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Posts
92 comments:
That's a good point Steve on the deal that the GOP offers White Reagan Democrat union members: "We hate you."
BUT ... recall that unions nearly 100% back Dems, hard core AA, hard core "historic American Nation replacement" (i.e. open borders, mass immigration) and everything else.
The White union members don't matter. Because they vote whatever the bosses tell them, give their union dues to lobby for MORE Mexican mass immigration, and generally vote in fairly large numbers for the whole anti-ordinary White guy agenda.
Since they are part of that coalition. They'll take the risk of getting fired/discriminated against in favor of non-Whites, every day, in order to maximize the money they get out of the non-Union White middle class. Hoping the Crocodile will eat them last.
Also, the great untold story of the late 20th and early 21st Century is just how much ordinary folks don't matter. They just don't. Elites run roughshod over them. In every country. Even JAPAN is taking in thousands of Thais idled by that nation's floods as Japan struggles with Tsunami/recession recovery. Not even Japanese nationalism is enough to limit elitism any more.
Does the GoP want Reagan Democrats? Of course not! People forget Reagan took over the GoP against the wishes of the Republican establishment. He took it over because of the Reagan Democrats. The Bushes, Ford, Doles and the Romney types never wanted Reagan or the the Reagan Democrats.
The Key to understanding Republicans is this: Its all about Money. At bottom its a class driven party and always has been. They don't care who works in their factories or mows their lawn. Just keep taxes low, the Government subsides coming, and lots of cheap, cheap labor and they're happy.
Your article is ridiculous.
Blacks do well on the French AP exams, because the percentage of blacks with a francophone background is higher than the percentage of whites with a francophone background. It's not because American-born blacks like putting é's at the end of their names or they like listening to jazz.
At my high school there was a girl from Cote D'Ivoire and a girl from Haiti. Both of them took the AP French exam and aced it.
Outside of a few parishes in Louisiana, there just aren't any white Americans who speak French at home any more. But there are plenty of immigrants from francophone African and Caribbean countries.
Still, Hispanics, or at least the Mexicans I'm most familiar with, remain more leery than blacks of using diversity and affirmative action to take the more upscale jobs that they would likely be lousy at. This has slowed the collision.
I've always thought their apolitical nature was their best virtue.
“Today, we’re doing things we like and things we no like,” David Colon told sixth-grade Spanish students at the Prince George’s County public school one recent day. He directed them to a fill-in-the-blanks exercise with the verb “gustar” — to like. “Me gusta, no me gusta.”
JAJAJAJAJAJA. A mi no like eso! A mi no like eso! Where's Ron to tell me everything's gonna be ok? Glad to see the Slave Power is alive and well.
"He took an exam to demonstrate proficiency for teaching Spanish. The questions were in English, and he responded in Spanish."
Whew, for a minute there I wasn't sure.
> Maybe this isn't a realistic fear, but that's how a lot of lower class blacks feel.
Citation needed. Who do you know who talks to a lot of lower-class blacks, to know how they feel? Given that it's probably someone on the web, one of your infinite links would be nice, there.
Its strange that the powers-that-be never extrapolate this thinking out to sports programs. "Asians are relative underachievers at basketball, so clearly what we need is to get rid of many of the black and white coaches and get more Asian coaches."
Also Steve, the tendency among black students to prefer French when it comes to foreign languages is not a result of the tangential connection to jazz music, but comes about as a result of the same factors that lead Hispanics to study Spanish. A lot of the blacks in US colleges are here on working visas, or are first or second generation Americans, many from francophone countries, and either speak French as a first or second language or have parents who do.
Re: Blacks and language, it is another missed opportunity that more blacks have not gone into foreign language-related fields, such as translation. Africans tend to be very good, and very quick, at picking up foreign languages (oral, probably more than written).
This is likely related to their skills at preaching, politics, acting and other areas that require spoken facility without much original creative thought although improvization (like jazz) does enter into the picture. (As discussed by Derb here [http://takimag.com/article/a_black_gift_for_politics/print#axzz1eKEF3hjA}and Steve here [http://www.isteve.com/blackath.htm])
I have seen many Africans learn Mandarin, Japanese, Korean and other difficult languages with amazing facility.
This is one of the reasons why focusing on IQ is too reductive. Skill sets and predilections are more nuanced and also more bundled that can be appreciated by just using IQ as shorthand for overall ability and talent.
Read the whole thing there.
Sorry. Would probably be too depressing.
