English Spoken Here

Guest Post by Jim Kunstler

Of course, the Freddie Gray riots in Baltimore last week prompted the usual cries for “an honest conversation about race,” and countless appeals to fix the “broken” public school system. So, in the spirit of those pleas, I will advance a very plain and straightforward idea: above all, teach young black kids how to speak English correctly.

Nothing is more important than acculturating ghetto kids out of their pidgin patois and into real English with all of its tenses, verb forms, and cases. It’s more important initially than learning arithmetic, history, and science. I would argue that it is hardly possible to learn these other things without first being grounded in real grammatical English.

When these kids grow up, their manner of speech will identify them and their prospects for success at least as much as the color of their skin and probably more, in my opinion. Their ability to speak English correctly will be the salient feature in how others assess the content of their character

I’m sure by now that the racial justice hand-wringers are squirming over this proposal. All dialects are equally okay in this rainbow society, they might argue. No they’re not. Have you noticed that TV news, business, show biz, education, and politics increasingly employ people whose parents came from India and other parts of Asia. Do they speak in a patois lacking in complex verb forms? Apparently not. Are they succeeding in American life, such as it is? Apparently so.

Notice that the speech issue — how people talk — is never part of the “honest conversation about race” that we are supposed to have. Has anybody noticed that in his public speeches Martin Luther King spoke regular English correctly, if with a Southern inflection? Has anybody noticed how important that was in his role as “a communicator?” Why is this crucial question of language absent from the public conversation about “the intractable problems of race in America?” Is it because both blacks and whites are too fearful, too cowardly, to face this particular problem of how English is spoken?

Perhaps this raises the specter of IQ. I’d like to know how any IQ test can be meaningful when the person taking it can’t speak the language that the test is given in. I’m sure that any ghetto kid drilled in English for two years would show substantial improvement in such a generalized test. But, of course, first the American people of all skin tones would have to admit that this is important.

We don’t want to. We’d rather wring our hands over “structural racism” and other canards. Why? Because Euro American whites have been programmed to “not offend” at all costs; Asian Americans are too busy being successful; and African Americans are too invested in their own excuse-for-failure industry, wringing money from offense-o-phobic whites.

A year ago, I gave the opening day lecture to the entering honors freshman class at Rutgers, New Jersey’s State University. I swear at least half of that class of about 400 young people was made up of first generation kids of parents from India — owing, I suppose, to the current demographic of the state. Many of these kids were very dark-skinned, as dark as African Americans. Guess what? They didn’t speak in any kind of pidgin patois. They spoke regular American English. Do you suppose during their childhoods that the household fretted about “sounding white?” I doubt it. By the way, not only did these very bright, dark-skinned honors students speak English correctly, they also behaved politely. No fights broke out during the convocation. They effervescently launched themselves into their college careers — and then they went out for pizza.

How about it America? Job number one: learn how to speak the English language. Everything else depends on it. Excuses not admissible.

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Mark
Mark

Here is something to start with. No Repulican Party at all in cities that only elect Democrats.

When voting for any Judge, Prosector , Senator , Mayor or Congressman just don’t put a name on the ballot.

It would have been the most courageous thing that could happen. Officially, divide the country.

TE
TE

I fail to see how that would help Mark. I live in an urban county and for all intents and purposes R’s don’t need to run for many offices at all.

My Senator has always been, and will always be, a Demoncrat – of long, long, long, and now nepotistic, standing.

You still believe there is some freaking choice, I’m beginning to find that so quaint, kinda like a five year old asking to have pasghetti for dinner.

More than 50% of our democracy is paid directly, or indirectly but knows it, from the State. I would posit it is actually closer to 60% by the time you unravel the fed funds and hands that I now see everywhere.

So yeah, keep voting and expecting that 60% of the population is going to pull their heads from their asses and allow change.

Thanks for the giggle.

From JHK too.

Yep, but that is a fight that America should have had 100 years ago when the national language was declared the the upcoming forests of paper soon to be produced by every level of government in this country.

But we passed. So it goes…

The final giggle is JHK believing there are teachers able and willing to go into the hood and teach the King’s English. OMG, he has apparently ZERO exposure to the realities of their lives.

The kids sound the way they do because the parents, teachers and leaders sound that way. They all sound that way because THEIR parents, teachers and leaders sounded that way.

We are looking at the fourth or fifth generation of non-production and instiutional victimization, and think teaching English is some kind of magic fix?

Puh-lease. JHK is losing it.

Things are messed up and bullshit. The fix may happen after the inevitable – at this point – failure of complexity, chaos and corruption.

Speak English, that is quaint too.

