans are all gangsta culture and nothing else. This is why friendships are important. If you befriend someone who seems to embrace this culture you might find there is considerable depth to what else is going on. They might dress a certain way but they also have responsibilities at home. They might like loud hip-hop but they also might be loving and tender around their grandparents. It’s easy to vilify what you don’t know.
I don’t listen to country or classical music on a regular basis. But I don’t hate those musical forms. In fact, I have found examples of both which I actually like and/or appreciate. I think it’s a little limited to say “I hate [insert cultural expression here]” and furthermore (in my mind) denigrates those who have a deep appreciation for that form of cultural expression. To declare that “I hate opera” would immediately, in my mind, make opera fans think a little less of you and also inspire them to point out to you that there are many kinds of opera, likely some kinds that might appeal to you.
Hate to me equals ignorance. I’ve never heard someone say, “I’ve done an exhaustive listen of hip-hop, from the Lost Poets to Afrika Bambataa to Kool G Rap to Ice-T to NWA to Common… and I hate it.” Anytime I’ve stated extreme dislike for a type of food or art someone usually points out that there’s a form I haven’t tried, and usually I can at least appreciate the less-known forms.
Re: Ebonics… I’ve never known anyone who speaks in Ebonics or (AAVE) all the time. Young kids might because they are still learning language. I’d have to ask, what about Ebonics is so troubling to you? I have friends who speak Spanish from Spain who regularly tell me it’s hard to follow the Spanish my Mexican American friends speak. There is slang or different meanings for words… but I don’t get the sense that there is a feeling that that dialect is useless or objectionable.
Maybe we should start a thread on this other topic? I don’t think we’re way off-topic here, though.
I can’t really say I have any black friends. But then again, I really don’t have that many friends any. There’s some people I’m friendly with and talk to casually but I wouldn’t call them friends per se.
This is not an attempt to look for pity, I’m just not that big on having a large social group.
White chick with no black friends here (though I do miss my friend Flip). Like Stephen Colbert, I’m currently accepting applications for my New Black Friend.
I’m also accepting applications for my New Indian Friend, as the last one up and moved to Cleveland about a month ago.
My officemate is a black woman, and we’ve gotten along very well for almost 5 years now (we even teamed up one Halloween to be the Blues Brothers), but I doubt we’d hang out together outside of work. Nothing to do with her skin color, though, and everything to do with the fact that she gets no pop culture references. Not a one. We might go to a musical or something together someday, and we’re close as officemates, but we’d just never be very close personal friends.
My family is its own little rainbow coalition, thanks to marriages and adoptions: My cousin’s husband is black (he is my friend, but not the kind the OP is talking about) as is her stepdaughter; my youngest cousin is Chinese; my oldest cousin is at least half Native American; and my best friend’s little boy is Mexican (he’s like a nephew to me, so I’m lumping him in with my family … poor kid).
Yes, it was a fine post. I do hope that Hippy Hollow is not shoe horning me the way he seems to be accusing me of doing to other races, though. My black friend at work (and I defined friend quite clearly in my first post), does not speak “proper” English. I both like and respect her–but neither of those is tied to her speech. Nor is it to my other co-workers and patients–but I define friend somewhat differently than you do, perhaps.
I say this just so you know that I can and do look past most speech patterns (Indian doctors, Filipino nurses, Nigerians and Ghanians make up my work world–I am friendly with all, but friends with few. I see nothing wrong with that–afterall, keep in mind that they are the same toward me as I am toward them. We all get along, for the most part and get our work done. I feel no need to go further than that, unless there is a more personal chord struck, as happened with D., my friend at work who is black). I am certainly not going to code switch into the vernacular that minorities use at work–to do so would feel wrong, and just be wrong. I think it would also be seen as offensive to them, and mocking. I really don’t get why I am supposed to want to talk like that or elevate such speech to some greater good. Standard English is just fine for me. Frankly, I also don’t see the need to apologize for “white English” being dominant speech pattern in this country, and I don’t see the need to feel bad about that. Perhaps I am completely mis-reading this thread?
I don’t know if another thread should be started or not. I disliked and rolled my eyes at Ensign’s observation that I was the first one to bring up racism–so disingenous and fairly obnoxious, IMO. I still don’t have an answer (indeed there might not be one) to the required cultural baggage of a minority (hell, of a white person) in the USA today.
Take my example of hating rap (and hip hop)–I have tried to listen to it, truly. I have two teens at home, who listen to both types of music, quite a bit. Perhaps it is older generation vs younger and not racially tied at all–I find I cannot listen to it. I find it un-musical and I don’t like people talking at me over music. I have eclectic music tastes–but I find that a taste of rap constitutes a surfeit, as does opera for that matter. I see no reason to try to love opera, why try to love rap or hip hop? Because I would be “hip”? Because it’s used to show that I am closed minded and a closet racist (yeah, I know, no one said that-I’m extrapolating here) if I don’t love rap? That’s just plain silly.
I do look down on folks who cannot string a sentence together-in their native language, no less. “Dayum” is a folksy slangy thing to say every now and again–it shouldn’t be the best expression of your thought process every day in every situation. I would think that would make me a snob, but not a bigot. YMMV.
I don’t believe that people who cannot express themselves appropriately deserve lesser treatment or consideration than others–but I also don’t see why standards should not be striven for. (what a horrible sentence-sorry!). I deplore the “anything goes” attitude–that doesn’t play in the corporate or business world. Talk all the trash you want to with your friends (I also have different speech for friends vs work), but I disagree that such talk needs to be universally approved by all. And there is the not small factor that such talk is NOT limited to socializing, but is prevalent at least in my work environment. I am also somewhat tired of the whole you must be intolerant because you want clear communication stuff that I get at work(I don’t get that here, just saying). Not at all–I just want elucidation.
Take this for what it’s worth–I am not trying to convince anyone here or change anyone’s opinion, just speak to my experiences and interpretations of them.
I don’t think anyone is suggesting that people take up code switching for the fun of it. Most people code switch because it’s necessary. If you ended up in another section of the country, or another English speaking country I’m sure you’d change parts of your dialect to communicate more effectively to people outside your family. I don’t see anyone saying that white people need to feel bad because a certain kind of English is standard either. The thing is that there are lots of different kinds of English, and lots of different kinds of “white” American English. I think a lot of people get annoyed when AAVE is considered incorrect, 100% slang or ghetto, while, say, Southern English is seen as charming. I’m not saying that’s what you’re saying, of course.
Honestly, I’m all for using a standard version of English, because you can’t expect everyone to know every dialect.
Omega --thank you for that. I admit that I am sensitive about this and probably defensive as well, for reasons that I need not go into here. Suffice to say that I agree with you and leave it at that.
White guy here with no black friends. This county isn’t exactly a hotbed of racial diversity — 8% of Washington State’s population is black, they say, but comprise only 2% of the total population here in Thurston County.
I know very few black folks up here and see few on a daily basis. One guy is on the board of directors down at the community theater, and we get along just fine — but I wouldn’t go so far as to say we’re buddies. We just share a common interest.
It was nice to read your calm, thought out, and open minded response willing to reflect. It seems like setting has much to do with this; of course, a corporate setting would never settle with bad speech, a city setting might not settle with good speech; it sounds like intelligence is more of a third party reached between the two.
Yes, I remember you from the thread where you were wondering how to approach your son’s friend’s grandmother. So I know that you do try to be considerate of other people’s feelings on issues like this.
A quick survey of my Facebook friends reveals that I have 143 white friends, 64 black friends, 16 Asian friends, 6 Hispanic friends, and 4 “other” friends. I grouped people by what I thought they would describe themselves by.
