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If you’re reading this, chances are good that you like words, be that reading or writing them. Words are made of letters. And letters are pretty. (Those photos are just too cool not to share.)
And if you like words, continuing with our premise here, should you be allowed to teach them? According to this Washington Post article, there’s a firestorm raging in Arizona over whether educators with heavy accents and poor grammar should legally be able to teach students in language. From what’s been printed at the Post and elsewhere, the rule appears to apply only to English classes specifically, and those ousted from language arts classes are instead encouraged to teach math, science, or history. Of course, in light of all the racial profiling accusations Arizona is freshly dealing with (see here, here, and here), there is public outrage in all flavors surrounding the law.
I’m still deciding how I feel personally about the teacher mandate, because, quite frankly, I get it. I do. Assuming, that is, that this law would count for all thick accents–folks who cannot diverge from confusing international pronunciations, sure, but also those with Southern accents, Hahvahd cah pahkas, and anyone who says “dude” fifty-seven times in one class session. I’ve had teachers I could not understand, and I learned admittedly less from them. (And none of them were Latino by the way.)
But given the crap mandates that Arizona has thrown our way lately, is this really the place we want to start experimenting with these restrictions? And who decides what an “accent” is, anyway? I have a bland blend of Chicago and Nashville accents worked into my vocal habits, but guess what? I’d be almost impossible to understand audibly if you were an English-speaker from, I don’t know, Yemen. I have an “American accent”, if nothing else–and of course, there’s always something else.
There’s just too much potential for abuse. We’re all accented people. That’s how it works. It’s abysmally arrogant to think otherwise. It’s like vaguely calling someone an immigrant.
So who makes these rulings and decides which teachers’ vowels and word choice are too inconsistent, too close to that line? Where the hell is the line? I, for one, sure don’t like the idea of Arizona officials being the ones with the power. They’ve done soooo splendidly with it so far.
It remains to be seen how this will all play out. Here’s hoping it does so with at least a marginal amount of common sense, for a change.
And while we’re talking big business, let’s hit on all the drama at 48HR Magazine, shall we?
48HR Magazine, for anyone who missed the memo, is/was a genius project by a small handful of folks who proposed to read submissions, select pieces, edit copy, handle layout, and in short, create a full literary magazine in just forty-eight hours.
It is crazy. It is beautiful. I’ve seen the completed issue on MagCloud… and it is brilliant. (You should look, too, by the way. Fun stuff, and I can’t get enough of the stellar retro graphics.)
But for all their efforts, the folks at 48HRS forgot one thing. CBS has reportedly issued a “Cease and Desist” Letter upon the group, claiming infringement over the use of “48 Hours”, which it asserts will cause massive public confusion between this tiny group in California making a litmag in an office with the big brass network TV show that nobody really watches anymore.
Like this kind of dedication happens and gets mistaken for anything else.
Here’s hoping the guys don’t give up, and find some workaround (“36 Hour Magazine”? “Quarter Week Quarterly”?) and keep doing what they’re doing. The rest of us are watching, and we’re all rooting them on.
Living Personification
/ August 17, 2010I appreciate your bending over backward to appreciate the backward, but, let’s be Mencia-crass, here:
We aren’t talking about hawhaw-ing someone with a Southern twang. Neither, being horribly upset that a Midwesterner says “wash” as “worsh”. We are speaking of this exact model and no other, towit:
“If an individual, hailing from a culture or background whose linguistic training by modeling, has resulted in said individual speaking in such a manner as to be non-conducive to Caucasoid young people of primarily Western European backgrounds (mostly low income, some not) “getting” what’s said on the first go, perhaps the second, the aforementioned individual gets to be discriminated against, without the good Rev. Sharpton and his four-wheeled podium becoming involved. ”
It is, and let’s set down our Earl Grey at this point and Get Real, here, an “America for the Americans” situation…and, as most of us know, The Arts and their practitioners disagree strongly that there exists a single entity known as “Americans”. Those punching less decorative clocks as sole and only purpose in Life, with little hope of anything else, tend more toward the stereo. It’s fear-based. Most “reactive” measures are fear-based. I agree that this poses a problem, but one can’t have uniformity of thinking and infinite diversity, at the same time.