That kind intrigues my interest: How did America manage to teach English to those early immigrants from Europe to spread English to their kids in the first place? Maybe those experiences could hep?
paying a lot to hire teachers who can't speak English to teach the kids from SPANISH-speaking families how to speak Spanish
Uhh, not to be a Grammar Nazi or anything, but I think you misspelled "NAHUATL".
Whiskey: The White union members don't matter. Because they vote whatever the bosses tell them, give their union dues to lobby for MORE Mexican mass immigration, and generally vote in fairly large numbers for the whole anti-ordinary White guy agenda.
Union Member = Catholic
GOP = Protestant
That's all you need to know - these are precisely the same ideological battles which our ancestors were fighting 500 years ago.
PS: And if you're curious, then you can also now say, definitively, and in polite company, no less, that
Union Boss = Pharisee
Ergo these are actually the same battles which our ancestors were fighting 2000 years ago.
Plus ça change, and whatnot...
I too have noticed that Africans are very good at learning to speak a new language.
I have a bit of experience with this. When I was a freshman at a high school that was roughly 1/5 Hispanic, the instructor for introductory Spanish was an immigrant who spoke English only haltingly, and almost never conversed in English in class. The class was disproportionately Hispanic (about 2/3).
I quickly learned that it was essentially a class that gave otherwise lackluster Hispanic students an easy A, and a world of frustration to those of us who assumed that it would be conducted partially in English, given that it was supposed to be, at least in theory, introductory.
So I took German. I did have to spend several weeks catching up on course material (I transferred late), but it was easier than trying to learn the basics of a foreign language from someone who hardly spoke my language at all.
That kind intrigues my interest: How did America manage to teach English to those early immigrants from Europe to spread English to their kids in the first place? Maybe those experiences could hep?
The "racist, xenophobic" past has been completely rejected in the US. Many books have been written on this subject, probably the best is Paul Gottfried's "Multiculturalism and the Politics of Guilt."
Mexican-Americans
don't just get in gang fights,
they go to night school
and take Spanish
and get a C!
Cheech Marin
"Mexican-Americans"
Eh, it could be worse, lots of asians pouring into the country, getting free public schooling in their own languages.etc.
"the tendency among black students to prefer French when it comes to foreign languages is not a result of the tangential connection to jazz music, but comes about as a result of the same factors that lead Hispanics to study Spanish. A lot of the blacks in US colleges are here on working visas, or are first or second generation Americans, many from francophone countries, and either speak French as a first or second language or have parents who do."
This is prolly true. But I'd like to know the favorite foreign language course for blacks born in America. So, leaving out Francophone blacks in the US, what is the preferred foreign language among American blacks with long roots in this country?
Of course, we're really talking of middle class blacks since I don't think lower class blacks give a shit about any kind of schoolwork.
Among middle class blacks with some knowledge of culture and fancy stuff, there might be a kind of affection for French for whatever reasons.
This reminds me of Geology 101 I took in college. We had to take a few science classes to graduate from liberal arts. There were two T.A.s, one white guy... and one Chinese guy who could barely speak English. They took turns lecturing, and whenever the Chinese guy spoke, we were all looking at one another thinking 'huh?'. But we understood when he pronounced 'sheet' as 'shit'. It was a laugh riot.
Hey, this could start a new trend in education. Students teaching the teacher.
So, how about hiring a black math teacher who can barely add. Maybe the students can teach him how. I mean why should knowledge only go one way?
And why just in education? Let's have columnists, editors, movie critics, news anchorman, and etc who can barely speak English.
Diversity, damn it! It's not enough to have Hispanic and Asian newsmen on TV. We need those who can barely speak English so that immigrants who can't speak good English have someone to identify with.
Get rid of Roger Ebert and hire Pepe Gomez.
Tranformers: "It not so good, I think. Mucho robots go boom boom, ciudad blow up and it exciting but acting muy mal."
This Hispanic teacher sounds ridiculous but didnt' we have a president who could barely speak English for 8 yrs? I mean Bushez.
So let me get this straight: black schools are hiring foreigners to teach the illegal alien foreigner kids?
Rank and file black folks, both union and non-union are so stupid.
I read angry black elitist rags like "Jack and Jill Politics" and "The Root", and they never even mention black working class replacement. Pretty much whatever is bad for white folks they like. Anything that hurts white people they are in favor of.
Of course it also helps that the Talented Tenth haven't felt the pain of a crashing economy or THEIR loss of jobs ... yet.
I wonder whether The Talented Tenth are going to keep singing the Jesse-Jackson-Rainbow-Coalition theme song once when they realize THEY are getting screwed out of jobs, too.
