Posted on 03/18/2012 7:12:06 PM PDT by Clintonfatigued
Ninth-grader Jordan Shumate said that during class this month, he was reading aloud a poem by acclaimed African American writer Langston Hughes when his teacher interrupted and directed him to read in a “blacker” style.
“She told me, ‘Blacker, Jordan — c’mon, blacker. I thought you were black,’ ” said Shumate, who is African American.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Here’s another dumb-ass government teacher. I wish that more Americans would wake up and quit sending their chidren to the public schools.
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Teacher just used the wrong term. There is no ‘black’ or ‘white’ dialect as blacks and whites speak in various dialects.
If he would have said to speak more ghettoish, more ‘from the hood’, or more in a slangly southern dialect, that would have been the way to ask for better vocalization.
This made “news” in the WP? Must be a very slow news day. Would it be racism to have someone read Robert Burns in a Scottish dialect (as his poems are written)?
This is the left, the left, the left.
Langston Hughes is a great poet, I know he was a commie, or something, but he is a great poet.
Years ago I was looking in a bookstore for a book of poems by LH, I just wanted to read some more than I had available in my anthologies. Couldn’t find a one. Complained about it to a friend of mine, a very left-wing gal, btw, but that wasn’t why I was discussing this with her.
She said “Oh, look in the African-American section, that’s where he’ll be.”
And I was dumbfounded, incredulous. I don’t remember if she thought that was OK, or if she agreed with me that it was ridic. I sort of remember her saying: right or wrong if you want to buy a book of LH poems, that’s where they’ll be.
And she was right. I either went back to the store or to another store and there he was...segregated along with all the other black poets.
Most annoying.
This tread has inspired me.
Here is a great LH poem, I’ll be back in a sec with one from Robbie Burns.
MOTHER TO SON
Well, son, I’ll tell you:
Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
It’s had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor—
Bare.
But all the time
I’se been a-climbin’ on,
And reachin’ landin’s,
And turnin’ corners,
And sometimes goin’ in the dark
Where there ain’t been no light.
So, boy, don’t you turn back.
Don’t you set down on the steps.
‘Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.
Don’t you fall now—
For I’se still goin’, honey,
I’se still climbin’,
And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
Langston Hughes
Here is Burns (I’ve kept in the hints provided by Bartelby.com
JOHN ANDERSON, MY JO
JOHN ANDERSON, my jo, John,
When we were first acquent,
Your locks were like the raven,
Your bonnie brow was brent;
But now your brow is beld, John, 5
Your locks are like the snow;
But blessings on your frosty pow,
John Anderson, my jo!
John Anderson, my jo, John,
We clamb the hill thegither; 10
And monie a canty day, John,
We’ve had wi’ ane anither:
Now we maun totter down, John,
But hand in hand we’ll go,
And sleep thegither at the foot, 15
John Anderson, my jo.
Robert Burns
GLOSS: jo] sweetheart. brent] smooth, unwrinkled. beld] bald. pow] pate. canty] cheerful.
LOL, sorry ...
That's because nobody reads Langston Hughes except when it's been assigned. Or unless one is trying to make some ideological point. No one reads such a man, in short, for fun.
That's becuz
the man
can't
write.
Shumate sounds like an afficianado of the Bell Critical Race Theory (see next post)...
Thanks for posting that. Not too much Negro dialect going on there (not that there’s anything wrong with Negro dialect!).
Samurai, I gotta disagree with you about Hughes’ writing ability, but let’s face it, he could be the greatest thing since Willy Shakespeare and the bien pensants would want him ghettoized, that’s what they do.
Interestingly, in looking up Hughes on wikipedia, to see where he was from I noticed a Scottish connection.
From wiki “Both of Hughes’ paternal and maternal great-grandmothers were African-American, his maternal great-grandfather was white and of Scottish descent. A paternal great-grandfather was of European Jewish descent.[2] Hughes’s maternal grandmother Mary Patterson was of African-American, French, English and Native American descent.”
Hughes was born in Joplin, MO.
‘Blacker’? You mean ignorant?
“You is the father”
“You is dumb”
“Obama is they president”
“The child is mines”
I imagine this is a diversity teacher tryin’ to keep it real...every black man on the socialist slave reservation.
My favorite of his as well. I also think of him as a great American poet; no further labels necessary.
Yet if his books were in the mainstream section, you can bet someone would complain about that. There's just no pleasing people who are only halfway to enlightenment.
An Englishman is being shown around a Scottish hospital.
At the end of the tour he is shown into a ward with a number
of patients who show no signs of injury.
He goes to examine the first man he sees, and the man proclaims,
“Fair fa’ yer honest sonsie face,
Great chieftain o’ the puddin’ race!”
The Englishman, somewhat taken aback, goes to the next
patient, who immediately launches into:
“Some hae meat, and canna eat, and some wad eat that want it,
But we hae meat and we can eat, and sae the Lord be thankit.”
The next patient sits up and declaims:
“Wee sleekit cow’rin tim’rous beastie,
O what a panic’s in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty wi’ bickering bl’attle.
I wad be laith to run and chase thee wi’ murdering prattle.”
“Well!” says the Englishman to his Scottish colleague.
“I see you saved the psychiatric ward for the last.”
“No, no,” the Scottish doctor corrects him. “This is the Serious Burns Unit.”
:::LOL!:::
“This is the Serious Burns Unit.”
LOL, very silly!
Yeah well after this marxist magic negro punk in the white hut, I’m not too “sensative” when it comes to race crappola either.
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