That reminded me of one time when I watched in horror as a beautiful personal essay, which I felt deserved an A, was given a failing grade. The author wrote in the style she spoke and grew up in - ebonics, and I knew of no requirement to use standard English, yet that unspoken rule was there.
Her voice was beautiful and passionate. Had the language been changed to standard English, a lot would have been lost. Her voice would not have been hers. It was a very sad moment of realization for me on the lack of understanding and appreciation for differences, and realizing how tough it is to get a fair education when the very core of who you are is said to be wrong, must be "corrected," is a failing grade.
Language is such a deep part of who we are. People do use it to judge others. However, I don't think what he said was meant to be racist, just a bit of humor based on observation.
Gina, I don't know if you're aware of this or not, but there's actually been somewhat of a controversy in journalism over the years over whether or not to quote black people verbatim when they use poor grammar and Ebonics or to clean their words up to remove black colloquialisms.
That's why, unless it's from a wire service, you'll sometimes see two news stories that quote black people differently. One might quote a black person as they actually spoke (e.g. "I be goin' to the store"), while another cleans their quotes up (e.g. "I went to the store.")
I guess when something is heard and not written, you have a little discretion. After all, you have to take into account accents, dialects, etc.
But to change somebody's words to make them sound more educated always seems very patronizing to me.
Thank you, by the way, for giving me the benefit of the doubt. Other than Salty's posts, that may be one of the few time anybody here has treated me like a human being.
