On Race, Linguistics...and Connection

I'm from Brooklyn from immigrant stock. I've lived in the Southern United States. The Midwest. On the West Coast. Overseas.

I've worked in and travelled to dozens of countries. I am informed by and shaped by all of these places. I honor them. And am honored by them.

The people I Iove and respect most don't look like me, share the same traditions as my relatives, invoke when upset the same dialect for their expletives, or worship G-d in the manner I was raised.

I'm not afraid to say "Jew." Or refer to someone as "Black." Or to admit OF COURSE I "see" color. Truth be told I don't think we take the time to truly "see" each other in all our beautiful complexity at all anymore (labels seem to be much quicker these days ?? ).

But that diatribe I reserve for another time.

I am likewise not uncomfortable discussing that which society suggests is taboo (but over which Twitter encourages us to go for the jugular). Frankly, as someone who bores easily of cabbages-and-kings surface conversations, going deep into an area on which we might disagree - so long as we do so respectfully and, are already aligned on our fundamental human values - those are the conversations on which I thrive. NOT for the purposes of stirring the proverbial pot or being provocative or performative but rather, to learn.

To broaden my own understanding.

To become a better, more impactful human who does no (does less?) harm to those around her.

To this point: I stumbled upon this NYT Op Ed today from Columbia linguist John McWhorter, who in his reference to folks like white comedian Matt Rife explores the concept of "cultural appropriation" specifically in terms of linguistics.

(This is not about Rachel Dolezal and her grift and ilk. The woman and her grift and ilk was and remains abhorrent.)

Take a look at the author's justification for the 28 year old comedian's "Black English":

"And the reason seems to be that Black English, for him, as for so many Black people, is a comfort zone, where it all gets real.

It was peculiar for a white person to process Black English that way, to the point of making personal use of it, until roughly the late 1990s. But things have changed. Rife, born in 1995, grew up with rap as mainstream music in America, with most of its buyers white, and Dave Chappelle as a mainstream celebrity. It is reasonable to imagine that Rife thinks his audience processes his Black English usage as a warm method of interpersonal bonding in the same way he seems to. In fact, a tweet of his suggests that he hadn’t even been conscious of what he was doing until apprised, and doesn’t even think of himself as shifting into something “Black” at all.

In other words, Rife is not posing or ridiculing; he’s connecting."

The moment I read that I reached for my phone and texted the Brooklyn bestie.

"It's like how the moment we're handed a baby we immediately revert back to the endearment patois of our NYC youth - cooing "Mamma or Mami or Papi."

The irony of which is that neither of us hailed from the (largely) Puerto Rican families from which we must have heard this. Are we being disrespectful? Or is there something else?

Connection.

In such a fractured, isolating culture and age, I'm wondering: if it's authentic and respectful. If it comes from a self-less, non-Dolezal, non-exploitative place, should - can (are these two different things?) connection come by any means necessary?

I'd love to hear your (respectful) thoughts.

????

Toni

Black English Doesn't Have to Be Just for Black People

#culture #linguistics #connection #growth