OK. I admit it. When I’m around certain black people (family, certain friends) I sometimes speak “Ebonics.” Blacks in the audience know what I’m talking about. It’s natural. We all speak a different way in our comfort zones. As much as I don’t like to be lumped into a group, there are certain aspects of the black American subculture that are a part of me.
I laughed when I read this op-ed, especially the first paragraph. Sylvester Brown, Jr., recognizes that there is a time and place for Ebonics, but he has a problem with anti-Bush ads that are heavy on black slang. He writes:
Radio spots available on the site follow the same script. One ad, “Get’s Paid,” talks about the president’s ties to Halliburton, saying “Bush, his father and his boys can use the government to get paid.” In another, after accusing Bush’s “Daddy” of keeping his son out of the Vietnam War, the announcer asks, “Why shouldn’t he and other wealthy white boys be treated like everyone else?”“Gettin’ played? Wealthy white boys? Break ‘em off?” Is this political advertising or barbershop banter?
A link to the Media Fund is provided on the Web site. Current radio and TV ads aimed at the general public are provided there as well. Those ads have no slang, no ebonics and speak to specific issues. Links to news articles are provided to back up criticisms of Bush’s relationship with the Saudi government, big oil and prescription drug companies.
But the radio ads targeting black audiences implore listeners “don’t be bamboozled by Bush’s slick a**.”
I’ve never understood why marketers feel they have to over-urbanize messages to reach African-Americans. I recall an automobile commercial a few years ago that really got my goat. It showed a group of young, professional blacks dancing the “Electric Slide” while the new car tooled around town by itself.
Here’s the web site Brown is referring to. He notes that the ads were developed by a black-owned advertising firm. If that’s the case, can’t we shout “Racism!”, can we?
This is key: Those ads have no slang, no ebonics and speak to specific issues. Links to news articles are provided to back up criticisms of Bush’s relationship with the Saudi government, big oil and prescription drug companies.
Anti-Bush advertisements for the general population assume an intelligent and inquisitive audience. The “black ads” don’t.
My opinion on this? I think the use of “black English”, or whatever it’s called, in the media targeting blacks is demeaning. But obviously most blacks either aren’t upset about it or don’t care. I suppose Madison Avenue and all the others portray blacks as perennial slang-speakers for the same reason John Kerry can get away with pushing increased government dependency and subsidized housing to a crowd of blacks.
Addendum: You know, I almost feel sorry for liberals who can’t seem to stay away from my blog. While they call me a self-hater and other epithets (I’m usually quick enough to delete their comments before anyone else sees them.), I can’t figure out why they aren’t making noise and building a readership on their own sites. Instead, they’re buzzing around my head like gnats. Go away! Somebody find the spray…
Update: Sort of related: “You can’t rise as a class. You have to rise individually. It’s what many of the civil rights-era people don’t understand. They want us to rise together, they keep telling us that we are victims. If they keep telling us they are victims, then there is a role for them to play.” — Alphonso Jackson, HUD Sec’y
See more on Jackson. Very bloggable stuff. (Hat tip: Blogbrother Michael Bowen)
Interesting post by my other blogbrother, Michael King.
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This is, of course, demeaning, condescending, you name it. It reminds of when I was still a liberal democrat, I would get really irritated by their radio ads. They always (and still do) felt like there had to be someone singing in a super soulful, gospel like way in the background. As soon as I would hear those ads, I would immediately decide not to vote for that candidate. And I am a Christian, but I was insulted that they thought the only way to get my attention or vote was via music.
The post is most illuminating. I have black friends who do not do the Electric Slide, nor do they say “Bush is getting paid”. The whole ad business being targeted at blacks, or Latino voters, is a lot less “hip” than the writers would like to believe. It is my belief that a large segment of society can see these ads for what they are; namely condescending.
Great pick up on this story.
But it’s all good when it is a dem funding the ad. They are enlightened, while the reps are just mouth foamed racists.
What’s next? John Kerry rallies in Detroit (or better yet, a Philly or Pitts) with all you can eat chicken, ribs and watermelon? I think that may be the only silly retrograde stereotype I haven’t seen invoked in this election season.
Though I would attend that rally, since I can never say no to free ribs… in tiger wine bbq sause, I hope.
” I think the use of “black English”, or whatever it’s called, in the media targeting blacks is demeaning.”
Only if you think ‘black english’ is somehow low. If you think there’s nothing wrong with it, then its not demaning.
The first time I heard these silly ads,I was home alone and I still was embarrassed. Then I realized that these ads were not a reflection of me or my people,just the ignorant outta touch white liberals and their foolish black lackeys.