Amy
/ June 5, 2010As for CBS. WTF? I mean, really. I guess the mag could change it’s name to 2Days 2Mag or something, but the whole point is that they do a mag in 48 hrs. 48hrs the tv show isn’t a literal 48 hr thing, so it’s not like they stole their concept. I guess the mag people could become slackers and make it a 49 hr project. Lame, I know, but I think the first subject should be a contest on what CBS stands for. A few ideas come to mind, but nothing that I can say in mixed company. Don’t remember the restaurant chain, but some chain tried to sue over the use of a name for another restaurant. Except the other restaurant was using the name because it was the owner’s legal name. And the little mom and pop’s place won. Maybe this will go to court with a sane judge and the mag will win out.
+1
Smash Cake
/ May 23, 2010This email message came from Crystal, who also gave us the okay to add it to the comment trail:
I firmly agree with you about trying to regulate unintelligible accents. It is a slippery slope that I am not willing to broach, even having taken a college math class with a Professor from India that made it virtually impossible for me to glean anything from his lectures. However, what exactly do you take issue with, regarding the AZ law, that leads you to call it “crap?” Do you also take issue with the basically identical and currently unenforced Federal Law regarding illegal immigration? Have you ever lived in the Southwest, in some of the towns that are currently caught in the dangerous crossfire that is due to the permeable border?
-Crystal
Longshoreman philosopher Eric Hoffer once wrote that “all great movements eventually become a business, then degenerate into a racket.”
Smash Cake
/ May 23, 2010Hello Crystal,
Thanks for your comments.
My main concern with the AZ law (and yes, its Federal duplicate) is the fact that—even though I totally affirm why it’s needed—the basis for judgment in whether to stop someone and question them is a cosmetic one. There is no safeguard against abuse, even if the law makes sense in the general spirit in which I’d like to assume it was written.
I haven’t ever lived in the Southwest, you’re right. I’m from Chicago, where a few summers ago I tried to order lunch at the local Wendy’s restaurant and couldn’t get the clerk to understand the word “cheeseburger”. I wish I were kidding.
In the Southwest, as Chicago, there is a huge population of mixed nationalities and cultural shift. The thing is, going just by visual appearances, there’s no reliable way to tell whether someone is legal. It makes sense, therefore, to put some rules into place that allow them to be asked—don’t get me wrong. But the current law mandates approval for visual guessing, and in my head, that could get really dangerous, really quickly.
I think that basically, you and I agree. It’s the trusting politicians and some officials in the implementation of the law that bothers me, not the letter of the law itself. There’s got to be a better answer.
~~Tracy
Smash Cake
/ May 23, 2010Crystal responded (and again, kindly gave her permission to share publicly):
Tracy-
My understanding of the law is this: that a persona has to be stopped for a legitimate reason, other than a suspected illegal immigration status, before they can even be asked about their immigration status. To me this law is similar to the “search and seizure law” which also has to have a reasonable suspicion and cannot be used by police arbitrarily.
Rosemary Jenks offers a fairly succinct analysis of what this law allows the police to do under a “reasonable suspician” at Numbers USA:
During the course of “any lawful stop, detention, or arrest” made by any state or local law enforcement officer “in the enforcement of any other law or ordinance,” if the officer determines that there is reasonable suspicion that the person is an illegal alien, “a reasonable attempt” shall be made to determine the immigration status of the person by verifying immigration status with the federal government pursuant to federal law (8 U.S.C. 1373(c)).
In determining whether reasonable suspicion that an individual is illegally present, the law specifically prohibits unconstitutional profiling based on “race, color, or national origin in implementing” this section of the law.
The law specifically states that an individual is presumed to be lawfully present if he or she provides a valid Arizona driver’s license or identification card, a valid form of tribal identification, or valid identification issued by any U.S. federal, state, or local entity that requires proof of legal presence as a requirement of issuance.
An individual’s immigration status may be determined ONLY by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Customs and Border Protection (CBP), or a law enforcement officer authorized by the federal government to make such a determination.
