See, here I’ve stated that I’m making my own personal assumptions. In fact, I’m not even sure I understand your question. How is this issue anyone’s business in this thread? Why don’t you ask the same question of everyone who’s posted?
As I stated I’m an African-American male, as I believe you are. When I see people parodying the culture of which I am a part - and I don’t mean the “gangsta” aspect, as I don’t feel that’s necessarily race-connected; thugs are thugs regardless of race (in my opinion) - I feel they are taking the piss. I completely understand that the person likely did not get up and think, “Oh, I’ll deliberately go out and annoy HH today at the mall!”
Actually I do have a working class accent known as Esturine English,a little diluted by working for some years in an enviroment that recruited personell from all over the U.K. with whom I worked 24/7, but I dont exaggerate it for effect.
Its quite similar to but milder then Sir Alan Sugars ,who is a self made, pounds sterling, billionaire or close.
Class isnt considered equivalent to intelligence over here ,an old boy of my school became the British Primeminister as have many working class people .
The words that you’re trying to put into the mouths of our upper class are obviously of your own conjecture and have no foundation in fact.
Idont think that the ex PM considered himself to have half his brain removed though maybe you equate the financial staus of an individuals family at birth with intelligence .
If you do Im afraid that I dont agree with you .
Are you saying that you and Monty are of W.Indian ethnicity? or are you saying that the Afro American accent is the same as the W.Indian ?
Because if you are saying the latter then you are well off of the mark.
As Monty has apparently served in both the U.S. Army and Navy for many years according to his posts I’m surprised that he hasnt experienced just a little dialect moderation after serving for so long a time .
The reason that some young Brits. of W.Indian descent can sound like they are retarded is because they are FAKING the accent so that it sounds like a charicature of the real thing.
Second ,third or fourth generation British W.Indians usually dont have parents with incredibly strong accents and they dont usually have one themselves.
You can liken it with Dick Van Dykes attempt at a cockney accent in Mary Poppins or the actress in Buffy attempting a Jamaican accent
It is quite comical to see a W.I.descended young male speaking in a standard accent approached by his mate who has also just been speaking in a standard accent to someone else and watch them go into the farce of pretending that they are hard core Yardies when they both know that they’ve spent their entire lives in Wellingborough ,Northamptionshire ,England .
Finally I find the concept of speaking with one accent in public and an exaggerated version of the same at home bizarre,a different language at home I can understand but two accents ?
Why bother?
I think the point is that you see code switching (that’s what it’s called) in several cultures, not just W. Indian. My African American relatives use code switching just as much as my W. Indian relatives do. They just use different accents. It usually doesn’t have anything to do with faking. If you want to interact with the rest of society, it’s easiest to use the most popular way of speaking, which may not be the one you use at home, because if not, people will struggle (or pretend to struggle) to understand you, or will make comments about how you must’ve had half your brain removed. When you’re around family, you can drop back into the more casual way of speaking that you’re comfortable with.
It is your opinion that they are faking the accent, Lust4Life. It is also your opinion that the accent they use when speaking with other members of their group “sounds retarded.” I notice that you did not specify what it is in that accent makes it sound as though “half their brain was removed.” I also note that you are not unfamiliar with the concept of code switching–you used the expressions “dialect moderation” and “dilution.”
Yes, I served for 6 1/2 years in the active Army, 13 months in the Army Reserves, and 13 1/2 years in the active Navy. My usage of the Standard American English register is something I learned, though, in primary and secondary schools. As I mentioned above, I use the register I learned at home when speaking with my family.
I’m curious. Are you faking your “diluted” accent? I know I’m not faking any accent whatsoever. I’m using the particular mode of speech (accent/register) for the linguistic environment in which I find myself, just as those whom you are castigating do.
I agree with the Israeli for once. Hip-hop culture is offensive either way, but the black kids will just shut their ears & say, “No, it’s my culture.” The white kids think they’re being cool & “street”–but they don’t even have the excuse of racial pride. Since I’m white, it bugs me. But really, it’s sadder when black kids do it & think that’s what being black is.
Note that I’m not talking about self-loathing white kids, or white kids who dig black culture, date blacks, etc. I’m talking about the hip-hop gangsta crowd, who refuse to speak proper English & embrace the most degenerate theory of “street.”
I think this whole thing is being sold by cynical white Jewish-American suits anyway.
ETA: Some white people have “black” sounding accents. It’s a southern thing.
