Sheltered from dumbness? That's nice. Haha.
Sheltered from dumbness? That's nice. Haha.
That a lot of blacks pull the race card and try to get what they want.
-.- Then I'll just change a lot to some, because some do. A lot of the ones I see do use it, or bring something up in that light to try and prove a point or make themselves sound threatened. Usually, the way I've seen it, it's used to stop the other person from continuing on about what they're saying, or something to that degree. So yes, I think that some of them do use it to get what they want.
I've also been on the side that if you don't talk like you're 'black' then you're talking like you're 'white.' I find that to be a problem, too. It can't just be that you talk well.
I'm guessing you live in a predominantly white neighborhood, or brought up as such?
"Talking well" is subjective.
I do live in one now, but I grew up in a black one. My mother was also from a poor family who lived in a black neighborhood, and she doesn't sound ghetto. I learned how to speak from her. So.. no, I don't talk like I'm 'white' because I was brought up in a predominantly white neighborhoodSorry.
I also go to a predominantly black school where I was told I spoke white by some black kids on the bus. It's easy to say that speaking white meant that I wasn't speaking like I was ghetto. Now that was my experience :P so of course I'm going to see the situation differently.
Because I spoke like I was white, they decided to make other inferences on that my entire family was white or that I wasn't born in the state I lived in.
While speaking well is subjective, so are a lot of other things, that doesn't mean that there normally isn't a general consensus on what's appropriate, accepted, etc.
If someone has an accent and speaks with some sense, like.. full sentences, real words, I could say they spoke well. Speaking badly doesn't mean that America is going to have a bad future, it can bring insight in your attitude, depending on how you speak to someone else (in tone).
Anyone, regardless of where they lived, how they were brought up, etc. can make stupid choices that make America's future look bleak.
What does this even mean? Your idea wouldn't "bear analysis"? Ok, I agree, your idea is wrong. I'm glad we got that out of the way.Originally Posted by Kraco
I guess the question becomes then becomes are you white? Since, black kids telling a white person they talk white is rather silly.I do live in one now, but I grew up in a black one. My mother was also from a poor family who lived in a black neighborhood, and she doesn't sound ghetto. I learned how to speak from her. So.. no, I don't talk like I'm 'white' because I was brought up in a predominantly white neighborhood
I also go to a predominantly black school where I was told I spoke white by some black kids on the bus. It's easy to say that speaking white meant that I wasn't speaking like I was ghetto. Now that was my experience :P so of course I'm going to see the asituation differently.
Because I spoke like I was white, they decided to make other inferences on that my entire family was white or that I wasn't born in the state I lived in.
While speaking well is subjective, so are a lot of other things, that doesn't mean that there normally isn't a general consensus on what's appropriate, accepted, etc.
If someone has an accent and speaks with some sense, like.. full sentences, real words, I could say they spoke well. Speaking badly doesn't mean that America is going to have a bad future, it can bring insight in your attitude, depending on how you speak to someone else (in tone).
Anyone, regardless of where they lived, how they were brought up, etc. can make stupid choices that make America's future look bleak.
Where do you live exactly? I grew up with, went to school and still go to school with many black friends. It's to be expected since I do live in NYC. I'm neither black nor white (I'm asian), but my accent does lean more towards like I'm black when I talk. I didn't take after my mom's accent, since she couldn't speak English. Well, I don't talk like I type and neither do a lot of my black friends. They talk ghetto, but they're educated. Of course this is different, for those who're uneducated.
The point is that the TC was making a sweeping generalization about an isolated event and tied it to something as tangible as a country's future.
@Jaitne
Yeah, what I said about not knowing what "not poor black people" was a unclear. I thought it'd be taken in context with what XanBcoo said. More specifically, I don't know what the typical imagery is of blacks who live in generally "good neighborhoods" that aren't associated with poor residents, be they predominantly white or black. I agree with you that on an individual level, it's about how you carry yourself. But then you have to ask yourself, why is it that you're far more likely to run into the stereotypical "black thug" in a poor neighborhood than a not so poor one? Here's a bit of a hint: how many times have you hear of a person robbing someone by saying "Please, hand me your wallet and valuables and lets us make this experience as painless as possible on the both of us. I would hate to resort violence." as opposed to "Motherfucker run yo shit 'fo I bust yo shit!" ? There's definitely a link between poverty and that type behavior, specially on a societal level.
