Latest / Why We Do What We Do / AAVE pt. 1

Transcript

AAVE pt. 1 · Why We Do What We Do

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: You're listening to why we do what we do? Welcome
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: to why we do what we do?
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: I am your attempting to be culturally sensitive Host Abraham.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: Yes, and I'm your I remember when this happened in
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: the nineties, Host Shane.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: We are a psychology podcast. We talk about the things
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: that humans and non human animals do, and sometimes we
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: talk about the ways that we communicate with one another
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: and the history of that and what it all means
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: and where it sometimes was taken advantage of for various
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: political motivations. But if you're joining us for the first time,
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: then welcome. I hope that you enjoy what you hear
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: in this discussion. And if you're a returning person, then
• 0:54
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• 0:57
  Speaker 2: you keep coming back to listen to more stuff. Either way,
• 1:00
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  Speaker 2: us on Patreon. I'll talk more about those things at
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: the end of this discussion. But you're here, which is great,
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: And it is June seventeenth, so Happy Bunker Hill Day.
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: Sure, and this is I think our holiday Eat all
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: your Veggies Day?
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: Definitely.
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: It is Global garbage Man Day garbage person or is
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: there a man who is like he is gar he
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: is the garbage man, like Sanna the President of the
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  Speaker 2: United States.
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: Like, yeah, he is a garbage man.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: He is a garbage man. Yeah, yeah, made of garbage,
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: spews garbage, lives in garbage.
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: Jesus. But is it not nice to call him a
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: garbage man because that's disparaging to people who actually work
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: in like garbage reclamation work.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: Is that called good point sanitation sanitation? Yeah, they're much better. Well,
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: so that's the thing is we would call them sanitation workers,
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: I think, and they are better people than the garbage man.
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah exactly. It is lgbt Q I A
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: plus Equal Pay Awareness Day.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: Oh it is Pride month, isn't it?
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: Happy Pride months?
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: Folks. Yeah, I don't think we mentioned this. Sorry, Yeah,
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: that's that's great, that's very important. Good. Yes, National Apple
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: Strudel Day.
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: I love a good strudle carrying on, It's Stuart's Rootier Day,
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: Love root Beer.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: Two Stuart's plu. Yeah, it is World Croc Day.
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know if that's the shoe or the animal,
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: but I celebrate the animal.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not sure we should the shoes like needs
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: a holiday, but okay, I mean I like their shoes.
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: I gotta.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: They do make a good shoes.
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: I've never worn one, so I'm am I missing out.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: They legit are good shoes. I mean, it's like no
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: that they are. They are good shoes.
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: Okay, all right, all right, all right. It's World Day
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: to Combat Desertificate, desert, desertification, desert, DESERTI fish cake and drought.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: It's one of those. It's one of those things. I mean,
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: deserts are important ecosystems too. I mean I don't know
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: that we should be trying to create them in places
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: make more Yeah yeah, not in places that like a
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: aren't already in that transition phase. But don't need to
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: demonize deserts either. Anyway, moving on, it is Animal Rights
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: Awareness Week. I love that there's so many of these.
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: That's really ah, yeah, especially because we love animals. It's
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: Islamic New Year.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: It is Learning Disabilities Week that's very important to us.
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: Yes, yes, it's yes. It's also National Clay Week, is
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: National flag week. Interesting, that's National Hermit Week.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: And it's National Water Safety Week. And I think we're
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: also between this episode and the next one. I think
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: maybe the summer equinox happens. I'm not totally sure.
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of things happening right now.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're getting right up to the longest day of
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: the year. At this point, it's like it's in here somewhere.
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: Even though in the United States every day feels like
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  Speaker 3: the longest day, given the current circumstances.
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  Speaker 2: It it really does. Every day was longer than the
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  Speaker 2: last one. Yes, yes, just is what it is. Okay, anyway,
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: you are here, Thank you for joining us. This episode
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: is going to attempt to discuss something called aave, which
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: is an African American vernacular English, but there is a deep,
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: rich history related to language development and black culture and
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: so ultimately understand that this episode is going to be
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: a tip of the Iceberg discussion. Like we're not going
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: to cover as much as there is to cover, because
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: there is a lot to cover, but we do want
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: to try and get into it somewhat, and hopefully an
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: outcome of this is we have peaked your curiosity enough
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: that you go learn more about it because there are
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: some great resources. Go check them out. There's a lot
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: to talk about, because AAVE is a complex linguistic discussion
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  Speaker 2: and there is a long history related to how it
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: has developed. So go seek those things out if you
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: are curious about it, because we've given you enough of
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: an appetite that you want to go learn more. I
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: think there's a really cool history here to know.
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely so. In this episode, we are going to
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: learn what mister Burns, Nina Simone, Oakland, California, asl and
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: Sligh all have in common.
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  Speaker 2: Perfect, perfect, Yeah, that's what I'm here for.
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, of course, of course, the weird relational frames that
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: we create as a result of this. Now, okay, there's
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: a couple things I want to kind of unpack before
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: we get really into the weeds in this, and I
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: think it's really important for us to disclose at the
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: end of the day. I mean, I'm going to disclose
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  Speaker 3: for myself at least I am a white man and
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: we are speaking about this content, and so we encourage
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: you if you are somebody who knows more about this,
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: or has you know a particular history with this, or
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: want to share stories about this particular topic. We would
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: love to hear from you, because we are sharing this
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: from and I we really tried to attempt to come
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: at this from a very like academic, scholarly objective standpoint,
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: but again, I'm sure I'm missing some stuff, and my
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: perspective is also going to color this a little bit
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: just by the very nature of my own identity. So
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: I think it's important to kind of put that up
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: front so that there are no surprises or shocks or
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: anything like that. But hopefully we cover this the way
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: that we want to cover this and at least open
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: the doors for like Abraham said, some information information seeking
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: for you.