Somehow I doubt it. They can't locate enough testicles to mention the murderous Hispanic-on-black race war in LA. So why should they care that Mexican illegals are driving black folks out of working class jobs in Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia.
Pity.
The New Americans really don't care if black folks live or die, let alone care enough to fight for black affirmative action.
When you come to America from a country with an median wage of maybe $1500 a year it is awfully hard to feel any sympathy for black folks in America on welfare a hundred and fifty years after slavery who are making an easy $25,000 a year in government benefits (many get $35,000 or more)in order to maintain a 70+% bastardy rate.
Only white folks are fool enough to feel that guilty.
That kind intrigues my interest: How did America manage to teach English to those early immigrants from Europe to spread English to their kids in the first place? Maybe those experiences could hep?
LOL
The Department of Education could care less about taking any lessons from the actual history of education in the US.
They'd rather cook up schemes to claim that NAM's lag in educational achievement due to the lack of iPads in the classroom.
Learning any foreign language is simple when it's a sink or swim situation; i.e. IMMERSION works. It's what worked with the Ellis Island immigrants, and why the plethora of churches and their "free English classes" aren't working with the Mexicans. Add to that racial differences in IQ and you have Spanglish and the current multicultural stew. It's foul and pervasive. As far as blacks having a greater facility for foreign languages than Whites, as per some of your commenters, I've never seen it - either in high school or college classes or Foreign Service language ability. Provide links and factual proof; personal anecdotes and impressions are less than convincing.
One major difference, according to what I've read, would be when learning a tonal language (Chinese or certain Indian languages). It seems there are differences in certain sounds that no one but a native speaker can ever truly detect. I just read a comment over at SBPDL that a voice coach complained about differences in laryngeal and voice structures between the races as causing problems for blacks trying to sing opera properly. Such genetic racial variation could well cause some of the differences in foreign language facility among the races.
Blacks and hispancis get along quite well together.
I don't know how this myth got started about black latino animoisty.
So, how about hiring a black math teacher who can barely add. Maybe the students can teach him how. I mean why should knowledge only go one way?
There's always Otis Mathis, the functionally illiterate black school board President in Detroit:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,588138,00.html
He penned emails like this one:
"If you saw Sunday's Free Press that shown Robert Bobb the emergency financial manager for Detroit Public Schools, move Mark Twain to Boynton which have three times the number seats then students and was one of the reason's he gave for closing school to many empty seats," the e-mail read, according to the paper.
Good anvil does not fear the hammer
From the VDare article: "Blacks don't really like any language other than English."
They like English? That's news to me.
"That great art form[jazz] originated in the French Quarter of New Orleans, and many black jazz musicians found appreciative audiences in Paris."
Would those be the same audiences who are so appreciative of Jerry Lewis movies?
Sheila said: "As far as blacks having a greater facility for foreign languages than Whites, as per some of your commenters, I've never seen it - either in high school or college classes or Foreign Service language ability."
The commenter, Remnant, specified oral, rather than written facility when s/he said, "Africans tend to be very good, and very quick, at picking up foreign languages (oral, probably more than written)." I'd say that while blacks tend to be good imitators, which would be an advantage when learning to speak a foreign language, their level of interest and intellect would be a disadvantage.
Sheila wrote: " I just read a comment over at SBPDL that a voice coach complained about differences in laryngeal and voice structures between the races as causing problems for blacks trying to sing opera properly."
I've read similar comments elsewhere.
Who do you know who talks to a lot of lower-class blacks, to know how they feel?
Personally, I gathered several hundred signatures for a petition drive against in-state tuition for illegal aliens in Maryland this summer.
My experience was that older (50+) blacks from the Civil Rights Era were more likely to side with hispanics against the white man.
But younger blacks, really, really REALLY don't like hispanics! I had several cases where young blacks rushed home, gathered up all their friends/family and rushed back so they could all sign the petition.
Steve,
I get the idea behind your proposed grand bargain with the potential Reagan Dems in public sector unions, but this NY Post article encapsulates the challenges with that.
Remember the historic GOP victory in the special election for Anthony Weiner's Congressional seat in NYC? An OWS hippie came to heckle the guy who won, Rep. Bob Turner, at his swearing in ceremony. One of Turner's supporters, a 48-year-old with a high-and-tight, built like a brick shit house, drags the hippie out with one hand. The article says this 48 year old retired from the NYPD two years ago on "disability" 2 years ago.
In the same article, the new Congressman is quoted saying "socialism doesn't work". Healthy 48 year old pensioners are why it doesn't work.