Thinker

The do-gooder attitude of “you’re racist if you don’t let them speak Ebonics” has done more to enslave people than to help them lead prosperous, successful lives. They think they’re helping, but all they’ve done is create a new “massa” for generations.

Sorry, it’s brutal. But it’s true.

TE
TE

Thinker, I absolutely agree. Any removal/reduction of standards to appease the lowest common denominator has been the single greatest destruction of our ability to think.

Plus fluoride, chlorine and vaccinations.

Creating a society of people incapable of understanding how they are being used as herd animals, and slowly, painfully, slaughtered once they are deemed expendable.

Most of our truths are now at brutal stage, don’t apologize, you didn’t personally create it.

Dutchman
Dutchman

40 – 50 – 60 years of Democrat rule have brainwashed the blacks. And this is what the Democrats want – they want control – no better way to take control than to destroy the family – and replace the fathers with welfare.

The Dem’s have a win / win – they control the black families with welfare and they control the whites / productive people with more and more taxes to pay for the entitlement programs.

Then they use their schools (government schools) to deliver such a watered down/ / twisted / misdirected education, that the students aren’t able to think for themselves or draw wide range conclusions / solutions.

These people wind up being trapped in ghetto’s like Baltimore. They have no vision, no thought, no plan. The only thing they can think of is how to scam the system.

DC Sunsets

TE, great point on the futility of “teachers” in the ‘hood.

My wife is expected, in the 7 or so hours/day, ~180 days a year, to teach kids self-control their parents haven’t embedded in them for the prior 9 years of their lives. When a student is caught red-handed behaving badly, 9 times out of 10 the parent asks, “what are we going to do about this?” (That’s assuming the parent doesn’t claim their kid would ‘never’ do such a thing.)

Asking schools to fix society’s problems is like expecting an aspirin to cure gangrene. But aspirin treatment doesn’t ask the hard questions.

As TE notes, all the incentives are aligned toward inevitable collapse. Every large polity that tries to use “voting” in any way (direct democracy or electoral representation) is on the path to destruction, the only question is “when?”

Today we have 60% (per TE) of people milking the redistribution tit, and at the very top, 0.1% milking the regulatory capture tit. Liberty, property and individualism (keystones of prosperity) are caught in a vise-like trap between redistribution and regulation, and the speed at which the jaws of the vise approach each other has accelerated markedly.

It was a Hemingway character who said it best, in answer to “how did you go bankrupt?”

“Two ways. Gradually, and then suddenly.”

The gradual period seems about over.

DC Sunsets

Blacks (Caucasians, Asians, etc.) are not brainwashed in my view.

Not 1 in 1,000 people are bright enough and (frankly) wealthy enough to understand the deep abstractions necessary to understanding how human social behavior produces abundant wealth or crushing poverty depending on the basic rules in place.

When I say “bright,” I don’t just mean IQ. We see lots of geniuses who are fervent collectivists, so obviously their intellects do not enable them to see the folly of their desires. In this regard, they are no different from very bright gambling addicts. Vice seems to know no boundary of intelligence, despite such people being capable of “knowing better.”

Blacks vote democrat like a herd, but then herding behavior is perfectly natural for all peoples, creeds and races. Where do we think “fashion” comes from?

Human history is a continuous recording of booms and busts, and it is frankly unnatural to imagine it can be otherwise, given embedded human nature.

Western Civ experienced a huge boom, arguably the English-speaking West’s began in the late 1700’s. That’s over three centuries of predominantly rising, often rapidly rising, livings standards, with but short periods of consolidation along the way.

The bust we have embedded into this system now is obviously going to a doozy.

Bostonbob

Several years ago, when my daughter was in high school. she took an extra curricular activity in entrepreneurship called The Young Entrepreneurs, TYE for short. You had to pay for and be accepted to get into this group and it was 4-5 hours 2 Saturdays a month for about 4 to 5 months. A huge time commitment on top of intensive academics.She also did gymnastics throughout high school The group was an outgrowth of TiE, The Indus Entrepreneurs. You can see where this is going, these are very intense and hardworking people, driven to not only improve their own lives, but to better their kids lives. Virtually all of the kids there were first generation born in the USA or born in India, brought here as children. Every one of them spoke impeccable English as well as at least on other foreign language usually Hindustani. Needless to say I had the only red headed white kid with freckles and a very Irish name. They were fantastically accepting.

They brought in all sorts of business, marketing, brainstorming, manufacturing entrepreneurs, who volunteered their time to teach these kids. It was in a word amazing. They had a competition at the end where each group had to do about a one hour presentations in front of a large audience and judges pitching their product, with a full set of marketing, production, and financial plans. Quite extraordinary for a bunch of 14 to 16 year old high school kids.