I get your point Omega and I suppose I have been guilty of code switching myself at times in the past ,mostly if I walk into a pub on a violent estate where a posh accent will make you a target and at the opposite extreme I always speak more slowly and clearly to someone who is not fluent in English .
n fact I have been known to speak with an Ulster accent when working in Northern Ireland in the past .
But to explain my point perhaps a little more clearly.
The kids arent reverting to "home speak"they are trying to ape dialect that they have seen in movies or on T.V. or worse from other kids who have done the same before them.
A little bit like dialectical “chinese whispers”.
One of my best mates is a first generation immigrant from Barbados,hes no spring chicken ,has been over here for about thirty years is married to an English wife who has an English Midlands accent and has two (grownup )kids who speak with a better pronunciation then I do, indoors or out.
Ive known him for a good many years but at times I still find it difficult to understand him.
He speaks the same at home as he does at work or out but it is his genuine accent .
He doesnt sound as though hes had half his brain removed or to put it more tactfully maybe ,he doesnt sound as though hes stoned out of his head because hes speaking in his natural accent so hes not exaggerating any part of his speech to sound cool.
I wasnt saying that the W.Indies accent sounded like lobotomised speech ,but I was saying that phonies do.
It was not my intention to insult anyones natural accent.
You continue to use the expression “sound as though he’s had half his brain removed” and yet you have not explained what you mean by it. For the 3rd time, what specifically is it that you find to be such an indicator?
I don’t hate wiggers, I think they and the “thug culture” they are trying to emulate just serve to make them appear as jackasses that nobody can take seriously.
“Code switching”, huh? I wondered what it was called. I have done it in between groups too, and I’m white. It might be something as simple as using the word “What?” instead of saying “excuse me?” or “pardon?” in a lower-class crowd, or it could just mean talking down.
I agree with a post upthread that we don’t expect any better from black kids, but we just assume that white kids didn’t come from low down circumstances. I find that pretty sad in myself. I would be horrified to be called white trash- what is the status symbol of being called a nigger?
But I guess it’s just this generation looking for any way to be cool and edgy and terrifying to old people… We smoked a lot of pot, drank, smoked cigarettes because they were cool and had casual sex.
The most unfortunate thing about this is that so many people think that Hip Hop culture is nothing more than Pimps and Hos. It’s so much more. It’s about asserting yourself when you are being pushed down. Keeping it real does have a meaning even if that’s one of the most abused phrases ever. When you meet someone who really is ‘street’ and get to know what that means it’s pretty far from the juvenile portrayal it gets in the media.
Street philosophy is very deep, and it addresses some of the most primal issues of man, that we are not as far from the jungle as we like to think. It addresses power structures and the black market, and its place in society. It is about a way that some black men have found to become CEOs and Kingpins. It’s not like Bill Gates is less of Gangster than P. Diddy. Sure Diddy beat the crap out of an editor at The Source, but Bill Gates ripped off what Apple ripped off from Xerox, and convinced a bunch of old suits at IBM who didn’t quite get his program to allow him to license his software independently of their hardware. That’s Gangsta without the oversized Jersey.
If you live in New York you travel the personal dream of one of the biggest gangsters of the 20th Century, Robert Moses. That’s what Hip Hop is about, it’s about being a part of that, being down near the bottom where you can feel the pulse coming up from the Earth, and expressing that with what little you have. It’s pouring your heart out on the subway with your friends beatboxing.
Maya Angelou’s “I know why the Caged Bird Sings”, speaks out the soul of Hip Hop. It’s not just about “putting D’s on this bitch”.
I think that’s why people hate wiggers, because they can’t feel that beat coming up from the ground, they don’t feel it in their heart. It’s not that being black gives you instacred because a poser is a poser. Hip Hop is all about the struggle to survive. It’s about life at it’s most raw. You can listen to Eminem’s first couple of albums and you hear him unapologetically spitting out all of the vile venom that filled the first part of his fucked up life. Most people don’t disrespect Eminem, he’s got credit for being real. He came up battling in the clubs, he can bust out a rhyme extemporaneously.
It’s the not being real that makes a wigger a wigger, and the only reason that it is different from a black person of the same character, is that they are easier to spot.
Yes I can see that you’re struggling here so I will attempt to simplify the message even more and see if this helps you out.
They exagerate parts of their speach so much that it sounds as though they have received a serious head injury at some time in their lives ,or that they are drunk ,or have been smoking skunk.
When they speak it sounds like a parody of the accent they’re attempting to emulate .
It approaches incomprehensibility.