Thank you, Eric. I’m frequently embarrassed when things like this are allowed to happen. I agree with you: this is a reflection of white liberals and what they think of blacks. It’s part of the reason I rant against that 90 percent voting bloc who vote for liberals. This is what they, including John Kerry, think of us black folks! Wake up, people!
Why do you delete the Lib’s nasty comments? Leave them on so everyone can see the hate and insanity that they spew out. Not many of them can even put together a good arguement. Once I get past being mad then I can really have a good laugh.
The left won’t leave you alone because they can’t afford to do so.
Without a dependable 85-90% of the black vote, there would be very few Democrats elected to office. Nothing threatens their party more than the rise in intelligent, outspoken black conservative voices.
You MUST be demeaned and demonized, to intimidate others who might join you in an honest dialogue of issues. Ostracism is a strong social weapon. I salute your courage.
It is absolutely necessary for the left to maintain racial divisions in our society in order for them to remain a politically viable force. High-sounding rhetoric aside, a truly color-blind America is the last thing they want.
Listening to the slanderous terms they use to describe people like Powell, Rice, Sowell, and Williams, one would never suspect they were talking about a four-star General and three PhDs. Take heart, you are in fine company.
La Shawn re: the addendum:
Three words: YOU GO GIRL!
Give ‘em hell!
It is demeaning, not in the use of language, but in the substance of the ads. Note that the ads used “slang” and did not speak to specific issues important to the black community. It only talked about Bush “gettin’ paid” and how he’s slick and will “trick” black voters. LB believes they insult the intelligence of blacks. I do too.
I’d like to point out that the term “white boys” when not used to describe young white males under the age of 18 is actually a derogatory term. Not quite an epithet, and certainly not on a par with you know what, but still derogatory in intent.
Excellent point, Chris. Rather than appeal to the minds, they appeal to the ears, assuming there is nothing between them.
There is nothing wrong with reverting to the language of the neighborhood while there. My childhood is full of days playing with cousins with Canadian French droning in the background. My friends all told similar stories about Italian, Swedish, etc.
Nothing wrong with that. So long as the kids can get along well in the National tongue.
Hatred will divide, satan’s best tool has always been to seduce the soul. People regardless of color will have to choose what makes them feel good. The truth of it all is hatred will divide, many blacks still are hurting from racism from the past. The enemy will always stir up the tactic of division (racism is a form of hatred/divided by division)I believe there are unclean spirits that love when people envy one another, and clash about who is rich or who is poor. When we as a people start to take control of our lives then we will begin to have critical conversation with others and not be haters of anothers good fortune. I like President Bush because of his family, a family that has a lineage of men who have accomplishment, many black men do not see that if we brought up our sons with some heritage, a grandfather to a father to a son, then no one could divide us. But many of us even as christian still can not let go of the past and get hold of future. Hatred can really be destroyed if we learn to see someone else success as our own. I’ll succeed just by doing what I want to do, and being who I want to be, not what others want me to be. The challenge for us is to teach others how to think for themselves. When you think for your self you open up another door to walk through.
I heard one of these radio ads recently on the drive in to work, and I was embarrassed … can you imagine white elitist political strategists drawing the storyboards for these ads? Pathetic and hilarious (at their expense , of course.)
And I believe the proper term now is “blaccent” ….
Do the Democrats target sports fans with high-spirited trash-talking? Do they address Southern males like ol’ army buddies in a honky-tonk? Do they go after Catholics with hymns and catechism quotes?
They don’t. They address every targeted group in the shared, formal, equalizing language of public discourse. Every group, that is, except one. Is it a sign of respect, or disrespect?
Adjoran said,
“High-sounding rhetoric aside, a truly color-blind America is the last thing they want.”
Here here!
Wasn’t Dr. King’s message:
“I envision a day when all people will be judged NOT by the color of their skin, but by the content of their personhood.” (my paraphrase)
or something to that effect.
Jesse Hi-jackson and his ilk, continue to exploit people based on the color of their skin.
One Blood: The Biblical Answer to Racism
http://www.christiananswers.net/catalog/bk-oneblood.html
check it out.
Christians should do away with the term races.
There is only one race, the HUMAN RACE.
Also running the race of faith. But there are no races.
We are all one blood.
Thank you La Shawn. God bless you.
It means they believe black people respond. And, be fair. Some do. It’s called niche marketing. If you turn on right-wing talk radio in the south, you’ll hear rednecks. The same holds true for most country stations. They don’t sound like educated southern people who carefully enunciate their words. They sound like rednecks – the backwoods ‘ignernt’ kind. I R 1, so I get to make fun of us. When you listen to hip hop radio, guess what? It doesn’t sound like James Earl Jones. It’s a marketing thing. And, it often works just fine.