My point is that these people not only want to assimilate they strive to succeed, not just for themselves, but for future generations. Most of them came from modest means in India, not the really rich. Clearly all were smart and hard working. They came to America because they instinctively saw opportunity. Many that have been here for generations would not see opportunity if it was placed at their front door in a gift box. People who want to speak English well will learn to do so. Those who don’t will never do so, and by and large have doomed themselves to a life of mediocrity at best, failure at worst, but to far to many in these communities this is acceptable. No amount of largesse will cure this intractable problem.

Bob.

Tommy
Tommy

ahhhhhh, the fruits of political correctness.

BUCKHED
BUCKHED

JK…I called your office……why did it say press one for English….two for Spanish ?

Just axe anyone one in the hood how to speak….they’ll set you skraight !

Montefrio

What one hears in the home while learning the rudiments of speech will largely determine how one will speak heading on down the road, save for a conscious decision on the part of the speaker to adapt a different pattern, a decision that by default requires a kind of defection from the group of those who speak in the discarded manner. You know, “the need to belong”, etc. That’s a factor no school can change except through coercion.

BostonBob made his point well. When one comes down to it, it’s all about desire, free will and a firm belief in what one is doing. That isn’t taught in school either.

*R*O*D*N*E*Y*
*R*O*D*N*E*Y*

Yo werd up Mr Kunstler wif yo’ great ideas ’bout telling Black niggas what ta do……..

How ’bout dis here instead –
gots da schools teach whitey beotches an’ boys how ta speak Black cracker ass english
same as skoo kids is required ta learn Spanish.

Iska Waran
Iska Waran

Kids learn most of their language skills through osmosis. To learn proper English, they need to be around teachers (and others) who speak proper English all the time. Although there are black teachers who speak proper English, the desire to hire teachers who look like the kids they teach works to the kids’ detriment. There should be no teachers who don’t routinely speak proper English. The biggest give away among the lower classes is the complete avoidance of past participles. “I have ate” is thought to be correct.

Bostonbob

A note about my previous post. I noticed as I drove my daughter and her best friend, yes Indian, to many of the group meetings, they were consistently in the towns with the highest rated schools in the state. This is in a state that by and large has very good schools. Almost always modest houses or apartments with often with multi-generational families. The town I live in on the south shore, which has been majority Jewish for decades, has as its fastest growing population Indians. The Indians do not sacrifice their culture to assimilate. They bring there music, food, my little center has an excellent Indian restaurant, movies, dance etc. Assimilation in this manner does not mean deprivation of culture or indoctrination. What I do find is they they often live in clusters together, not dissimilar to the old fashion ghettos where large groups of immigrants lived, worked and celebrated together, supporting each others endeavors. Until other distinct minorities start to see this, and they wont, they will continue to fall behind and struggle. They cannot see most of their problems are of their own making.
Bob.

elliot
elliot

ebonics. their own private language of failure.

Billy
Billy

Perhaps this raises the specter of IQ. I’d like to know how any IQ test can be meaningful when the person taking it can’t speak the language that the test is given in. I’m sure that any ghetto kid drilled in English for two years would show substantial improvement in such a generalized test. But, of course, first the American people of all skin tones would have to admit that this is important.

People who love to make this argument in defense of those who habitually score pitifully low on IQ tests conveniently overlook that the fucking ASIANS are taking the exact same tests – and kicking our white asses at it.

THEY can’t speekie da eengerish, but they outscore us.

Sorry, but the above quote is just chock full ‘o bullshitty goodness… niggers beez stoopit – always have been, always will be.

starfcker
starfcker

Bob. That’s two posts on ebonics for a guy from boston. Ever hear an interview with a patriot/red sox/ celtic/bruins fan? Come on dude. Glass houses and all that.

Billy
Billy

Admin –

Ugh… that list.

#6 reminds me of something my daddy always used to say: “Never end a sentence in a preposition”.

Today, the fork-on-the-blackboard that irks me is when I hear people say “Where are you AT?”.

That shit is wrong, and you sound like a fucking dork saying it. Even worse when you hear “Where you at, guuuurrrrl?”… oh my dear lord… when I hear that shit, I just want to stab sharpened No. 2 pencils in each ear till they touch at the center of my head.

Don’t know where it came from, but it sounds completely negrified… you’re a white person. Speak like one.

DC Sunsets

We can only think about concepts for which we have words.

The human brain is a symbolic logic system. We do not think about “sugar” (as a chemical, or as a white granular substance purchased in 4 lb containers), we think about the word….which describes a thing, just as a map describes a territory.

