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Rest in Power Shafiqah Hudson.
netrootsnation.org/profile/sha…

Shafiqah, known online as SassyCrass, was a brilliant teacher, writer, and Black feminist that we owe so much to.

We talk a lot about how online disinfo campaigns from Gamergate to the Alt-right to Moscow's Internet Research Agency, target the Black community. But the Black community doesn't fall for it. "Famous security researchers" often pretend that they first found these disinfo networks, but they didn't.

slate.com/technology/2019/04/b…

in reply to mekka okereke

[A Black adult shows Black kids a photo of Elmo and Cookie monster. Elmo is happily eating a cookie, as Cookie monster looks on helpless and in despair]

Black adult: On Sesame Street, Who be eating cookies?

Black kids: Cookie Monster!

Black adult: And who is eating cookies?

Black kids: Elmo!

If you think Black people are smart, and you're not racist, and you see this convo, you understand that there are *grammar rules* governing what Black kids say and understand.

slate.com/human-interest/2015/…

This entry was edited (1 year ago)
in reply to mekka okereke

When I was still teaching, I taught the basics of AAVE grammar to my students who were getting degrees in order to teach English in high schools and middle schools. I didn't expect my white students to remember the rules, but I hope they learned enough to realize that their Black students spoke grammatically, just with a different grammar.

mekka okereke reshared this.

in reply to mekka okereke

The article is right that Gaelic has a similar thing, although it’s the future tense that’s used (“I will be eating” cookies also means “I habitually eat cookies”). And interestingly in Gaelic, “I will” is “bidh mi”, which is pronounced like “be me”.

mekka okereke reshared this.

in reply to mekka okereke

the Gaelic bit’s interesting because in Hiberno-English we sometimes say “does be” to mean the same thing, ie in this case Cookie Monster “does be” eating the cookies.

mekka okereke reshared this.

Unknown parent

in reply to mekka okereke

I didn't know she had died. What a loss. I used to follow her on Twitter, and I certainly learned a lot from her.

Black women online have done so much to educate people like me, & I am so grateful. I would not be the person I am & would not be nearly so able to stand in solidarity with other oppressed folks without the work they have done. Rest in Power, Shafiqah.

mekka okereke reshared this.

in reply to Artemis

@artemis Oh damn, aftre leaving Twitter I lost so much oh my TL and of teachers (in the literal as well as the broadest, metaphorical sense) like her and others. MAy she rest in POwer @mekkaokereke
Unknown parent

mastodon - Link to source
Noah

Code switching always came naturally because it's something I've done my whole life. I was born in New York but grew up in Virginia and so I have a New York accent that mimics my larger family, a neutral accent that mimics my close family, and a southern drawl that mimics my adopted family. Each comes out depending on who I'm with and what we're talking about.

As a kid I never questioned it with my Black friends because in my head they were doing the same thing I was doing, it was just about adopting the same accent of the person to which you're speaking.

It made me so sad and angry the first time one of my friends explained to me that they weren't doing it for the same reasons I did, that it was about white people getting angry at them or accusing them of being unable to "speak right."

Unknown parent

mastodon - Link to source
Fran O'Reilly
@linguacelta @BarneyDellar also Irish Gaelic (gaeilge): Bíonn mé ag ith “I do be eating”. This construction is also pretty common in Hiberno-English.
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mastodon - Link to source
Carl Muckenhoupt

And if anyone reading this thread needs to hear a white dude saying it to believe it, this video is for you: youtube.com/watch?v=JDAj9OVooy…

(It's also for anyone who would find it amusing to hear a white academic linguist using AAVE forms correctly)