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  Speaker 2: At least I also am a white man, and so yeah,
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  Speaker 2: I don't have I don't have the history, the culture,
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: the experience to be talking about this as if I
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: was ever immersed in a situation where I could speak
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: to this from my own perspective. And as you said,
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: like I think we have an audience demographic that largely
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: reflects our own demographic, and that's understandable, and having another
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: voice helped to share what is out there to learn
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: about other cultures feels like a good gateway for you
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: to find the creators who do belong to those cultures
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: who have a lot more to say about this, to
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: speak from their own personal experiences, So don't take us
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: as an authority. We are here to hopefully to just
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: be a vessel of communication to help get more information
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: out there so that people can go learn from the
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: people who really sort of lived this history and have
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: a lot to say about it. So, yes, I think
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: that's all very important, and I'm sure that you get
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: into this, but I want to let people know when
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: you hear us say something like African American vernacular English
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: in the nineties, if you're around at that time, you
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: probably heard this called something else, which was that it
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: was called ebonics. There were probably other names for it,
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: but there was a lot of discussion happening about this
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: at the time. I think arguably there still has been
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: some versions of this that have continued to play out.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: There probably was long before that, but that was I
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: think the time when that sort of name and orientation
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: to it in the zeitgeist was common and sort of
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: a big deal.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, we are going to talk about that because the
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: history of that, the word of bonics is really interesting.
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: But just so just to kind of lay it out there,
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  Speaker 3: that is not the term that's used today to describe
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: it from an academic Scholl always standpoint like a more
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: technical space. And there's reasons why not just because it
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: has like some connotations, but because it doesn't capture everything
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: about AaB. Right, So just to kind of like spoil
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: us a little bit, the big catalyst event that we
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: are probably aware of happened in nineteen ninety six, ninety six,
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  Speaker 3: ninety seven, like right at the end of ninety six
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  Speaker 3: early ninety seven, when people were really starting to talk
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  Speaker 3: about this. Do you remember a lot about when this happened,
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  Speaker 3: like when people were really freaking out about this, and
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: like the term of bonics and stuff like that started
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: to show up in the zeitgeist.
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  Speaker 2: Kind of yes, I mean I definitely remember hearing it
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  Speaker 2: discussed a bit, but I don't I don't remember like
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: what events there were specifically around it. I think it
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: was just a little more peripheral to what I was
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: sort of hearing.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, So I was thinking about this as I was
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: writing the notes, and I just because learning histories I
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: think are interesting. I remember when this came up, and
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: I think I remember this being a bigger deal to
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: me in my world because I went to a predominantly
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: black middle school, and so there was a lot of
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  Speaker 3: discussion around the terminology and some of the statements and
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: the phrases that were used. There were I mean large
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: groups of I say large groups. So we didn't have
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: a lot of a lot of white kids that went
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: to our school, but the white kids that were there
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  Speaker 3: were pretty flippant about some of the phrases and the
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: terms and stuff. And so they would start to kind
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: of like take those terms and we're going to talk
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: about kind of like what happens when you know, a
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: group of people who don't belong to a particular culture
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  Speaker 3: used terms that don't belong to their culture and then
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: kind of appropriate it and whatnot. And that was happening
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: a lot. What seemed to be occurring at my school
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: was there was a lot of mockery around this, or
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: a lot of dismissiveness around this from like the white
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  Speaker 3: population towards the black student body. I remember that being
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: very present in my middle school days because those three
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: years I went to a middle school that was, like
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: in my town, was the predominantly black middle school. It
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: just seemed like it was really in our faces for
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: many years as a result of this particular, like the
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: event that we're gonna talk about. In the nineties, it
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: just seemed like it was like right there in front
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: of us the entire time.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: Nineties ads were always in your face too.
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: Oh god, some of them were good, though, Crossfire was
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: pretty pretty rad.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: All right, we're back. We've been setting up sort of
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: the preamble here because we want to just lay out
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: the history. I think we want to where we have
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: personal connection to this, which is not a ton because
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: we didn't really grow up in the culture there were,
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: you know, being able to reflect that in our discussion,
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: but also like just sort of where we're gonna start
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: by laying out a lot of the definitions, the descriptions,
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: and then some history here.
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Okay, so I think that there is a lot
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: to unpack, and I think the one thing I want
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: to start with is talking about and laying some groundwork
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: around the linguistic part of this. So to ensure that
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: we've got our terms to find. I love good definitions.
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: There are three terms that are used that are often
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: used when when people are talking about studying AAVE, and
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: that's dialect, ethn elect and socio elect Okay, So dialect
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: is specifically a regional variety of language distinguished by features
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: of vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation from other regional varieties and
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: constutent together with them a single language. So dialects often
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: refer to like variations of a particular language, not not
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: as simple as like accents. Accents and dialects are a
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: little bit different, like an accent is like the way
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: that something is nunciated. But like, for example, Spanish dialects
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: across South America are very different, like when you talk
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: about Puerto Rican, South America and Central America, I should say,
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: because you've got Mexican Spanish that has a little bit
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: of a different feel, different language, different words, different meanings
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: versus like Chilean or Argentinian. Like, there are differences there,
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: and that's what we talk about with dialect. Dialect is
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: not not a difference between somebody from Boston versus somebody
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: from from South Florida talking you know and having a
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: different twang. That's accent, right.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: Dialect is a is like very much so a difference
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: in the language.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, almost like its own standalone version of that language. Yes,
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: both a lot of cognates too, Yeah. Ethnelect is a
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: language variety specific to a particular ethnic or cultural group.
