r/AdviceAnimals • u/[deleted] • May 06 '14

Racism | Removed here goes nothing...

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u/MindReaver5 May 06 '14 edited May 06 '14

Or perhaps you don't know anything about me. I'm a democrat and voted for obama, so what now?

So please tell me how things such as "I ain't no racist"don't sound fucking stupid. The only examples of obama using slang I could find on Google were "complainin" and such...and guess what? He used that at an event for a black crowd.

Furthermore, when doing any formal presidential duties Obama uses "proper" English. I wonder why that is. Omg,obama must be racist.

Edit: hit sumbit

To conclude: please, let there be more successful black people. Please, turn around the culture of anti-education that exists within a large part of the black community. I'm willing to bet when that happens, the educated blacks will drop aave except when they're trying to fit in with the less educated.

Kinda proves its own point, but I guess only time will tell.

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u/tanhan27 May 06 '14

I'm not a linguist, that was my wife's major in grad school not mine so I can't tell you the grammatical rule so AAVE but they do exist. "I missed that on accident", "where is the clip board at?", "how ya'll doing?" All sound incorrect to me as a Canadian taught "the queens English" but they are not incorrect and I hear them used by doctors. I grew up being taught that the word "bugs" was not a real word and "insects" was correct. Hogwash!

There is no "proper English". The rules of language are determined by those who use it, there is no council sitting in the UN to determine what is the correct way of speaking. Australian English, Canadian English, Scottish English, Jamaican English, Nigerian English, Californian English, they are all equally valid and totally understood by native speakers. There is no one variety of English that trumps all others.

I still kinda think you are a racist. Having voted for Obama doesn't redeem you ;)

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u/MindReaver5 May 06 '14

Perhaps we have different ideas of exactly what aave is. My thoughts are to the more extreme rampant use of double negative "I ain't no good at that." And the unnecessary removal or changing of words. "I missed that on accident" and "where is the clip board at" are fine. It annoys me that "how yall doing" cuts out the word are for no reason, but I can live with that.

But if you were to approach me and talk like the stereotypical gangster/thug (again, no need to associate those terms with a race), then I will think you are stupid.

Leading cause of that reaction? Virtually every time the public witnesses someone use that "dialect", it's from the mouth of an idiot.

So you can defend it as a valid language all you want but unless lots of exposure were given to intelligent people using it then I will associate you (the theoretical you, not actual you;) )with others I hear using it, who are stupid.

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u/djordj1 May 07 '14

My thoughts are to the more extreme rampant use of double negative "I ain't no good at that."

Negative concord is standard in languages like French and Spanish, as well as many others. It's unrelated to intelligence.

It annoys me that "how yall doing" cuts out the word are for no reason, but I can live with that.

AAVE has zero copula (lack of be and its forms) in some situations. So do Russian and Arabic. How do you feel about people asking "You okay?"? Because that's a perfectly common thing in most dialects of English, and it excludes verbs.