You get the significance of Reagan Democrats, which some conservatives today miss: namely, that when their economic security is covered (mainly via private sector union manufacturing jobs, in Reagan's day), working class men are free to vote their cultural interests (as hunters/gun owners, etc.). The problem is that we can't afford to maintain public sector workers in the lifestyle they've become accustomed to.
The same day I read that NY Post article, I got lunch at my local Whole Foods. I saw a manager there who is visibly handicapped -- one arm bent uselessly like a chicken wing, walks with a limp. It's not politically sustainable to tax guys like him to fund pensions for guys like that 'disabled' cop.
The solution isn't a simple one, but it seems pretty clear: for the GOP to have a reliable working class base, it needs a private sector that creates the sort of good-paying, secure jobs that free up workers to vote as cultural conservatives, because they are less dependent on government for their economic security. Trade, immigration, and other policies ought to be considered by the GOP with that in mind.
About blacks and French: I guess I shouldn't be surprised. You're right, even anglophone blacks seem to like French more than Spanish. Heck, after all, "Antwan" is just the ghetto form of "Antoine".
And as for their not liking Spanish -- it has led to the odd phenomenon of whites in prison joining white gangs, allying with Mexicans, and picking up Spanish.
German, on the other hand, is studied almost entirely by whites. I myself studied it because it was more challenging for me than the Romance languages. My brother says that it still can be quite useful in Germany, despite most young people being able to speak fluent English there.
Union Member = Catholic
GOP = Protestant
That's all you need to know - these are precisely the same ideological battles which our ancestors were fighting 500 years ago.
That's quite bizarre. In fact most union members are Protestant.
Just because your mentality is trapped in the distant past does not mean that reality is.
Go back to sleep and wake up again in another 500 years.
I have seen many Africans learn Mandarin, Japanese, Korean and other difficult languages with amazing facility.
What about Basque, Georgian, Hungarian, Latvian, and Navajo?
ah, teachers from puerto rico.
did you know that 2011 is the most violent year ever in the history of puerto rico? over 1100 people have been murdered in puerto rico this year, the all time record. there's less than 4 million people on the whole island, which would make PR about as violent as detroit.
this is a barely reported story, at least in the US media. there seems to be a total news blackout on that, similar to the absolute stone wall they put up on news from south africa. no news, none of the time.
sorry mr pinker, but the trends are not global. third world violence continues to move along at a steady rate.
"Africans tend to be very good, and very quick, at picking up foreign languages (oral, probably more than written."
I've met Dutch people and people from other small countries with a language unknown outside that country. And know what? Those people displayed amazing facility in picking up languages. Had done so since childhood.
The Dutch lady told me they learned English in grade school, as well as several other languages, and just knew they had no choice, and learned. Americans have little facility because we never have to. Even when I would try to speak other languages I'd studied in foreign countries, people would often interrupt & speak English. More efficient. So we don't get a chance, and we're rarely forced.
"That kind intrigues my interest: How did America manage to teach English to those early immigrants from Europe to spread English to their kids in the first place? Maybe those experiences could hep?"
The Germans were kind enough to not bring their crap to America. They had no desire to recreate their failed feudal state here, but instead to make sure their children had a future.
Steve can you comment on the latest birth data. The hispanic tfr has collapsed - it is 2.35.
Another excellent article Steve, perfect example of the stupidity of the current GOP leadership exemplified by my home town Governor John Kasich. The GOP and Kasich has completely bought into the idea that poor student performance is the fault of teachers and not students. He seems to be unaware that teaching is a classic service oriented profession. Service oriented businesses like restaurants, bars, grocery stores, etc... for example can't develop the kind of huge productivity gains that say a factory or mine can by developing new procedures or technology. The are constrained because the customers are on the premises and aren't a factor of production that can be manipulated like a furnace or assembly line. Customers also tend not to like being treated like an assembly line by the businesses they visit.
These considerations are completely independent of the fact that there are very well established performance differences in standardized test between different racial groups. The other ironic thing is that cops and firefighters tend to be the most conservative civil servants politically outside of the military, and yet they are the focus along with teachers of his attacks. Kasich seems to want to save Ohio by destroying it, bludgeoning three of the last decent middle class professions still left in the state. Our state has lost most of the what remained of our manafacturing base this past decade due to competition from China. The only large city in the state that still has a good economy is the state capital of Columbus, which has the government and Ohio State to help it out during recessions. His conclusion? Attack state and local government with a chainsaw!!!!