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: And so then you're talking about sort of similar to
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: a dialect, I guess in a sense, is a way
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: that a language sort of becomes incorporated into an ethnic group.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure if this totally counts, but like I
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: visited Jamaica once and there they they speak English because
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: of colonization, but it has sort of turned into it's
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: there's like this own version of English there that is
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: unique to the Jamaican people that I wonder if that
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: qualifies as an ethnolect. Yeah, because they have a lot
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: of their own words and like ways of saying things
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: that if you don't know what like the history behind those,
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: if you don't know that culture, it doesn't you wouldn't
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: be able to understand what they were saying someone who's
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: just sort of speaking maybe American English or you know,
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: probably like England English.
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: Sure, Yeah, I think I think that that aligns because
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: I think that the ethnic elect part of that is
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: like Black Caribbean is part of that. Like, so you're
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: going to have those influences across many of the islands
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: and whatnot. Okay, And there's a reason why this is important,
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: and we're going to get to that in a second. Okay, So,
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: like we're not just saying like, oh, this language belongs
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: to groups. There's also soci elect and social elect is
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: a specific dialect, jargon or slang used by a particular
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: social group, So that refers to class systems and whatnot.
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: So at this point in time, we've got dialect, which
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: is the language itself that's kind of derived from from
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: all these different things. Ethn elect is language to a
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: particular ethnic group, and socio elect is language related to
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: a particular social group. Those three things always come up
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: when we talk about AAVE, and there's a reason why.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: This sort of a mid Atlantic accent. It feels like
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: the select Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, all right. So,
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: African American Vernacular English or AAVE is a dialect of
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: American English, also sometimes known as Black English Vernacular or
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: controversially at bon X. Oh this actually, this reminds me
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: of the thing I wanted to say earlier. Okay, there
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: you go, yes, which is one of the things we
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: have brought up multiple times when we talk about being
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: sort of politically correct in this show, is it's like
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: it's not always just like there's an element of it
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: that's like, don't be addic to other humans, and that
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: is a relevant consideration. But a lot of the times
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: when we're pointing out like why a term is being
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: changed or abandoned is because it's inaccurate, right, it doesn't
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: include things, or it includes too many things or whatever
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: it is, it's just is not an accurate description. So
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: it's like it is in a f effective communication to
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: describe it this way. And that's why like slurs are
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: often like it's not just that it's like rude and inappropriate,
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: it's also like not an accurate way, and it could
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: be misleading if you don't actually know the real information.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: So anyway, that's another reason like that we get on
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: that is that like let's not be dicks to each
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: other and let's be accurate in our communication if we can. Yeah,
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: So anyway, we were talking about here. Controversially it was
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: also called a bonics and then is Black English vernacular,
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: but we're sort of calling it African American vernacular English
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: for the purposes of this discussion.
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: Right, So, like we mentioned, the term a bonics is
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: not the current use we use aave. There are lots
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: of reasons why ultimately that precise language is what matters.
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: And I will say, like, historically a bonics was and
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: we're going to talk about the history of the term
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: a bonics and where it comes from. It comes from
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: a black psychologist and linguistics professor, so like it was
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: coined by members of the group. But it just is
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: not complete as we know it today. It's just not complete.
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: So what makes AAVE unique is that it is the
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: result of an intersection of varying demographics. Members of the
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: black community, members of the working class community, and the
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: middle class community in America. So you've got three different
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: identities there, Black, working class slash middle class and Americans.
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: Those three intersections together have created the kind of perfect
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: conditions in which AAVE starts to emerge and exist. And
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: there's a history with that. But that's why it's called
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: a dialect is because it does pertain to a specific
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: ethnographic and sociographic group of people.
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: Got it. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, So
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: one important point to note at the top of this
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: discussion is that AAV is not slang. I think you
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: might hear this and think that, oh it's slang. It's
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: like altered version of language or something where it's they're
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: just sort of speaking colloquially or off the cuff, but
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: rather it actually has unique linguistic properties related to grammar
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: and structure. We'll cover that in a bit, but I
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: think people might hear this and think, oh, we're just
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: talking about sling, but that's actually not what it is.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: It is its own sort of evolved vocabulary.
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, And another important note here is that AAV is
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: not a monolithic dialect for everyone who is black. I
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: can't believe that we have to say this. It's exhausting
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: to say, I'm sure, and I'm sure it's exhausting for
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: members of the community to say as well, and to
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: hear sometimes and to hear sometimes. But I think it's
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: really important to note that it's not a monolithic dialect.
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: Just because somebody is black does not mean that they
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: are using AAVE. It's like saying that, like, everyone who's
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: white speaks with a Southern accent, like I would encourage
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: you all to use your noggins, folks, like. And again,
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: accent is not not necessarily the same thing as dialect.
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: But it is really important to note that AAVE is
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: not at all like representative of every single person who
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: is black. That shouldn't be a stretch to think about.
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: But people really have a hard time with that. They
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: equate those things and it's that's not a logical equation.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: Right, yeah, just understanding those important things, or as users
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: sort of saying, and like, assuming that everyone who's white
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: speaks of the mid Atlantic accent, it looks like we would.
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: You might look at us and expect those sounds to
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: come out of our face. But yeah, not a monolith.
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: Nope.
