Racism back in fashion, did it ever fade?

[raison de arizona]

It was probably my accent that threw you off.

[keith]

My favorite is when they subtitle shows that have Southerners talking.

My ex-wife, born in the NE, could literally not understand a Southern accent. Whenever we traveled through the South I had to interpret for her like we were in a foreign country. The Southerners were a might bit sharper than her, seeing as that they had no problem understanding her accent.

One of my favorite stories about accents is the a Scottish workmate told me (which may be apocryphal, I dunno).

According to him, the detective TV show "Taggart" was filmed in Glasgow (in English). When showed in London, they subtitled it. My workmate was from Glasgow, and I had no trouble understanding him, or Taggart.

Also, he used to play for his local pub football (soccer) team when he was a kid. He claimed that nobody could understand the accents from the other clubs they played if they were more than about 10 miles away. I use that story every time some Aussie complaims that Americans have too many accents.

[northland10]

Why is the Southern dialect the default when someone wants to sound stupid?

A friend and former colleague of mine (the band director where I taught) is from Georgia originally. I'm told his accent was much heavier when he first moved up north, and it reduced a bit after some years. However, when it came time to chew out a band student, or an administrator, he turned up the accent. I'm pretty sure that was intentional (and also very effective).

He spent a few years teaching junior high in a rural Appalachian school. I wonder if the increase of the drawl was a technique he picked up while teaching there.

He tried to teach me the dialect, but I could never pronounce "guitar" correctly (not very good with theater, either).

Getting back to that job listing, would they call this an American accent?

[Foggy]

3 of those 4 phrases were used in our meeting this afternoon. I was the only one of the 6 attendees without a college degree, and one of only 2 without a masters degree.

That's cool, and it means at least I am using the idioms correctly. And I'm Foghorn Leghorn, I'm supposed to talk with a Southern accent!

Wikipedia

Foghorn Leghorn was directly inspired by the character of Senator Claghorn, a blustery Southern politician played by Kenny Delmar on Fred Allen's popular 1940s radio show. Foghorn adopted many of Claghorn's catchphrases, such as "I say..." and "That's a joke, son!" Delmar's inspiration for Claghorn was a Texas rancher who was fond of saying this.[4]

So it doesn't mean I'm playing dumb, and anyway, now I want to know what other idioms all the smartypantsers at your meeting said, so as I can polish my act up in here.

[sugar magnolia]

3 of those 4 phrases were used in our meeting this afternoon. I was the only one of the 6 attendees without a college degree, and one of only 2 without a masters degree.

So it doesn't mean I'm playing dumb, and anyway, now I want to know what other idioms all the smartypantsers at your meeting said, so as I can polish my act up in here.

That should be "so's I can" or "just so's"

[Foggy]

I'd do better if I lived in Jackson, Mississippi.

[Uninformed]

I know “regional accents” can be a problem fir some people but I love them. Unfortunately in the UK, relatively small island(s), they have largely disappeared, probably due to increased mobility and spoken media. It’s a shame.

[Foggy]

Off Topic

Last comments about Southern axents:

One time during the break after the conference championships and before the Super Bowl, a lady reporter asked a star player, "If you could do one thing to make the world a better place, what would you do?"

He said, "I'd make it so all women spoke with a Southern accent." I agree.

In the late '60s my parents sent me to summer camp in NC every year (that's why I came back here when we left California) for a whole month, and every year I would come home with a Southern accent, which would disappear when I went back to Yankeeville.

When we decided to move here, my boys were 1 and 3, and I thought they'd grow up with Southern accents. But of all the people on our street, maybe two were born here. In Raleigh, so many Yankees have moved here that when we ran the flower shop you only heard a Southern accent from the workmen who came: electricians, plumbers, like that. Blue collar, salt-of-the-earth types. You don't hear the accent in schools.

But as I said, Southern was a part of my life as a child. When we moved here, ol' Wifehorn didn't know what hush puppies were, but I like the South, despite the unfortunate aspects of it.

[sugar magnolia]

My daughter is in grad school as a reading specialist and one of her classes is related to regional dialects (they avoid using 'accent' because it has negative connotations) so we have been getting hilarious comments about it from her on our family whatsapp. Her homework this semester has been to watch "Ernest Goes to Jail" and other "Southern speakers" on videos and write commentary on specific parts of their speech. She's paying a shit ton of money to listen to people who sound like her being made fun of. The professor specifically called out MS and GA. She said she has to remember not to call him a Yankee when she writes her reply.