@ Animeniax
Obama doesn't count, most people will never be "like Obama". Presidential candidates with Ivy League degrees and lots and lots of money aren't like most people who are "not poor". Most poor people can't look at him and have a realistic chance of becoming like him either. The UPN and WB shows might actually provide some good approximations. No substitute for seeing some real ones though.
edit: I hate that "You talk white" nonsense. It implies that "speaking black" is speaking as if you've no command of classical english and would kill yourself if you used it. People without that command are generally unschooled in it or unpracticed in it. That, again, is not a black or white (or any other race thing) but an education thing and a poverty thing.
I actually agree with Animus on this one..
Dreaming impossible dreams.
Sapphire is awesome!
I think kids these days (I do enjoy saying that) have bigger issues when they come from affluent areas. Their false sense of entitlement is much higher than in poorer, urban (and thus stereotypically black/latino) areas. They get pretty much whatever they want already from their yuppie parents.
The lack of respect for others, and I mean all others, coming from children who have a copy of mommy and daddy's credit card in their wallet and can afford copious amounts of hair gel (because the wannabe "punk" bands on MTV do it) all while hanging out in front of the Hollister store, has been in my expierence, far worse.
/and get off my lawn!
I think the problem with the youth of America (at least that's the subject matter of this thread from what I've gathered), is coke-babies. Oh and the fact that kids are exposed to and influenced by technological mediums (TV, Video Games, etc.) more and more nowadays than in generations past. The amount of exposure at such a pivotal age range coupled with a moderate lack of parenting (Not in all cases, but it is apparent in many) could lead to a warped sense of normalcy. I'm not saying this is case for the majority of the youth in the country, but it certainly does have some effect. Take a look at what you remember from pop-culture in your childhood, did it have any effect in shaping who you are today? Take a look at pop-culture today, you can't say that with things like the internet common place to make finding potentially negative influential material that much easier, that it holds no bearing.
I know it reads like I'm using the "Damn kids, get off my lawn." old geezer card but I honestly think that this is part of the issue. I don't think that the internet is a bad thing, but that contrary to the good of having an open source and wealth of information, without proper guidance or moderation like that of a child without proper supervision, it can get out of hand.
The gangster folks with all the clothes sure aren't poor, either.
Anyone, poor or rich has the capability of being a killer, or annoying, or an idiot. Children who are poor and do work to better themselves have a better chance of getting into colleges, too, what with all the scholorships going around taking into consideration the lower income people.
For all we know, the kids he saw were well off, but acting like they weren't.
Yea, since younger kids are looking older and doing things most younger kids didn't do at that age. I mean younger as in.. 9 - 12, we've already heard some stories about kids that age getting pregnant at that age, among other things.
I always wondered where they got the time to do that and where the parents were when it happened.
I can relate to this. I live in a predominantly white neighborhood where every family is pretty well off. My family is probably the poorest in the whole area, but that's beside the point. I've lived in far poorer neighborhoods in the past and back then, I don't think I encountered any snobby kids, except the delinquents, who did whatever the hell they wanted. Where I live right now, there are always herds of white kids who have no sense of respect or responsibility towards others.
Just last year, I got into a scuffle with some retarded kids who kept "disrupting the peace." I know I probably should have dealt with their parents instead, but I was just so pissed at the time that I took it out on the kids instead. Things like that never happened in the old places I've lived in, even though there were a lot more "troublemakers" in those areas.
I seem to recall the pop-culture from my childhood being 9 parts "family values" and 1 part "gross-out slapstick." For every Ren and Stimpy there were 9 shows that always tied in some form of family values. Take a look at the development of The Simpsons. If you look at the earliest seasons of The Simpsons, they were largely this same ratio as well. Sure, Homer would get hit on the head or choke Bart, but they'd end up bonding over the stolen head of Jedidiah Springfield. Now, it's degenerated into old pop-culture references and almost entirely slapstick. The movie, which I finally got around to seeing, did make up for it a little.
But we also had all the shows Disney cranked out (Family Matters, Full House, Step by Step, etc). We had Saturday morning cartoons with some kind of values. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Masters of the Universe, Captain Planet, Transformers. Later, Rugrats, Rocko's Modern Life and many more.
