Comments on: He speaks so well!

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 21:33:23 +0000

Maybe people expect young black men to be inarticulate because the majority of black men they encounter are inarticulate. The majority of black men I encounter are so (I live in Atlanta). I know that most of these inarticulate guys have sufficient intelligence to be articulate if they choose, but that they were probably raised without elocution being a priority and didn’t take steps on their own to correct it. When you see 9 young, black males who are inarticulate, if the 10th one is articulate, it will break the trend and stand out to you, even if only a little bit. My white family says about my black husband things like, “He’s not black.” I try to explain to him that he is black, he identifies as black, and genetically and culturally, he is black, even if as a Trinidadian his black culture is different than our African American culture. Black culture can be more than one thing…but here in the ATL, black culture usually contains come sort of anti-intellectualism, and when that becomes your definition of black culture through repeated face-to-face and media exposure, it’s hard to pull yourself out of that. Thus, articulate black males become a surprise.

When meeting a black american, my husband usuallly gets asked immediately where he’s from, as though they need an explanation for his standard speech. People often guess he’s from California or elsewhere out west. I’ve never been to CA. Maybe the dialect is markedly different out there?

By: me.

me. — Mon, 29 May 2006 01:57:05 +0000

he’s jamaican we speak standard english when not using our dialect.if we’re speaking with americans.americans **** turds

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 26 May 2006 20:32:56 +0000

I’m a little confused with the Ann Coulter admirer’s post.

He says Ann Coulter’s hot, but also says she’s not attractive.
He says Ann Coulter’s articulate, then admits she doesn’t understand/take into account opposing views. Being articulate is more than vocabulary, sentence structure, creativity.
IMO she is not an articulate debater. She made a career out of pushing buttons.

By: candy

candy — Fri, 26 May 2006 01:26:04 +0000

Yes, being called articulate, or he speaks so well, is passive racism. Because, they have this preconceived notion that when we open our mouth, we have to sound like JJ.
It’s not only offensive to black males, but to mexican males, and older asian men.

By: Merq

Merq — Thu, 25 May 2006 20:44:14 +0000

or… “you’re not loud like other black guys… [awkward pause] well, you know what i mean.”

By: the joy princess

the joy princess — Thu, 25 May 2006 20:22:28 +0000

I like to help my white friends ( a combo of those who are really aware and others who are still prone to slip up and say something stupid) sharpen their racial awareness sometimes and so I’ve been known to describe someone white as articulate, lol. They ALWAYS pick up on it, lol. For instance, at dinner one night, we had a pretty chatty white waitress, when she was gone from our table, I smiled and said, “Wow, Kathy is sooo nice and she’s so articulate.” They picked up on my use of the word and I engaged the less aware ones in a Sesame Street level convo about use of the word when it comes to black people, especially — ending with Chris Rock’s insightful little joke about Colin Powell being “articulate.”

By: gatamala

gatamala — Thu, 25 May 2006 18:51:17 +0000

Or.. “I don’t really consider you black”

By: mtevc

mtevc — Thu, 25 May 2006 18:37:24 +0000

it’s the same backhanded racist comment i get when people hear me and they can’t process intelligence coming from an “ethnic” person…the comments like: “color doesn’t matter” and “i always forget that you are even black”

By: eric daniels

eric daniels — Thu, 25 May 2006 05:49:39 +0000

Who cares he murdered people in three states and had half of the eastern seaboard on total alert where sports events were cancelled. This country is so obessed with Black Males as either threats or beasts of burdens that they are surpised that a young black male can form a complete sentence without saying “you know” it seems like the only black people they know are entertainers and althletes. I would rather have this society just leave black males alone but it’s either we are obessed with..

1. violence
2. white women
3. materialism
4. overthrowing the goverment
5. bitter and angry

there has been more trees dedicated to the Black Male than has been in making him a part of society So as a black male who just “lives in amerika’ LEAVE US THE HELL ALONE !!!!! 15 million of us would appericaite it.

By: Jeremy Pierce

Jeremy Pierce — Thu, 25 May 2006 03:06:31 +0000

I don’t actually think she’s all that attractive. I do think she’s rhetorically effective in a way that involves a real skill with language that’s above and beyond many commentators (Hannity comes to mind). I don’t think her views are all that carefully arrived at. She isn’t exactly known for understanding the opposition and taking into account its legitimate points.

Ben, the point wasn’t that no white person could be complimented for being articulate. It’s that you wouldn’t normally expect it unless the person was assumed to be bad with language in some way, as is often the case with young black men. Regardless of how many young black men do not speak what’s considered standard English, it’s no reason for assuming of any particular black young man that he doesn’t. That’s the problem here, because only with that assumption do you get the right sort of surprise that brings forth the comment that he is articulate.

You can say all that and agree with pretty much everything in this post even if you think that young black men ought to be encouraged to learn to speak standard English for the sake of making something of themselves. Regardless of how many do or should, it’s bad that we assume any black person to be incapable of speaking standard English. White people tend to default to that, unfortunately. (I should say that you can also agree with this point even if you think there’s nothing wrong with the dialect linguists call Black English. Even if it doesn’t matter what dialect you speak, larger society uses the more standard English, and it’s an insult to assume that someone who was raised with a different dialect can’t also learn to use that standard one.)