She's a native Mississippian, living in Brazil, currently taking classes from St Joseph in PA, so god only knows what her profs think of her "accent." She's a complete mishmash after having lived in GA, Korea, Turkey, Ecuador, and 2 other countries I don't remember right now. She says she comes home periodically to recharge her Southern.

[Foggy]

My daughter ... comes home periodically to recharge her Southern.

Totally cool.

[bill_g]

Many times I've had to turn on subtitles when watching English language movies and shows because their regional accents were so thick I could not keep up. My brain was busy translating. Ran out of buffer space. Divide by zero errors.

In face-to-face conversations I'll put in the extra effort to understand ESL people particularly when their pronunciation is way off. For example: Pine St. which they pronounced as two syllables pee-nay. The brain had to chew on it for a moment, the wheels turned, a light bulb went on, and a bit of paper spit out PINE. Then the hard part came trying to explain the streets were alphabetical, and we were at B street. I had to do the math so they could count the blocks to their destination.

My most recent encounters have been with New Zealanders. Test (short E sound) becomes teest (long E sound). Fail (long A) becomes feel (long E). In fact, a number of words adopt a long E pronunciation as bad as some USian Northeasterners adding the ah sound to their words.

It's actually hilarious to think you might starve to death in an English speaking foreign country because no one understands your accent.

[Mrich]

I was in our plant in Argentina during the plant startup. During the plant construction and worker training, people from our existing plants - in South Carolina, Texas, Arkansas, and Tennessee - were down there for months. Most of the people at the plant spoke English, at least enough to get by.

When I was there, one day I asked my Argentinian coworker "do you have a nickname for people from the US?" She hemmed and hawed and finally, with some prodding from me, said "I don't think it's a nice word; I will write it down."

"Yan kee"

She thought WE thought it was a dirty word

[Ben-Prime]

When I was there, one day I asked my Argentinian coworker "do you have a nickname for people from the US?" She hemmed and hawed and finally, with some prodding from me, said "I don't think it's a nice word; I will write it down."

"Yan kee"

She thought WE thought it was a dirty word

Between the Yangs and the Kohms, it would have been.

Damn that Captain Ron Tracy, anyway.

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

https://popular.info/p/update-corporate ... ks-revenge

UPDATE: Corporate lobbyist seeks revenge
Judd Legum

The murder of George Floyd by police officer Derek Chauvin in May 2020 prompted nationwide protests and a renewed focus on racial justice. Many corporations expressed support for this effort. For example, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said that the company will "fight for greater racial equity inside and outside Walmart."

In June, Popular Information reported that many of the corporations speaking out for racial equality were paying right-wing lobbyist Matt Schlapp hundreds of thousands of dollars to represent them on Capitol Hill. Schlapp, however, was openly antagonistic to the Black Lives Matter movement, saying it was "hostile to families, capitalism, cops, unborn life and gender." Schlapp attributed corporate support for the movement to "leftists" that have "infected" corporate boards with destructive ideas. Schlapp sharply criticized Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) for participating in a Black Lives Matter protest, saying Romney "marched for abortion on demand, the end of the family, no more cops, and the ending of corporate profits."

In the wake of Popular Information's reporting, Schlapp and his firm, Cove Strategies, lost a slew of lucrative corporate clients including Verizon, Abbott Laboratories, Comcast, and Walmart.

https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_a ... 84x328.png

BLOOMBERG
COMCAST CUTS TIES TO LOBBYIST CRITICAL OF BLACK LIVES MATTER

Now, Schlapp is seeking revenge against the corporations that stopped writing him checks.

In addition to being a corporate lobbyist, Schlapp is the chairman of the American Conservative Union, which is best known for hosting the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). In that capacity, Schlapp wrote a letter to Republicans seeking leadership positions in the next Congress. In the letter, Schlapp says the way to earn the "support" of CPAC is "to reprimand corporations that have gone woke."

Specifically, Schlapp has asked current and prospective Republican leaders to "[p]ledge that you will not meet with these CEOs or their leadership teams, especially their Government Affairs staff, who have been hostile to policies that help all Americans until they change their ways."