According to the Federales, it is actually ILLEGAL to require English-speaking proficiency in teachers who teach English:
http://religionnewsblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/az-cant-require-fluent-english-teachers.html
As a teenager in England in the 1990s there was similar pressure to study Spanish, which was talked up as The Language Of The Future (although exactly why was not explained), and most kids did, for a couple of years at least. I however opted for German (alongside French) and have never regretted it for a moment. German gives you access to a far more interesting and sophisticated set of cultures than Spanish does, and it really helps any Anglo-Saxon or person of wider Germanic descent (e.g. Steve) understand his own culture and ancestral world (doubtless one of the reasons why Anglo kids are ushered away from it). Not to mention seriously enhancing understanding of the World Wars.
It is also an intrinsically more interesting language. I picked up Spanish easily at age 19 but know of no Spanish speakers of a similar age who ever got to grips with German.
If European culture survives in the long term it may be largely or exclusively because Germany continues to prosper. Speaking German will help in its own way to further that end; given the state of the USA, wider speaking of Spanish serves only to damage European civilization.
One major difference, according to what I've read, would be when learning a tonal language (Chinese or certain Indian languages). It seems there are differences in certain sounds that no one but a native speaker can ever truly detect.
I'm a White guy who has learned Chinese as an adult, and I have no problem either detecting or producing tones. I don't think it's really any different than getting adjusted to the grammar of a foreign language. It becomes natural after a while.
I thought it is well established that kids pick up their surrounding language because the ability is hard-wired.
I came here at age 6, knowing no English. My parents knew only pidgin English. Yet within a year I was fluent. By my teens I had lost my native language (to my later regret).
My experience parallels those of other immigrant kids. It is a complete waste of money to teach children in their home language.
You wrote:
What complex ideological policy analysis motivates this loyalty? Eh, just racialism:
"Beyond issues, many African-Americans feel an emotional connection to Mr. Obama that seems unshakable, saying that nothing can compare with seeing someone who looks like them in the White House."
==================================
Why do you keep harping about the "racialist" support for Obama amongst Blacks, as if it's evidence insidious anti-White racialism.
Isn't it understandable that blacks would support Obama, and the primary reason being his race (and political orientation too,) given the history of slavery and Jim Crow?
Yes, it is racialism and it's completely forgivable.
You'd have an emotional connection with a White president too if the last 40 were all non-Whites and if your people were enslaved.
You're so unbelievably petty!!!!
I'm going to get a lot of grief for saying this (not that I mind), but it makes much more sense to teach American kids Spanish than German.
Germany may be the economic powerhouse of Europe (which isn't too hard), but its, well, running out of Germans. Angela Merkel has no children of her own. Her much married predecessor, Gerhard Schoredr has one of his own, and Merkel's 'minister of families' ironically is pregnant at 34 with her first (and only?).
Meanwhile, down south...
There is a logic about shipping coals to Newcastle once you realize it's not about educating the kids.
It's about ethnic spoils system claiming jobs for their own partisans.
If kids get shafted being stuck with borderline illiterate and/or dim teachers, well that's just the kind of big-hearted sacrifice leftist elites are willing to make.
"My experience parallels those of other immigrant kids. It is a complete waste of money to teach children in their home language."
Not if you want them to stay in the ghetto.
In fact most union members are Protestant.
You really seriously wanna make that bet?
Remember, we're talking about unionized blue collar WHITE [caucasian European] workers above the Mason-Dixon line.
"I came here at age 6, knowing no English. My parents knew only pidgin English. Yet within a year I was fluent. By my teens I had lost my native language (to my later regret)."
I feel for you bro, I found it hard to hang onto my Igbo also.
"The Germans were kind enough to not bring their crap to America."
Completely false. Most German immigrants in the 19th century spoke German to their children. There used to be thriving German language theaters in New York, German newspapers in most midwestern cities, German books, schools, etc. The reason all this disappeared is simple - World War I. The US Government and English Americans simply put a stop to the German language in the US
As some other posters have noted, Steve's speculations about Blacks and language show that Steve hasn't really given this issue a lot of thought. Africa and Haiti are full of Francophones, so that probably explains test scores. Maybe some upper class blacks see French as a useful cultural language but they can't be more than 1% of the black population. If Blacks really cared about the culture of other non-American blacks you would see a lot of black interest in Portuguese and Arabic as well, and that doesn't seem to be the case. Of course many middle class blacks are effectively bilingual anyway - speaking standard English in public and black dialect at home. So why learn a third language?