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: All right, Well, we love history here, so we're gonna
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: get into the history. So, as of this episode, the
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: origins of AAVE are closely linked to British colonization of
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: the United States and American slavery. Surprise, surprise. Sure, it
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: is believed to have begun in Virginia and Maryland, quickly
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: moving to the Carolinas and Georgia during this time.
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: However, it is largely debated. What has generally agreed upon
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: is that the dialect is largely shaped by varying African
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: languages and Creole variations. So this mixed with American English
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: aided in the development of AAVE. So you've got groups
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: of people who come to the United States, forced to
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: come to United States with their own languages that are
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: learning English and learning the like as a result of
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: being forced into these spaces. You've got Creole, You've got
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: many languages coming in from Caribbean islands. You've got all
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: these different kinds of You've got French influence and English influence,
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: which you're going to talk about later. All of those
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: things are coming together to create kind of this like
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: unique soup or stew that is ave. And you can
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: kind of see that a little bit, which is really
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: really fascinating. But I think it's when it comes to
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: language and we talk about language in general, like we
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: talked about in the American accent and the English accent,
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: there are so many sources of information that come together
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: that create this kind of like unique thing that happens,
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: which is the way that people talk. Another example I
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: kind of really think about too, is like how the
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: Internet has shaped a lot of our language, and like
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: that unique culture and that unique space, that unique variable,
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: I should say, yeah, has really influenced the way that
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: we talk to one another and how we communicate in
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: writing and stuff like that. It's really I think valuable
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: to look at language and look at where all those
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: unique pieces that kind of shape it up.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's kind of funny too. Do you think
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: about the internet communication that has developed, where people will
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: something that might be more effective to communicate via text
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: using like abbreviations is actually harder to say in abbreviations
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: that you're saying that loud, Like there's fewer syllables to
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: just say the words that those abbreviations represent, and yet
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: people will still speak in abbreviation. So it's not about efficiency,
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: it's just about culture that sort of exists. And not
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: to say that that we're describing with aav is inefficient,
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: just to say that, like, it just evolves a way
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: that it evolves, sure, and sometimes that it just looks
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: different ways. Arguably, all languages have sort of developed this
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: way where you just have a mix of variables with
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: a lot of input and influence, and that change over time.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: As we describe, part of what happened with English turning
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: into the accented British sort of English that we hear
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: now came a lot from French influences and from classism,
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: which is one thing we did an episode on that recently.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: You can go back and check out Anyway I digress therefore, ads.
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: And adds as an example of language is shaped up
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: because it's easier to say than advertisements.
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: That is true. That is true. All right, So getting
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: into it, we've been talking about the history here of
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: AAVE and now getting into the term of bonics. And
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: this was actually originally used in nineteen seventy three by
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: a group of black scholars. Doctor Robert Williams combined the
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: words ebony and phonics to attempt to create a respectful
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: term for the study of a a ve so ebeni
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: phonics at bonics YEP. A brief discussion of doctor Robert
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: Lee Williams. Boy, I almost thought for a second, said
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: Robert E. Lee, And I was like, who named this
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: person that?
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Anyway, discussion of doctor Robert Lee Williams the second.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: He was a professor emeritus of psychology and African and
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: Afro American Studies at the Washington University in Saint Louis.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: He was a staunch critic of racial and cultural biases
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: in IQ testing. We did an episode on that many
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: years ago and went on to develop IQ test sensitive
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: to cultural variations, including the Black and Diligence Test of
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: cultural homogeneity.
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So I think that there's something really valuable in
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: understanding that the term of bonics was created by members
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: of the black community. And I think it's also important
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: to break it apart and understand that it comes from
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: black sound, right, phonics, like so black ebony phonics or
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: you know, like the you know, the way that we
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: say something or the way it sounds like. That's and
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: that's why it's not complete today, right, because ave includes
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: grammar and syntax and structure and not just the sounds,
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: but also all the things that go along with it,
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: which is why it's not accurate to use a bonics
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: today when we're talking about this, and that's why it
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: is an old term, right. Okay, So I'm sure that
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: you picked that up as we were talking about this,
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: but I think it's really important to.
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: Say no, no, that's great. I'm glad you clarified.
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Now, in nineteen seventy nine, a lawsuit was filed
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: on behalf of black children and Ann Arbor, Michigan. They
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: were elementary school students an Arbor decision, this is what
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: it was called the n Arbor Decision. It upheld that
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: the school was not providing adequate education to black students
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: at the school due to their inability to recognize their
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: home language, which they described in this lawsuit as Black English.
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: Interesting.
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so this was the first educational lawsuit of its
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: time where the school was basically just saying, Oh, we're
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: not accounting for this language that. We're not accounting for
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: the way that our students are speaking. We're not accounting
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: for the unique ways and influences that language is showing
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: up in our English classes. We're trying to teach English classes,
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: but we're having a hard time teaching them because they're
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: using different grammar and syntax and structure, and so we
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: are basically doing a disservice to these students. And it
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: was upheld this was a lawsuit that did make a
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: difference and actually improve educational services for many of the
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: students in the area.
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: Wow, that seems like really early for something like that
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: to have worked.