[raison de arizona]

River Valley High football players out for rest of season after video re-enacting slave auction

Several varsity football players at River Valley High School in Yuba City are out for the rest of the season after a video of them acting out a slave auction surfaced. Because there aren't enough players now, the varsity team will also forfeit the rest of the season as well.

"Re-enacting a slave sale as a prank tells us that we have a great deal of work to do with our students so they can distinguish between intent and impact," the Yuba City Unified School District said in a release. "They may have thought this skit was funny, but it is not; it is unacceptable and requires us to look honestly and deeply at issues of systemic racism."

River Valley High School's varsity game on Friday was forfeited when the district first announced it was investigating the video. The school district said it received a copy of the recording showing members of the River Valley High School football team acting out the “reprehensible act.”

“The recording clearly demonstrates that this situation was orchestrated and organized, which underscores my concern that students spent time contemplating this terrible act without the slightest regard that this action is hateful and hurtful,” Superintendent Doreen Osumi said in a statement to KCRA 3. “They may argue that it was a joke, and they intended no harm, but the fact is that this is not only harmful, it is disgraceful.”

KCRA 3 has obtained a copy of the video that has since been deleted. It shows about a dozen students pointing and yelling dollar amounts at three Black students standing in their underwear and up against a wall.

“It just really sucks. We are in 2022 and this is still happening, and it sucks because it's like we are showing other generations that are going to be coming up that it's okay, when it's not okay. This is not okay," said Cassandra Munoz, a former River Valley student.

https://www.kcra.com/article/river-vall ... s/41463342#

[Volkonski]

[RTH10260]

Aretha Franklin's FBI File Is Finally Revealed And It's Shocking

Candace McDuffie
Mon, October 3, 2022 at 7:56 PM·2 min read

Rolling Stone has managed to obtain documents that show the Federal Bureau of Investigations 40 year surveillance of the late Aretha Franklin. The file on her began in 1967 and lasted until 2007 (she died in 2018).

The magazine reveals that the file is 270 pages and is full of phrases such as: “pro-communist,” “hate America,” “radical,” “Black extremists,” “militant Black power” and “racial violence.”

It questioned the singer’s relationship with other artists and activists that she had. Some of the documents were heavily redacted. Kecalf Franklin, the performer’s son, told Rolling Stone:

“I’m not really sure if my mother was aware that she was being targeted by the FBI and followed. I do know that she had absolutely nothing to hide though.”

The documents show that the FBI consistently tracked Franklin’s phone numbers, activities and addresses. The file also contained letters and death threats directed at the legend. Her father, Clarence L. Franklin—who worked as a minister and civil rights activist—was shot in 1979.

Shortly after, she received more threats from a man who said he was going to kill her and her family. Someone also tried to extort Franklin, but the information about these suspects were redacted. A 1968 document showed that the FBI referred to Martin Luther King Jr.’s funeral as a “racial situation.”

It also stated: “Sammy Davis Jr., Aretha Franklin...of this group, some have supported militant Black power concept...[performance at MLK memorial by these prominent entertainers] would provide emotional spark which could ignite racial disturbance in this area.”

Ultimately, the FBI attempted and failed to connect Franklin to “radical movements.” Other artists who famously have FBI files include Marvin Gaye, Jimi Hendrix, Whitney Houston and The Notorious B.I.G.



https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/aretha- ... 52302.html

(original article TheRoot)

[bill_g]

[bill_g]

That's the kind of crap that I heard when I listened to Motown records in Florida in the late 60's. All I was doing was listening to music, and I was a race traitor. And people wonder why I moved the fuck away from there.

[pipistrelle]

What snowflakes.

I do appreciate they caught the inevitable "I have black friends!"

[Frater I*I]

Ahhhh yes, the fine folks of rural SE America....




I have my A&P now....time to plan my escape from here...

[raison de arizona]

Uhhh…

Tuberville: They want reparation because they think the people that do the crime are owed that! Bullshit!

[sugar magnolia]

"They."

Some people are more fuckwittish than others.

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

Ahhhh yes, the fine folks of rural SE America....




I have my A&P now....time to plan my escape from here...

Off Topic

And your plans are to go where?

[Frater I*I]

Off Topic

And your plans are to go where?

Off Topic

North or the west coast...nope to the midwest, and hell naw on staying in the SE....