It’s the content that should make you angry, not the subtle or not so subtle stereotype pronunciation of those offensive words. Why is liberal social spending a “black issue”. Why are capitalists “anti-black”? To me, those are much more offensive assumptions.
When the NAACP drug those chains behind a truck in their ad against Bush four years ago, was the accent of the victim’s statement offensive or the insinuation that Governor Bush didn’t care about a black man being murdered because he was black?
The commentary on this one is funny.
Ebonics was used in an anti-Kerry ad a few weeks ago. Remember that one? The one that brought up Kerry’s wife claiming to be African-American? The one that brought up Kerry’s wealth to use class warfare? The one that appeared in the Black radio media?
So what’s your point? Targeting anti-Bush, anti-Kerry, pro-Bush, pro-Kerry ads to black people by using street slang in the ads – it’s all wrong. It isn’t wrong only when it’s an anti-Bush ad. Good grief. Does everything have to be explicit for you? Do you think the problem that I’m having is that the ads are anti-Bush and not the demeaning slang used in the ad, DarkStar?
And Kerry’s wealth comes into play when he plays class warfare. It doesn’t bother you that this white elitist snob talks about Section 8 housing in speeches to black crowds, for crying out loud? I just don’t understand what black folks are thinking. And black liberals have the nerve to jump all over me? Please.
I wonder what a Kerry ad targeted at Evangelicals would sound like? Would they re-write the lyrics to Michael W. Smith’s classic song “Friends” so it went something like, “Friends are friends forever, if they vote for him, John Kerry is the guy who’ll be there through thick and thin.”
Maybe they would urge, “You and your cell group to make a decision for Kerry”.
So far, Kerry hasn’t bothered to try reaching evangelicals. Thank God.
-JDM
Ahhh – La Shawn, moral relativism rules the day. See, if you condemn this sort of thing coming from liberals you *must* condemn it coming from conservatives too … one can’t be more wrong than the other.*
*tongue firmly planted in cheek
La Shawn, your update got me thinking.
“You can’t rise as a class. You have to rise individually. It’s what many of the civil rights-era people don’t understand. They want us to rise together, they keep telling us that we are victims. If they keep telling us they are victims, then there is a role for them to play.”
The thought of “if they’re victims, then there’s a role for the “helpers” to play” may play a part in their mentality. But I’m starting to wonder if rather than that, it’s simply the fact that they still think we’re in the civil-rights era in some ways.
After all, while you can’t rise as a class, you most certainly can be oppressed as a class. And prior to the civil-rights movement, blacks were no longer under the harsh oppression of slavery, but they were certainly still oppressed, in some subtle and some far-from-subtle ways.
I think that it’s quite simple: those who formed their political mentality during the struggle for civil rights still have a tendency to see oppression everywhere, even when it doesn’t exist. And so when they try and tell you you’re being oppressed, and your reaction is, “Um, if I was being oppressed, I think I’d know about it…” Their instinct is to think “Oh, that poor woman, she’s so blind to her oppression that she doesn’t even realize it’s there.” When in fact, it’s they who are blind to the fact that there’s no oppression here anymore.
What do you think? Am I on to something here, or completely off the deep end?
Robin – I don’t believe black old-school leaders are stuck in a bygone era. They know exactly what they’re doing. Various black conservative types have been saying it for years. There’s a class of black people who make money off the suffering of other blacks. They’re called race hustlers and race pimps. I argue that no blacks are being oppressed today, in the classic sense of the word.
Black people are a free people living in a free country, and despite the “legacy of slavery”, which I think is a mtyh, no black individual is being oppressed. Now people may be poor, stuck in a cycle of poverty and pathology, but to presume that they’re being held down by “the system” just sets up race hustlers to swoop down like hawks on prey. I give blacks more credit than that, and I want more empowerment for them than that. Sadly, liberals and conservatives have different ideas on how to do that. I give black folks credit whereas white liberal snobs give themselves the credit.
You’re on the right track. People have been discussing these ideas for years, and it’s what I try to address on my blog and in my column. Blacks are not put-upon, pitiful victims, least of all, the hostess of this blog.
Do you think the problem that I’m having is that the ads are anti-Bush and not the demeaning slang used in the ad, DarkStar?
No. Actually I was responding to others, not you directly.
It doesn’t bother you that this white elitist snob talks about Section 8 housing in speeches to black crowds, for crying out loud?