Concepts for which we have no words are literally unthinkable. This is in part why people with large vocabularies often are able to think about subjects with a finer degree of granularity than those with small vocabularies.

Could you have a conversation with someone about financial planning if their vocabulary didn’t include concepts like sum, multiple, exponent, interest rate, etc.? No. It would be like trying to describe a vacation to St. Petersburg, Russia, in RUSSIAN, to me. I wouldn’t understand a word.

People who insist on their own stunted version of a language, any language, consign themselves to poverty.

DC Sunsets

Billy, I had a manager who I really liked. She had a degree from Miami of Ohio (very upper-middle-class private college) and had only one minor complaint: her “th” dipthong was “f.”

Wif, dis and wif dat. It was a component of her pronunciation she either couldn’t or chose not to eradicate from her yoof in the ‘hood.

I enjoyed working for her as she was the exception that proves the rule on several levels:
1. Women managers are generally awful.
2. Black managers are generally awful.

I’ve had more than enough experience with both black managers, female managers and black, female managers to formulate those two as iron-clad rules. She was the lone exception to the combination, and only a tiny minority (tongue-in-cheek) of the female managers I encountered were okay.

Of course, I also worked for my share of a-hole males. Most people who go into management are, or become, a-holes. Management training is an a-hole factory.

Iska Waran
Iska Waran

Some black people actually think they can’t pronounce the word “ask” correctly, yet they can say it just fine: “I’m finna give you a ask-kicking”.

starfcker
starfcker

Ebonics is directly related to inability to read. No child trying to sound out the word ‘those’, looks at the ‘th’ and goes ‘d’, ‘d’, ‘dose’. Teach them to read. All of them. Don’t pass them on till they get it.

Bostonbob

Star,
If you rare talking about the glorious Boston accent then you are definitely talking about me. I tend to talk quite fast and I drink a fair amount of coffee thus exacerbating the local dialect. When I would visited the Midwest on business meetings many of the managers would just stare at me as I spoke. They understood quite well what I was saying, they just couldn’t believe how hard the accent was and how fast I could speak. I have worked on it to no avail, but I do talk a little slower now. It is my cross to bear.
Bob.

starfcker
starfcker

Bob, relax. I live in miami, the dolphins can’t even sniff the playoffs. I think belechik is the best coach in football hands down. Best comment ever ‘I have no problems with pete carroll’s coaching desicions’. That one made me laugh. Peace

Montefrio

@DC: “This is in part why people with large vocabularies often are able to think about subjects with a finer degree of granularity than those with small vocabularies.”

How true. Very well stated. Thanks.

NickelthroweR
NickelthroweR

Greetings,

I was a high school teacher in an inner city school during the great Ebonics debate. I thought that we should approach things in the same manner in which my mother was raised. At home, my mother spoke Venetian. At school, my mother spoke Italian.

I was of the opinion that allowing Ebonics in school would enslave these young adults into a life of poverty and they would be unable to participate in the civic sphere because they simply didn’t have enough basic English to understand much beyond their own gibberish.

I was told that I was an evil racist and an insensitive uncaring asshole because I thought it incorrect to allow these young adults to act like feces throwing monkeys. It took me two years to fully understand that the entire edifice was faulty and I quit teaching and never once thought about returning.

Stucky

“Some black people actually think they can’t pronounce the word “ask” correctly, yet they can say it just fine: “I’m finna give you a ask-kicking”. ———— Iska Waran

They can say Scotch, Skoal, and Skittles.

Stucky

Both my parents have a very strong Austrian accent …. like Ahnold Schwarzenegger times 10.

I’ve often wondered how come I didn’t learn English like that. I have ZERO accent … except the Noo Joisey bullshit.

I think … can’t be sure … that it’s a CHOICE kids make. I heard kids at school say “what” …. and my parents say “vaht” …. and I chose “what”.

The problem the little Neegrow kiddies have is dat EVERYONE talks like dey do … at home and at school. Dats why dey be fucked.

Stucky

You want to destroy a culture? Destroy its language.

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Bostonbob

Stucky,
I noticed the same thing about the Indians. The kids have virtually no accents, although many have a distinct way of speaking. They often speak Hindu at home. Maybe just luck, but I have yet to meet one that was not very polite and while tough negotiators, I have never been screwed by an Indian in business.
Bob.

Llpoh

Blacks name their kids names like lakisha and Tyreke because they want no affiliation whatsoever with whitey or English. They only grudgingly speak a crude semblance to the English language as it is necessary for their survival.