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: Also, right, I was like impressed by how early it was.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay. A couple decades later, on December eighteenth, nineteen
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: ninety six, AAVE was brought into the mainstream culture and
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: the form of a resolution filed in California the Oakland
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: Unified School District pastor resolution that AAVE would be used
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: as a teaching option in standard English courses. This resolution
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: also aim to provide resources to teachers to help learn
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: about AAVE and how to best support its use in
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: the classroom. You know, sort of somewhat related to this
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: and what I do. We do a lot of academic
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: instruction as primarily sort of the job that I have.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: It's a lot of remediation. But in our practice, we
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: have some standardized tests that we use that have been
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: around for quite a while. But some of them what's
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: kind of interesting because as language changes and evolves over time,
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: there are some of them where you have to as
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: part of the test, like select the correct word to
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: complete ascendence. And interestingly, some of them have pronouns as options,
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: and so kids have started choosing they instead of he
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: or she because it might not be specifying who the
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: person is talking about. And so the the sort of
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: neutral selected pronoun is they instead, and the answer key
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: you lists this as an incorrect answer. But we've sort
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: of just adopted as a rule that it's like this
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: is no longer a culturally relevant way to score this,
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: so any option that can be counted as correct, I'm
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: an account is correct because that is technically as they're
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: using their language a correct answer, and so it's kind
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: of interesting that those tests were even designed with that
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: as like a distinction. They felt that was so important
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: that it needed to have a scoring criteria attached to
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: it in the form of a standardized test.
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: Then, and I've sort of been the position that I'm like, well,
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: that's just not how they how we speak anymore. So
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: it's like, that's just not a relevant distinction to make.
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: Right, Absolutely, I would implore anybody who's working in a
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: helping profession who's using a standardized test to always be
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: critical about the standardized test itself and whether or not
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: it accurately represents current social norms, whether or not it
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: accounts for cultural variation, which in psychology many of them
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: do not. As a matter of fact, I know we
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: talked about these types of tests before, but I'm going
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: to get on a soapbox for a second. Many of
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: the tests that we use are normed to college aged
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: white men, who are generally neurotypical and do not account
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: for the majority of the populations, and psychology has gone
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: so far as to develop uniquely culture specific standardized tests
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: because of the fact that all of the standardized tests
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: that are often used and widely accepted are not normed
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: to populations that they're serving. I think it's always valuable
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: and I'm going to stress this to all the behavior
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: analysts that are listening to this too, is it is
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: worth evaluating the standardized test that we use in our
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: field because most of them are normed to white autistic
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: male children. Most of them are. And so when you
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: go look at the standardization and like the VB MAP, shocker,
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: it is standardized to white male children with autism. So
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: just an important feature of understanding this as we explore
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: and why we explore why this resolution from the Oakland
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: Unified schol disc was so valuable for this class because
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: the curriculum that was being used for the English class
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: was not normed to the population that was being served, right, okay,
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: so and many times educational standards are missing that too.
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: So shockingly the school district puts out this resolution which
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: is going to allocate money and time and resources to
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: teachers and help support students. The US blows their skin
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: lid over it. For those of you who don't know
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: how the US works, something will happen in another state
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: and then somebody who doesn't live in that state will
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: be very upset about it. Like the amount of people
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: that are furious about what's happening in New York who
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: don't live in New York is absurd right now, Like
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: mayor Mom, Donnie is doing some really cool things and really,
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: like I mean from a legislative standpoint, doing some really
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: great things and really changing the face of New York
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: at least from my perspective. Yeah, it seems like yeah,
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: and there are people in Alabama who are losing their
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: minds over it. But this is what happens, Like politics
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: have become such an identity thing that like they're furious
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: about that, and apparently it's in the case forever.
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: Well, to be fair, like Texas goes about banning books
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: and Florida goes about banning books, and people I think
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: rightfully lose their mind when they impose those things. So sure,
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: it's not necessarily the fact that it's one state commenting
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: on another, but it's like the fact that people aren't
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: stopping to consider sort of the relevance here and like
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: why this matters. It's like it just becomes it's a
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: lightning rod to attract fear and get people riled up.
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: That people use to try and like push a hate agenda. Yeah,
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: that I think is maybe the complaint that we would
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: have because yeah, I'm like, you know, the problem with
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: the censorship of burning books in these conservative places where
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: they hate education and intelligence is that like it robs
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: everybody else there of their ability to learn and succeed
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: and thrive, right, because they're doing as a form of oppression,
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: whereas in this particular situation, they're what they were trying
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: to do is be more inclusive and accessible, and like
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: that's what people are freaking out about it. I'm like,
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: if you are mad about more people having better access
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: to things, you are on the wrong team, right, You
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: are incorrect, and you're on the losing side of history.
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, objectively. So yeah, so this happens, so they file
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: the resolution, everybody loses their minds. It gets to a
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: national level, federal level. And the argument was that using
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: AAV and this is just from the argument that people
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: were making against it, right, They were arguing that using
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: AAV was a drop in standards for English classes, okay,
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: which that's a different conversation. And they called the dialect
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: lazy and broken, quote unquote lazy and broken. So a
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: lot of it. This comes from and I'm sure that
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: you're picking up on this already, it comes from a
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: racist and class of space where like using language is
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: a way to oppress people, and this happens. We did
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: an episode on names where where people would apply for
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: jobs and they would use what could be considered quote
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: unquote ethnic name, and they were not getting the same
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: jobs even though they were overqualified compared to white names.
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: And so this is just another way that people are
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: using education standards to oppress groups of people. Instead of
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: you know, raising the tide so all the boats could
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: raise with the tide, you know what I mean, all
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: they were doing was going, no, we're not going to
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: do this, and it's a problem.
