This... is White Privilege

Jan. 11, 2013 at 10:16pm with 178 notes

#974

White privilege is saying that AAVE(African American Vernacular English) is “desecrating the English language”.

These people don’t know how language works because they never feel that way about English people saying “I’ll take me coat” or “the building you’re sat in”.

If AAVE or other POC-related dialects were exactly the same, but affiliated with white people instead of people of color, they would be a “cute accent”.

submitted by: firework-comic

Editor’s note: I often think of this when white supremacists and racists talk about AAVE, language is the human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, so if white people hate AAVE because it sounds complicated or doesn’t sound ‘right’ then they shouldn’t speak English because all English speakers do is mold their words to most accurately illustrate what they want to communicate. If white people don’t understand AAVE that just goes to show it’s a legitimate dialect.

Words like abdabs, cheeky, cuppa, pants, chips, chav, and arsed all have different meanings in the UK than they do in English(or don’t exist), and even within the UK some words have different meanings(or don’t exist).

People like to down-play how much other languages distinguish themselves through their dialects, especially English speakers. Regardless of the fact that English is a very clear example of how there is no ‘right way’ to speak it.

Dialects, sociolects, and ethnolects of English are all valid. People only hate AAVE because it is something that seems exclusive to Black people and it comes from a language that we were denied full access to for a really long time.

AAVE should be respected for what it is.

- thelittlekneesofbees