I am not suggesting that there is not the potential for abuse with this law, or any other for that matter, (though I do tend to err on the side of the general integrity of American police officers). I just think the current tone of the debate is flawed. I think this law is an imperfect and fairly innocuous attempt by Arizona to deal with a serious problem, in the face of the impotence of the Federal Government. I don’t think this law will have the effect that Arizona is hoping for in terms of identifying illegal immigrants, nor is it inherently racist or xenophobic, as many political ideologues are suggesting. Illegal immigration is not good for anybody. It puts American citizens at risk when criminals enter the U.S. and intimidate, as they are doing in an increasingly brazen way in the Southwest border cities and it puts non-criminal illegal immigrants in a position in which they can and are regularly exploited by unethical employers who see them as a cheap and expendable workforce.
Smash Cake
/ May 23, 2010This came through our email from a reader named Ray, who gave us permission to post it here:
On the issue of accents, I like the commment about someone saying “dude” 57 times in one hour. Last night while doing laundry, I say a five minute interview in which the interviewee must have said the word “like” at least tn times. It was “like you know,” ineloquent at best. – Ray Zimmerman, Chattanooga
If you see a writer on fire, fan the flames.
znaturalist@yahoo.com
http://znaturalist.blogspot.com/
http://www.chattanoogawritersguild.org/zimmerman.shtml
Web
/ May 21, 2010As for CBS. WTF? I mean, really. I guess the mag could change it’s name to 2Days 2Mag or something, but the whole point is that they do a mag in 48 hrs. 48hrs the tv show isn’t a literal 48 hr thing, so it’s not like they stole their concept. I guess the mag people could become slackers and make it a 49 hr project. Lame, I know, but I think the first subject should be a contest on what CBS stands for. A few ideas come to mind, but nothing that I can say in mixed company. Don’t remember the restaurant chain, but some chain tried to sue over the use of a name for another restaurant. Except the other restaurant was using the name because it was the owner’s legal name. And the little mom and pop’s place won. Maybe this will go to court with a sane judge and the mag will win out.
+1
jenny
/ May 20, 2010I am for the notion that students should be able to understand the teacher…I had a teacher from Ganua at the peay and I could never understand anything she said, even when I asked her to repeat things. as long as it rules out heavy country accents too! (i.e. kid named “Jeremy” is not”Germy!” But seriously, I dont see how this Arizona law is constitutional, and it sounds scary. “Okay, anyone without blue eyes, follow us to the ‘shower!’ This is America!”
Heather
/ May 20, 2010“We’re all accented people. That’s how it works. It’s abysmally arrogant to think otherwise.”
Yup.
I definitely would have had at least one high school French teacher fired if these standards were in place. We had a bunch of French exchange students come, and they couldn’t understand her. (She was also just kind of batsh** crazy to begin with, which didn’t help.)
Mandi M. Lynch
/ May 20, 2010Okay, so I agree with the English teachers need to speak English law.
I once had a French teacher who knew Spanish, taught the Spanish classes, and thus had to teach the French classes too. “Nous Sommes” is not pronounced “noose some-ez” as she taught us, so when we got to high school, a few of us had a decidedly difficult time knowing that “new some” was the same thing – and correct. *face palm* (Dumb Ms. Patterson)
Yeah, maybe there are issues with it. But I’d much rather see it in practice than see people stop it before it starts. Math teachers have to be awesome at Math, so why don’t English teachers have to be awesome at English?
As for CBS. WTF? I mean, really. I guess the mag could change it’s name to 2Days 2Mag or something, but the whole point is that they do a mag in 48 hrs. 48hrs the tv show isn’t a literal 48 hr thing, so it’s not like they stole their concept. I guess the mag people could become slackers and make it a 49 hr project. Lame, I know, but I think the first subject should be a contest on what CBS stands for. A few ideas come to mind, but nothing that I can say in mixed company. Don’t remember the restaurant chain, but some chain tried to sue over the use of a name for another restaurant. Except the other restaurant was using the name because it was the owner’s legal name. And the little mom and pop’s place won. Maybe this will go to court with a sane judge and the mag will win out.