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: So a week after the resolution passed, Secretary Riley of
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: the US Department of Education or DOE RIP DOE, they
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: made a public statement in indicating that AAVE was not
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: a foreign language and dismissed the movement by the school,
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: making a distinction between like a foreign language and like
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: a dialect. I guess anyway. This was quickly followed by
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: a group of linguists who issued their own public statement
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: characterizing AAV as its own distinct dialect. Differing in many
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: important ways from the other sort of what you might
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: call American standard English, that those they were otherwise sort
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: of contacting and being exposed to, or maybe a better
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: way is being said is having it forced down their
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: throat when that wasn't the way that they communicated.
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: Sure, yeah, yeah, absolutely, So I want to remind everybody
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: this is nineteen ninety six. So this is the year
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: that Green Days Insomniac comes out, which is their best record.
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: This is the year that Ska breaks. So now you've
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: got the SKA movement starts right before like the Latin
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: music explosion occurs too, right, So, like there's a lot
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: of things happening in the United States. We haven't got
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: quite gotten to the future yet. And this is nineteen
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: ninety six, the Clinton administration.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think Jurassic Park two maybe came out
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: this year.
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: Jurassic Park two comes out, which is lovely in fight
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: Glove or maybe that Fight Club. Yeah that might have been. Yeah,
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: I don't know, it's hard to say. You know, the
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: nineties were strange, But I bring this up because, like
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: when we talk about the political climate at the time,
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: this was the Clinton administration. This was not an arguably
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: a conservative or Republican administration. This was a Democratic centrist administration.
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: So with that information, I would like to introduce you
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: to an ad so you can suck on that for
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: a second, and then we're going to come back and
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: talk about this Richard w Riley, who was the Secretary
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: of the DOE.
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: All right, we're back. We're continuing through the history here
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: and the resolution that a school board passed to recognize
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: and install some infrastructure for using a AVE in the
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: classroom and then that being rejected by a Democrat Secretary Riley.
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: Yes, so I would like to share some quick background
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: on Secretary Richard w Riley because I think it's important
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: to the players in this situation. Yeah, Richard Dick w Riley. So,
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: interestingly enough, Riley was a Democrat working underneath the Clinton
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: administration at the time of this statement that he made
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: that said that AAVE was not its own foreign language.
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: He was actually named one of the top ten best
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: cabinet members in US history by Time magazine. Wow, and
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: here's why. He Actually he had some accomplishments. So one
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: thing that he did during his time as the Secretary
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: of DOE He's made Internet and telephone pricing affordable for
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: public schools so that people could access stuff at the schools,
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: which I don't understand why it's not free, who knows,
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: But like that's a different problem.
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I guess it's something better than nothing,
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: but better.
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: Than nothing, it's a move in the right direction. I
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: think he developed a direct student loan program in federal
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: student loans, which didn't exist before, So like that was
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: also maybe not so bad, not great, but like a
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: move in the and it's kind of been bastardized since then.
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: He advocated and actually allocated resources to providing additional training
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: and support for teachers so they had better training for
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: their jobs, and he took steps to strengthen provisions in
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act or IDEA Act.
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: So he did do a lot of things that were
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: seemingly good for the education space. It just so happened
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: that one image I found of him makes him look
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: like mister Burns. And despite all of his accomplishments, his
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: stance on AAV was clearly a misstep. So people can
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: accomplish good things and still mess up. And I think
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: that's a really important thing to note that, you know,
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: while he did some things that seemed great. He did
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: like it looked like mister Burns himself, which was horrifying
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: to pull up his picture and he messed up here.
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, people are complicated. Most people are not just
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: one thing, and they often have a lot of things
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: going on. Except Stephen Miller, to that man is pure evil.
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: Please tell me you saw the response from the Democratic
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: Twitter response It called him the ugly. Their response from
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: the official Twitter was shut up, you ugly.
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: I did not, but I did see Hunter Biden's response
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: to something about this.
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, also great, also.
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: Great, yes, which have been very entertaining. Yes, yes, yes,
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: so all right. Well followed the January nineteen ninety seven
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: was a series of political maneuvers where resolutions were passed
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: stating AAVE was not distinct, stating aave distinctions were absurd
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: a strong word, and then hearings occurred through March nineteen
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: ninety seven. Unfortunately, the resolution did not stand due to
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: the intense national backlash.
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Ultimately, what the school landed on was that they
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: were using it as supplemental material instead and not as
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: like formal structure and like optional supplemental material. So it
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: became an optional thing for teachers, rather than being something
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: that was going to be required. Now, now here's the thing.
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: Movements like this and resolutions like this, they often are
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: a single spark that ignites a flame. Right, So, while
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: this original resolution didn't pass, it did lay groundwork for
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: a more academic study and scholarly work around AAV for
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: the next several decades. So there were actually several legal
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: precedents that occurred, like not right after, but pretty soon
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: after that included AAVE specifically. One of them was the
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: United States versus Arnold in two thousand and seven. Hey Arnold,
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: Hey Arnold. I love that show. So they actually highlighted
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: the problem with dialectical misunderstanding. Specifically, there was like a
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: criminal case, and as a result of this criminal case,
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: the charges were dropped because the dialectical misunderstanding came down
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: to AAVE grammar tense, which we're going to talk about
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: and I think at this point in time, we're going
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: to do a second part of this episode, yeah, because
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: I think it's going to take a little bit of
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: time to do that. But the grammar tense was misinterpreted
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: in the court of law, and as a result, there
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: were some new precedents set around understanding and recognizing AAV
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: as its own dialectical process.
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: Wow, uh huh, so that's two thousand and seven. In
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: twenty sixteen, Rickford and King wrote extensively about the lack
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: of translation support among jurors and stenographers, which ultimately led
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: to unfair trials where AAVE was used. And so you
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: can see, like when it starts getting into the devil's
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: in the details thing here, it starts becoming clear why
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: it's important to consider these things and not just dismiss
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: them as people were trying to do so. Trayvon Martin's
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: case was used as an example where Rachel Well I,
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: I don't remember this name.