Now I know you might say it might sound incomprehensible to a Whitey like me but the kids are on the same vibe or whatever , but quite often ,judging by the blank looks on their faces or innappropriate responses they dont actually understand each other for part of the time .
The reason for this is because they are not speaking in an accent that they have learned naturally ie.Growing up at home ,amidst friends at school or at work.
So their ear isn’t naturally attuned to the dialect and they are not speaking it as natural speakers speak it .
I’m afraid that I cant simplify the statement any more without insulting other posters intelligence so for the third time I hope you that you at last can understand what to most people seems to be a pretty straightforward message.
But if that is not the case feel free to call on my help again .I like to think that I am a helpful sort of person generally.
It seems to me that many blacks do the same thing - follow the culture of their youth b/c it’s cool and they want to look cool - and isn’t that what posing is all about?
I was in the “hippie” generation and most of them were posers… are you all saying that only white pose all of the time? Yet blacks are sincere? Seems to me that blacks - being people - are subject to the same posing influences as anyone else.
In my classes I have some black students who pose as “gangsta” - so I ask them what kind of a real job do they expect to get with that persona? Around me they stop posing, but around their friends I can see that they play the same tune again.
Black culture is about disrespecting white culture. When white kids do it it becomes an oxymoron. That’s why I enjoyed “Malibu’s most wanted.”
Finally, isn’t the whole “gangsta” culture really making a mockery of the mafia “culture”??? wow - what a revelation… seems to me that kids will do what they want when they want to look cool to whom they want - white black yellow brown green or purple.
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Why is Rodney King’s plea: “Can’t we all just get along?” a common joke?
I’m struggling here, as you say, because all you have done is express an opinion as though it’s a fact. When queried on the basis of your opinion, you merely repeat the opinion, albeit in different words.
[quiote]They exagerate parts of their speach so much that it sounds as though they have received a serious head injury at some time in their lives ,or that they are drunk ,or have been smoking skunk.
[/quote]
What, exactly, is it in their speech that makes them sound that way? What parts of their speech do they exaggerate? How is it exaggerated? How do you know it’s exaggerated?
Yet another vague description. Again, what is it in their speech, specifically, makes it sound like a parody?
Ah, it’s just another accent that you don’t like, yet you do understand it?
The horrors! And, in your entire life, you’ve never misunderstood someone speaking your normally used accent and register?
Very interesting assertion you make there. Where, then, did they learn the accent/register they’re using?
Thanks for the laugh.
Your straightforward message so far comes across as “I can’t stand the way the speak so I’ll denigrate it although I can’t say what it is in their speech that I don’t like.”
Apparently, you’re quite mistaken. You have failed to identify a single thing in the speech habits of the people you’re denigrating.
Yes, I am appreciating an art form in a thread full of a bunch of people who can’t appreciate it for the acolades. You got me, I am just trying to be an apologist because I’m a wigger. ;p
While I do appreciate the obvious sincerity and earnestness with which you posted these thoughts, I feel I need to point out in them something that is confusing to people outside of the culture you’re describing but who are looking for reasons to like or respect it.
Twice in your message you seemed to use the words Gangsta or gangsters as a sign of respect, admiration, success, etc. (If my assumption there is inaccurate, please correct me; I’m doing my best to interpret). That being said, your post seems to focus primarily on the point that many ‘outsiders’ to the hip-hop culture (regardless of color) often associate with it the negativity of pimps, ho’s, and the like. To me, though, as someone who knows essentially nothing about ‘street’ life or culture, it seems contradictory to hear someone defending the surreal sort of beauty associated with strife and struggle that so many other groups of poeple have taken in as part of their backbone as a culture, but at the same time use words like ‘Gangsta’ in doing so. When I think of ‘Gangsta’, I don’t think of someone just trying to make it in the most honest and hard-working way they know how, or of someone who respects the people around him and would never do anything to harm another person. I think of a ‘Gangsta’ as a derivation of ‘Gangster’, and unlike the rest of the United States I don’t sit around idealizing the violence and viciousness and the ‘code of honor’ associated with organized crime.
If the poet you referenced in you post would ever deign to describe something she liked or respected as Gangsta, please let me know. All sarcasm aside, I’ll take that and do my best to synthesize it as something I didn’t know before that I now do, and use it to try to understand black culture a little better. But if you think she wouldn’t, if you think you’ve perhaps displayed a bit of dichotomy that is unique to a ?younger? generation of black kids trying to take the best of the two black worlds they know and blend them into something they can call their own and be proud of, then take my thoughts as an honest expression of what is a big part of what’s confusing many ‘outsiders’.