Of course, the real reason Prince George county has to hire Puerto Ricans who don't speak English to staff their schools is that they've run out of people able to communicate with the locals who would be willing to become teachers in DC. I haven't had the experience myself, but I've been told by many current DC educators that, if health and status are important to me, I should consider becoming a prostitute in Detroit before I even think of joining them. If one teacher randomly breaks down and cries at a teachers' convention, he/she is guaranteed to be from DC. So, yeah, the Prince George administrators are lucky to get this puerto rican guy. Soon, the word will spread, and they'll have to find a population that is even less informed and more vulnerable like South American penguins or recent lobotomy recipients.
The Germans were kind enough to not bring their crap to America. They had no desire to recreate their failed feudal state here, but instead to make sure their children had a future.
Nonsense.
Sounds like American Exceptionalism to me, not saying the theory has nothing to it.
for the average person, spanish as a second language is only useful for exploring mexico and south america. those are big and interesting places, so it's not a total waste of time. i started picking up spanish myself after going to mexico many times. it's an easy language, probably as easy as english.
as a tool language, spanish would only be useful to somebody who wants to do generic business in places where spanish is spoken. spanish isn't useful as a general tool language in our modern global world. it's not useful in this "language of the future" sense we occassionally hear.
nothing important comes out of places where spanish is the main language. you'll never be encountering intellectuals, scientists, engineers, surgeons, original important texts, need-to-read books, movies, or any of that in spanish. any important person you do occassionally have to interact with from any of those places will already speak acceptable english, because they have to. culture flows from english nations outward, not from spanish nations outward.
i speak german (not that good anymore) and it's been a thousand times more useful in our new, connected world. i actually meet german speakers all the time from germany, austria, switzerland, on the web and in the real world, and it's helpful to switch into german sometimes.
on the web, you'll never need to have a high brainpower conversation with anybody who speaks spanish, in spanish. there just aren't that many smart monolingual spanish speakers, even on the net. but you might occassionally need to in german. although as has been pointed out, most german speakers also speak english well now.
i think people are underestimating how the web is ramming english into every young person's life, around the world. if you're on the internet from a young age now, you encounter english every day, and start picking it up.
i notice this when i'm talking to people under age 25 or so on the web. from pretty much any developed nation, they all speak english to some degree after absorbing english movies, video games, television shows, and internet.
i noticed this when i started learning korean. english is now interwoven into korean, it's called konglish, and it's everywhere in korea. yes, chinese and japanese would be more useful. but korean women are better looking on average. a lot better looking.
I'm going to get a lot of grief for saying this (not that I mind), but it makes much more sense to teach American kids Spanish than German... Meanwhile, down south...
Well, maybe it's more at "Vocabulary Nazi" [or "Semantics Nazi"] than "Grammar Nazi", but you guys keep saying "Spanish" when what you mean to say is something more like "Nahuatl".
We aren't being flooded with people who speak Spanish - we are being overrun by aboriginals who speak Nahuatl, Yucatec, Mixtec, Zapotec, or any of about 64 other pre-written [non-literate] languages.
Now in practice, many of them might converse in something like a Nahuatl/Spanish/Portuguese/English creole, but as commenters have pointed out at iSteve in the past - if their Castilian/Hapsburgian overlords couldn't get them to learn proper Spanish over the course of the last 500 years, then it's ludicrous for us to pretend that we're gonna be able to get them to read & write in English.
Isn't one of the foundational principles of paleo-con-ism supposed to be something along the lines of, "Know thy limits"?
Isn't it understandable that blacks would support Obama, and the primary reason being his race (and political orientation too,) given the history of slavery and Jim Crow?
It's just as reasonable to suppose they'd support him for being black. Just wait till there's a hispanic candidate for president; what's your excuse going to be then?
Yes, it is racialism and it's completely forgivable.
Yes, it always is for blacks. They can be as pro-black (and typically anti-other) as they like and not one in one thousand white liberals will call them on it. I'm not sure whether it's typical liberal race-stupidity (which there's no shortage of), which reflexively defers to blacks on race questions ('cos blacks know best about race) or a patronizing kind of 'liberal white supremacism' -- "Ah, they're just black people. Can't be easy being black so leave 'em alone."
Anyway, I don't care if blacks are pro-black. I think they should be. I just think the door should be opened to whites who want to be pro-white. Seems pretty fair to me but apparently this in the minds of many equates to pure evil.
Silver
jody,
sorry mr pinker, but the trends are not global. third world violence continues to move along at a steady rate.
The homicide rate in S. Africa and Colombia is today half what it was in the 1990s. Brazil's homicide rate has declined at a slower pace but the trend is down, not up. These are big countries and still very third-worldish so it's worth paying attention to trends there. The picture isn't quite as alarming as you suggest.