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: Gene tells, I think gent Tel.
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: Gentell's sorry, where Rachel john Tell's testimony was perceived as
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: incomprehensible due to the jury's ignorance of a a VE dialect,
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: meaning that that testimony could not be really effectively used
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: and in part because of the fact that there was
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: so much misunderstanding and lack of education around that dialect
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: that did exist and was being treated as if it didn't.
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: Yes, And the reason that it was incomprehensible was not
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: because of what she was saying it was because there
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: were no translators or supports or resources around AVE to
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: make it comprehensible to the jury. So at the end
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: of the day, it wasn't her fault that her testimony
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: couldn't be understood. It was a system's issue. Whenever people
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: say language barriers, it always drives me nuts. It's like
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: the language barrier is on the service or the system.
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: The language barrier is not on the person who's speaking
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: the language. Like in a situation, she's speaking what she
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: was taught and what she's fluent in, and the system
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: around her was not supportive in understanding and providing resources
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: to ensure that it was translated or correctly shared. Right,
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: And that actually goes into another study. In twenty nineteen,
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: there was a study that found that forty percent of
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: sentences transcribed by Philadelphia stenographers were inaccurate and specifically related
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: to AAVE with ultimately an eighty three percent word accuracy.
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: And you might be going, well, eighty three percent word
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: accuracy sounds pretty decent. Stenographers are certified at ninety five
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: percent accuracy or greater. If they don't have ninety five
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: percent accuracy or greater, then it is not a usable transcription.
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: So at this point in time, it's just they've lost
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: so much of the language in these transcriptions.
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: Also, I make the jokes sometimes because I talk about
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: how like eighty percent as like a criteria for mastery
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: is just asinine to me. I'm like, try listening to
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: or understanding language that is eighty three percent accurate. I
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: you heard this podcast with seventeen percent of the words
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: like just garbled or mashed or replaced with something else, Like,
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: it would be incomprehensible. You wouldn't be able to understand
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: a huge amount of what was being said. Like, that
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: level of accuracy is just it is ineffective for communication.
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: So if they're transcribing court testimony in these documents in
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: this way with that level of accuracy, like it's going
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: to be so inaccurate it will not be able to
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: be understood by looking at historical records.
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: Right, and ultimately, if it's not understood, it can't be
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: reviewed again in the event of an appeal or a
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: retrial or in the case of like setting a precedent
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: for future legal cases. Like if you can't understand what
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: is being discussed or transcribed in the court, it's lost
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: and again it speaks to an unbalanced system where the
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: legal system benefits certain groups of people and it unfairly
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: maligns and sets people back who don't belong to that demographic.
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: And so that's just another example of how how our
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: legal system screws people over.
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: It certainly raises some concerns about the fairness of the
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: trial that they received, too, if like the if the testimonies,
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: if what was described and what happened what transpired in
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: that courtroom was not accurately captured, like, was it also
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: inaccurately understood at the time that the communication took place, right,
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: And we've already seen a couple of examples where that
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: definitely happened, which means there probably are a lot more
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: like we're seeing some like that's just barely scratching the.
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: Surface one percent.
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: All right, we have a ton of things to talk about,
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: including understanding the various characteristics of AAVE and how that works.
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: So we are going to turn this into a two parter.
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: We thought that that was a possibility, but I didn't
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: know for sure that's that's where we would be. But
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: it's a it's great. So this will be a part
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: one next time. We'll come back with a part two.
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: We'll jump into, as we said, some of the characteristic features,
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: looking at this from sort of a scientific view and
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: unpacking it and then getting into, of course, some interesting
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: tidbits if you will, tid boints, as we sometimes like
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: to call them. Yes, yes, yes, So thank you for
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: joining us for this one. Please come back for part
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: two so you can hear the things that you might
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: have been wondering this whole time, Like it is like
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: what so we've been talking about Aeve. What is that like?
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: We'll tell you next time, so come back around in
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: the meantime. If you would like to support us, you
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: can join us on Patreon, leave us a rating and review,
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: like subscribe, or tell a friend. All of those things
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: really help us out, and we do appreciate anything that
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: you are willing and able to do to help us
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: be a podcast, reach a nice audience, get ad revenue,
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: and just generally communicate with people. Because we do this
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: because we're trying to like be educational. We're trying to
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: provide a free service out there to people to just
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: you know, do some some teaching things. People who have
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: taken the leap and really helped us do this are
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: our patrons. They receive some bonus content early episodes, add
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: free episodes, and we also at the end of each
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: of our full lengths, we'll shout them out for just
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: being wonderful people and helping us do our things. So
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: a giant shout out thank you and welcome to not welcome,
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: but just thank you to Mike, em Omegan, Mike t, Justin,
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: Kim Brad, Stephanie, Brian, Ashley, Kiara, and Charlie. Thank you
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: all for continuing to help us do our thing.
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: Y'all are lovely, all right.
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: We actually do like to end our discussions with some recommendations.
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: If you have not been with us before, that might
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: come up as a surprise that we're going to do
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: the credits, and then we recommend some things that are
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: just fun, but things that have brought us joy recently,
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: so stick around through those. But I'd like to tell
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: you first that I cannot do this without the help
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: of my team writing and fact checking from Shane and myself.
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: Thank you for recording with me today, Shane, and for
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: your fantastic work on these notes.
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: Hey, thank you. I really tried hard on this one.