Compare that to 5 minutes of Cartoon Network of Nickelodeon today. It's all Ren and Stimpy (but less clever) all the time. There's nothing there but mindless entertainment. No story lines about a "villain" who walks the line and gets redemption toward the end, no morals to the story. We had the "family values" version of The Simpsons, they have Family "written by manatees" Guy.
We grew up in a time where the FCC would fine people for saying "damn" on television and "crap" and "butt" were barely tolerated on TV. A large part of it is getting older, but there's a fundamental dumbing down in the things our two separate generations are subjected to. Maybe some of it is lazy writers, maybe its the inexorable desensitization of society (sometimes good, sometimes bad). But there is definitely something different. The whole "aloof, rebellious disaffected and disrespectful teen" used to be the Hollywood "bad boy" exception and not the norm.
I find it hard to believe that the majority current youth will be able to develop into people who will respect their peers.
/ "I just Rototilled, you disrespectful whippersnappers!"
It's quite simple really. Dialects/slang aside, don't talk like you have a mouthful of shit and people won't think you're fucking stupid. I can only assume since you're Asian but you admit you "talk black" (didn't you just attack Jaitne for calling it that?) that you've been pigeonholed for doing it before.
"They call it 'The American Dream' because you have to be asleep to believe it" - George Carlin
Pigeonholed? No. You should probably look up the term, since that's an extremely awkward way of using it and in more extreme respects, incorrect.
Calling it what? You should probably reread, cause I never attacked her for saying "black". Unless, of course all you honestly derived from my posts was that she should somehow use a more politically correct term. You'd be dreadfully mistaken.
Yeah. You got older.
Interesting discussion. I actually had some experience like itadakimasu when I went to visit my parents' house that involved some really rude kids. However, I would never attribute that to the decline of the U.S. For one, there are ill-mannered people everywhere, and for two, well, let's just say its not coincidence that many predominantly African-American (that is such a misnomer) neighborhoods are impoverished. Its like someone said earlier, crime has a higher correlation with poverty than with ethnicity. And last time I checked, we (black people) did not have a huge hand in shaping the course that America is taking (the current Democratic Presidential nominee, notwithstanding...a story for another time). Pretty much the problem, IMO, is lack of proper education (and I don't mean schools, either).
P.S. Ryllharu, you sound like my mom
Ahaha I like that, I was really stoned so I laughed alot.
Oh yeah about the whole race thing.... who cares, racism is everywhere!!!! Get over it a "black guy" flipped you off. Your gonna die anyways!
No one but the enemy will ever teach you how to destroy and conquer. Only the enemy shows you where you are weak. Only the enemy tells you when he is strong. And the rules of the game are what you can do to him and what you can stop him from doing to you. I am your enemy from now on. From now on, I am your teacher."
-Mazer Rackham
I'm a little late to this specific discussion, but I'd like to give some input. The whole labeling speech as "white" and "black" may seem odd and quite childish at first, but language itself is a means of imparting culture and identity. Despite popular opinions, linguistically "African American English" is its own dialect of English and as a result of that, it carries its own unique culture and social identity.
People use the easiest clues they can to judge others, and language is a pretty huge clue. It's not surprising that certain groups would use the way others talk as a means of including or excluding them in their circle. Azazel said it quite succinctly: If you talk a certain way, people will think more highly of you. If you talk another way, then people will think of you as excluded from their group, despite any other similarities.
If you're around everyone who talks "ghetto" and you speak with a more "correct" dialect, then they'll notice something's not quite right. Sucks that they have to resort to it being a racial thing, though.
Edit: And I guess something can be said about the whole "gangsta" image being the in-thing right now, but I'm pretty certain that every generation has had is own variation of the law-hating renegades to appeal to children. Again, this is nothing new.
Also I think IFHTT kinda had a point when he mentioned the accessibility of certain types of media today. Anyone can get on myspace, and anyone can get on youtube and look up the Bjork stalker blasting his brains out (which you seriously should not look up or watch unless you want to see a fat guy shooting himself in the head). To reiterate what he said: it's not a glaring problem in our society, but it's certainly there.
Last edited by XanBcoo; Fri, 09-26-2008 at 02:09 AM.
<@Terra> he told me this, "man actually meeting terra is so fucking big", and he started crying. Then he bought me hot dogs
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