Teach them English? Not going to happen.

bb

Nickel Thrower , is this the reason you decided to buy a sailboat ?.Being around those black kids taught you a thing or two about reality. I learned about blacks the hard way. Lived in an apartment complex in the late 80s for about six months. I learned blacks are loud ,rude ,lazy and lack self control. They will fight overall the most trivial shit.Steal anything not bolted down.Full of excuses for their failures. Finally I reached the point of total disgust. Then I got the hell out of there. Never again will I lived around blacks.

Billy
Billy

For anyone interested…

Ever wonder why Africans and their North American Street Ape cousins have such a problem with Eengerish and other languages?

This guy – Prof. Eugene Valberg – does a fair job at disambiguation of the African language and the African mind. How we speak reflects how we speak and the words in our respective languages. And this guy has the professional chops to opine about it…

Some observations –

Africans cannot forward plan. The good Prof. recounts a tale of a carload of Africans who parked their car and blocked his driveway. He complained to them about his blocked driveway. Their response? “Oh, are you leaving NOW?” Of course he wasn’t, but they could not wrap their minds around the concept of “I MIGHT leave in the future”. They just could not understand it.

Other thing was the inability to recognize incrementalization. In other words, there is no way to say “half-way up a tree” in any native African language. It is either “up” or “down”. Also, the concept of food storage for the future – since their MIGHT be a drought and a food shortage – was completely lost on them.

Last thing was the amazement of the Africans at the good Prof. for actually having an English Language Dictionary. They were stunned that he needed a book to look up words in English, since – get this – they all knew all the words in their own language by the time they were 12 years old. Not that they’re that smart, it’s just that their own languages have such a paucity of words, it’s completely possible for a pre-teen to know all the words in their native language.

There’s other things – stuff like breaking promises and what promises actually mean, entering into contracts, etc.

It’s fascinating. I watched the video and I was like “Hey! Our niggers do all that shit too!”… so apparently it is a trait that covers more than one continent… one might even say it’s a racial trait or vestigial holdover… sort of like a mental appendix.

Billy
Billy

Oops… forgot to include a video link…

Still… a fascinating subject.

Billy
Billy

Correction – should be “how we speak reflects how we think…”

bb

Billy ,where you AT?

starfcker
starfcker

Billy, I had a black teammate one time who, after his girlfriend delivered him a son, told me, ‘I don’t want to have a baby with her.’ Exactly as you lay it out, he could not grasp that the time for that decision had come and gone.

bb

Excuse me :Billy where you beers At

Iska Waran
Iska Waran

Bb, why you aksin where Billy at? You got yo whip n you gon swoop?

Gayle

Sticky and Bob

Pronunciation is typically pretty malleable until around puberty. Kids who pick up a second language when they are young can easily master the correct pronunciation as long as they have lots of opportunity to engage in conversation with native speakers. Past the early teens, it’s very difficult to perfect the pronunciation of a second language no matter how much opportunity there is for practice.

I once had a brilliant German linguistics professor who had complete mastery of the English language and a gargantuan vocabulary. However, he began study of English at age 16 when he came to the US, and could never shed a thick German accent.

So Stucky, that’s why your parents say vat and you say what.

Kill Bill
Kill Bill

Never again will I lived around blacks. ~beebs

Sometimes the jokes write themselves…

EL Coyote
EL Coyote

Gayle says: I once had a brilliant German linguistics professor who had complete mastery of the English language and a gargantuan vocabulary. However, he began study of English at age 16 when he came to the US, and could never shed a thick German accent.

We had an immigrant governor who had a thick accent and had a wife named Maria. We loved Arnold, my brother in law said his Spanish name was Chancha Negra – black hog.

starfcker
starfcker

BTW Kunstler, nice essay. We need more discussion about these kind of subjects

EL Coyote
EL Coyote
Zarathustra

Gayle says:

Sticky and Bob

Pronunciation is typically pretty malleable until around puberty. Kids who pick up a second language when they are young can easily master the correct pronunciation as long as they have lots of opportunity to engage in conversation with native speakers. Past the early teens, it’s very difficult to perfect the pronunciation of a second language no matter how much opportunity there is for practice.

I once had a brilliant German linguistics professor who had complete mastery of the English language and a gargantuan vocabulary. However, he began study of English at age 16 when he came to the US, and could never shed a thick German accent.

So Stucky, that’s why your parents say vat and you say what.
_______________________________

One of my favorite political writers regarding the middle east is Dr. Muhammad Sahimi, a professor of chemical engineering at USC. He has been in the US since before the Iranian revolution, but cannot say “United States,” but rather “Unitited Stahtes.” Accents you learn when young are impossible to shed. Just look at Henry Kissinger.

ragman
ragman

It begins before ebonics. Who in their right fucking mind would hire Shitavious or La-a?

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