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: I mean not that I don't try hard at all
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: of them, but I try.
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: To know this one and uh oh yeah. Our social
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: media coordinator is Emma Wilson. And the person who stitches
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: all of this together, including long pauses where I'm thinking
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: very hard but not saying anything that does not end
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: up in the final episode. Luckily for you, it is
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: justin our God Emperor producer extraordinary wonder kind, yes, who
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: is so good at his job.
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he's just a gem.
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: All right. If you'd like to tell us your thoughts
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: on aav you can write to us directly by emailing
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: us at info at WWDWWD podcast, and on the social
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: media platforms, and we do look forward to hearing from you.
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: I think with that we're ready to transition to some recommendations.
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, let's do it.
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: Recommendations.
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: So I'm gonna recommend a book. It's a short book.
• 43:48
  Speaker 3: It's a collection of short stories. So if you do
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: not like short stories, then grow up. Short stories are fun. No,
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: You're allowed to like what you like. So this is
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: an author I've always really enjoyed because I think he
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: does a really great play. He's a great satirical author.
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: His name is David Saidaris and the book I'm recommending
• 44:06
  Speaker 3: is Holidays on ice. Yes it is June. Yes, these
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: stories are about Christmas. And yes, I've had this book
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: for like twenty years and just finally read it. So
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: he does these short stories, and he's known for being
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: i mean, very cutting, but very very satirical. One of
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: the stories I was telling Abraham before the show was
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: about two neighbors who were trying to like, you know,
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: outdo each other giving on Christmas, to the point where
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: they end up giving away their kids and their lungs
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: and like their scalps and stuff like just very ridiculous
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: and over the top. He tells a story about how
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: he worked as a Christmas elf during Christmas at Macy's
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: in New York and how ridiculous that was. And some
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: of the stories, and all of his stories are very
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: silly and very I feel like they have a There's
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: some of it that's like right, you know, there's a
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: sense of cynicism that goes along with some of them.
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: But when he writes about his family, there's always like
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: this like adoration that goes along with the weirdness that
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: is his family. There's one there's one story in here
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: called Dinah, the Christmas whore, and it's about how her
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: his sister, his sister has to go pick up her
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: friend from work who is a sex worker, and how
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: they go pick her up and like get her out
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: of this abusive situation, and then the family just has
• 45:18
  Speaker 3: like all these questions about what it means to be
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: a sex worker, and how the whole family comes together
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: and just has the best time with her. So like
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: it's it's one of those things where it's like they're
• 45:28
  Speaker 3: all kind of unified in their weirdness, which is a
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: lot of fun. And it just I don't know, I
• 45:33
  Speaker 3: just really enjoy David Sedara's stories, and I feel like
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: if you have a sense of humor and you have
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: strange families, then I think you'll appreciate it.
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: The name caught me off guard, but the name of
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: that short story, yeah yeah, yeah, uh huh yep. So cool.
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: All right, very intrigued. I do enjoy me some short stories,
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: and I would be curious to check this one out.
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: I'm recommending an album that actually came out maybe like
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: seven or eight months ago. I forget when it's been
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: out for less than a year. But this is Hailey Williams,
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: one of her solo albums.
• 46:06
  Speaker 3: Now.
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: I really like Paramore and generally they're my preference, but
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: Hailey Williams put out this album called Ego Death at
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: a Bachelorette Party, and man, this album is so good.
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: It's so good.
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: I have just been listening to it like over and
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: over and over again. It is fantastic. So and the
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: sort of the title track on here has a music
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: video that's very weird and fun and is an enjoyable
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: tune as well. So I would say most of the
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: tracks on this album I really really really like, and
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: there's like five or six that is always have in
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: my head these days. But yeah, so strong recommend is
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: Hailey Williams Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party. Right now.
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: The song I've been listening to the most is called
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: Love Me Different. My other favorite on here is called
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: Whim Disappearing Man is really good. Ego Death at a
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: Bachelorette Party is really good. There's just great tracks on here,
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: so anyway, go check that one out. It is it's
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: long in the sense that I think there's like eighteen tracks,
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: but all of them are like three minutes, so it's
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: not Yeah, they're not super long songs. For the most
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: part well, and.
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: She does an excellent cover, a shockingly great cover of
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: Discovery Channel by Bloodhound Game.
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: That's right, that's right, Yeah, she totally does. And it's
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: like it makes the Dare I say it makes the
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: original song better?
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, it's very strange.
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I probably wouldn't choose that song. But then you
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: hear her singing, You're like, oh, this is this is
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: this is nice? Nice?
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: I wait I heard it and I went, I know
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: this song? Why do I know this song? And then
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: it got to the chorus and I went, oh.
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: No, middle school, that's yeah, middle school.
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: Absolutely. It blew my mind. I was like, this is
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: this is absurd? But she does a great job with it.
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah it's fun.
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, she's fantastic. All right. So that is Shane's recommendation.
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: David Sidaris a book of short stories called Holidays on Ice,
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: and then Hayley Williams solo album Ego Death at a
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: Bachelorette Party. Anyway, I think that's what I would say
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: about those things. Anything you'd like to add that I
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: forgot before we say our goodbyes.
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: Nope, I think that covers it. Cool.
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: Thank you all for listening. Check us out next week
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: for the part two of this.
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: But this is Abraham and this is Shane.
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: We're out.
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: See yup, you've been listening to Why We Do What
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: We Do.
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: You can learn more about this and other episodes by
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: going to wwdwwdpodcast dot com.
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: Thanks for listening, and we hope you have an awesome day.