Silver
Another thing you might want to point out about Spanish is that the differences between Central, South American, and European Spanish are becoming more and more pronounced with every generation.
Central American speakers barely know the difference between the formal/informal terms anymore, and even between the various nations words take on an entirely different meaning.
If you wanna get around in EU, you need speak only English since Europeans all speak English. But if you wanna get around in Latin America, English will work among the better-off folks but the masses are poor and uneducated. You need some Spanish.
Jody:
Overall, I agree but not that it's particularly (or primarily) attributable to the web (merely accelerated thereby). Actually, I'd noticed the trend and become dilletantishly interested in it (and remember commenting on it to friends as long as 55 years ago).
My only explanation: America is
"cool" and has been so for a long, long time. Our early leaders were "cool" (and their coolness recognized by public sentiment in England even as their forces were trying to suppress ours in their bid for freedom). And, afterwards, our diplomats were "cool" and sought for news interviews. Franklin in France, returned from a tour of European cultural centers, was asked by an English newsman just which treasure he'd choose to take back for the edification of Americans. He replied that we (Americans) needed no edification from Europe--but he'd sure like to take back the recipe for making a good Mozzarella!
Now, I'm not insisting "cool" is exclusively American--just much more common here; but with other Anglophone nations (Australia, England)included, the proportion becomes near-monopolistic.
Could it possibly be genetic??
Now that they've discovered a gene associated with moving or venturing to new places, maybe G. Cochran & Co. might be able to tie the same bit in with "cool."
Ya think?
In a not-so-long-ago newscast from Moscow, an eyewitness to an apartment-house bombing described (in Russian) what had happened to a translating newswoman and a street crowd. At one point, he uttered "and that's when the shit hit the fan" to laughter of the crowd so appreciative that he was more or less forced to repeat himself several times.
AS you note, Koreans are great appreciators of American-language humor. When their salarymen go out drinking after work, there's always one (called Vice President in charge of Drinking)and one of his duties is to have a handful of the latest in American jokes. More than 20 years ago, I met with about a dozen Korean businessmen (from Korea) in LA and, during an interlude, told the (even-then) oldie: "How do you get down from an elephant?"
(You don't get down from an elephant--you get down from a duck!) They (literally) rolled on the floor!
"but korean women are better looking on average. a lot better"
When you write them romantic lovenotes, I hope you learn to capitalize the right Hangul characters.
"German gives you access to a far more interesting and sophisticated set of cultures than Spanish does..."
That's certainly not true when it comes to literature and films. There may be more and better-known writers and filmmakers in German than in Spanish but the best of Spanish literature and film-making (in both Spain and the New World) is very good indeed. And I'm of English and German descent without a drop of Spanish blood so I've got no dog in this fight.
"...and it really helps any Anglo-Saxon or person of wider Germanic descent (e.g. Steve) understand his own culture and ancestral world (doubtless one of the reasons why Anglo kids are ushered away from it). Not to mention seriously enhancing understanding of the World Wars."
Yes and yes.
"The reason all this disappeared is simple - World War I. The US Government and English Americans simply put a stop to the German language in the US."
Knew someone who had done first source research on just this topic. He gave the name of the individual who steered US policy into demonizing Germans to such a degree that none wanted to maintain their identity. By the end of WWI there were near zilch German dailies. Until WWI they had been one of the most ethnically conscious of any immigrants with whole towns speaking only German. WWII probably finished off whatever umph they had as an ethnically conscious group.
One woman of Danish background told me about Danish speaking towns, and that she came from one in the northwest (Washington or Oregan, can't recall.) This was in the 1980s. The Slavs, Scandinavians and Germans and even Belgians, all had language enclaves in the upper midwest. They still do good bakeries there.
If you want an example of Europeans who subsumed their language and identity, try the Irish. For all their hue&cry about their Hibernian roots they were the least likely of any immigrant groupd to return (3% of all Irish returned for good, as compared to 60% of the Romanians and a not much lesser percentage of Italians; v. surprised to learn that.)
The Irish spoke their Gaelic language in large parts of Ireland until the famines of the 1840s&50s; they associated their language with famine and agriculture, so when they came here they avoided farming and Gaelic. Still ate potatos though; but the Germans grew them.
There were a few Gaelic speaking towns in Montana as a result of Irish railroad workers who had settled there, but otherwise no Irish speaking institutions.
They took to America like it was a new minted moonshine.