Yep. Wrote about it too, or at least that general idea of thinking of all Blacks being down and out.
tongue firmly planted in cheek
Too bad because it’s on point. And if you read around, that ad I mentioned wasn’t liked by all “Black conservatives.”
Nutshell time. If it’s condenscending, it’s condenscending no matter who does it.
LaShawn, I’m consistant on this point: “both sides” are insulting and condenscending to Blacks at times.
LB,
That is quite a statement, saying no “black individual is being oppressed.”
The current dogma for the left is that everyone is oppressed by those of us on the right. Dogma aside, I agree with your comments and your sense of forceful purpose. It is refreshing.
“You can’t rise as a class. You have to rise individually.”
To the extent that what holds you down is holding you down as a member of a class, then you can rise as a class. Thats what the civil rights era was about — erasing the things that held people down as a class.
If you make the leap into believing that racism still holds people down, then you believe that they can still rise as a class.
Which is not to say that despite all of this people can’t still rise individually.
“To the extent that what holds you down is holding you down as a member of a class, then you can rise as a class. Thats what the civil rights era was about – erasing the things that held people down as a class.” — Actus
That soooounds good, but doesn’t explain how plenty of black individuals arose ahead of the class. That’s not to discredit MLK and the necessity of the movement against apartheid in its time.
The problem is many did not make the leap out of believing that racism is the only thing holding them down — rather like the stupefied frog in the pot slowly coming to a boil. Rather than jumping out and following the free frogs, they content themselves with the envy of “deys actin white”.
What really ticks me off about the DNC is their entire philosophy about our black Americans. They want to “dumb down” all black people. They remind me of a man extending a false hand to a man up to his chest in quicksand. Once you grab that hand and fall in they own you. You will always vote for them because, after all they support you. I used to be very predjudiced towards blacks until I had an employee more racist than any white man I know. I know the hand of Christ turned my head and opened my eyes.
The tide is starting to turn, thanks to people like LaShawn and other people who don’t make excuses; they rise of their own free will. Individuals that don’t need Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson to constantly remind them how much a victim they are.
There is a great deal of guilt in this country over the history of black intolerance and indifference. But people, individuals with faith in God and their own sense of self worth, will and do succeed. One thing I must agree with Michael Moore on (just this one time) was when he said he’d never been cheated by a black man. He’d never been thrown out of a house by a black man ,etc. The point being that black people have higher morals and belief systems than most other Americans. I cringe when someone says “I have a black friend…”. I like to just say I have a friend and it don’t matter two cents what color he is.
The reason Michael Moore has never been cheated by a black man or thrown out of a house by a black man is that he hardly knows any black folks. Otherwise, he would never make such idiotic statements as the one about how black men on the hijacked planes on 9/11 would have fought back. Never mind that blacks were on those planes and eventually some men (probably black and white) did fight back. Michael Moore is a stupid white man.
By the way, claiming that blacks have higher morals and values than other Americans is itself a form of stereotyping. Blacks exhibit all the characteritics that mark us as human: greed and generosity, courage and cowardice, industry and indolence, nobility and ignominy.
Only the ignorant cannot understand that.
Maybe if Kerry used Ebonics during the next debate he could win more black votes.
Just think, he would become our second black president.
Ratso…
I am hearing in my mind, Thurston Howell III trying to sound like he’s from Harlem or West Philly… it isn’t working.
Kerry is the man who calls the IMI submachine gun an ‘eww-she’ fer the love of Mike.
Andy:
“That soooounds good, but doesn’t explain how plenty of black individuals arose ahead of the class”
I know, this part of what I said does:
“Which is not to say that despite all of this people can’t still rise individually.”
Also, this ‘holding down’ isn’t total. Its basically like putting a brake on how far you can get, or a hill over which you have to climb just to get to the place that other people are.
La Shawn said, “They’re called race hustlers and race pimps.”
I prefer the term “race baiting poverty pimps”. Think Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.
OK. I admit it. When I’m around certain black people (family, certain friends) I sometimes speak “Ebonics.”
Hey, don’t worry about it. When I’m around certain people, I tend to lapse into “Redneck”. It all depends on where you were brought up.
I have noticed, however, in the last 10 years or so, a distressing tendency not only toward slang in advertising, but horribly poor spelling and grammar. Can’t think of any examples, I just tend to notice when I see it on a huge billboard. It always sets my teeth on edge – and I’m talking about when it’s obviously not done on purpose.
Where have the true “leaders” gone? The truth lies in the hope for the future. We have tons of these “clons leaders” thinking so right-wing that they forget real issues.
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