White Catholics supported JFK in a high percentage, but it sure wasn't 95%. Not even among those who id'd as "Irish" (who included a lot of part-Irish or just Irish for fun of dying your hair green on St. Paddy's Day.) Still. I can understand the "connection" blacks have for B.O., or for any black elected as president; but now that we've done that, can we pls get him out of way and back to the black lagoon of Chicago politics that he came from before he finishes wrecking the country and ruining the furniture in the Oval Office by putting his shoes up on it? Trouble is, whoever gets in (parties matter not) will finish the job because the source of the trouble is bigger than any individual.
Kylie said
And I'm of English and German descent
*Mostly Serbo-Croatian
"sorry mr pinker, but the trends are not global. third world violence continues to move along at a steady rate."
No, this is not my understanding of the truth; from what I have read, violence is down everywhere in the world when broken into large regions. That is, except in the Middle East where white people drop bombs on wedding parties from airplanes. The corresponding murder rate in Baghdad and Kabul, etc. over the last 20 years is higher than in any inner-city ghetto.
"There were a few Gaelic speaking towns in Montana as a result of Irish railroad workers who had settled there, but otherwise no Irish speaking institutions.
They took to America like it was a new minted moonshine."
a) pretty certain English overlords were repressing the use of Irish Gaelic
b) not sure there was much of a written form of Celtic dialects until later attempts at revival
c) Irish in Montana?
"We're always told that the youth of America must study Spanish because Latin America is such an economic powerhouse. But consider how few students are taught German today. Slightly more than one out of every thousand high school students takes the Advanced Placement test in German Language. In contrast, 25 times as many students take the AP Spanish Language test."
But Latin America as a whole IS an economic powerhouse: if Latin America were a country, it would be tied with Germany for the title of 3rd largest GDP, after only the U.S and China. And Latin America is growing economically a lot faster than the U.S. Brazil, for instance, has been growing at close to 7% a year for the past 15 years, and it has literally doubled it's GDP since the start of the millenium and is aready the World's fifth or six largest economy piised to surpass both Britain and France by 2015 and become the World's fourth largest. It also has zero foreign debt and a trade surplus unlike the huge fiscal and trade deficits the U.S runs every year.
But the reason why Americans shoule learn Spanish is not because of Latin America's economic might or lack thereof: American must learn Spanish because their destiny it intimately tied with that of Latin America. Germany is a country on the other side of the ocean with a population of 80 million people and little trade with the U.S when compared to Latin America. Latin America already has a GDP amost as big as Germany's and a population of 400 milion or 5 times that of Germany's. And unlike Germany, Latin American borders the U.S and forever will. Even if you managed to stop immigration and expel all Latins from the U.S, which is far from likely, you would still forever have them as neighbors. Face it: Latin American is far more important to Americans than Germany, and learning Spanish is thus more important than learning German. I just hope Americans who study Spanish learn proper Spanish. You don't need to speak Castillian with an aristocratic accent, but you should learn at least proper Madridian Spanish and not the garbage pig Spanish that poor Mexicans speak.
"White Catholics supported JFK in a high percentage, but it sure wasn't 95%. Not even among those who id'd as "Irish" (who included a lot of part-Irish or just Irish for fun of dying your hair green on St. Paddy's Day.)"
From my observations, the percentage of actual Irish Catholics voting for Kennedy was probably closer to 100.
Charlotte:
In recognizing that the source of the trouble is bigger than any individual, you've hit the nail squarely on the head, whether or not you actually understand just where the source of trouble lies.
Believe it or not, the "source of trouble" lies squarely enshrined within the Constitution. What must be recognized is that that document was written almost three generations before (what is known in Economics as) the "marginal revolution," which solved one of the most perplexing problems in the entire history of economic and social thought: the origin of "value."
We live today under the very same tyranny traceable to ancient times: the belief (and thus support in law) in the idea that it's a legitimate function of government to determine what is money and "regulate the value thereof"; everything else flows therefrom and, whatever might be the nature of politically-workable "fixes," they're simply incapable of addressing the real problem source.
In my lifetime (75 tomorrow0, there've been only two prominent politicians with a grasp of the
problem: Reagan (whose plate was full with even more urgent priorities) and Ron Paul (who's roughly about as electable as Nancy Pelosi). And I'm not even certain Reagan appreciated the constitutional underpinning of the problem. For many years, I've been aware of the vulnerability of our economic health; but my certainty that we'd continue on the path of disaster only gelled when (elder) Bush backed the tax-supported bailout of the S & L depositors in excess of their FSLIC-mandated $100K.
We are simply drowning (as is most of western civilization) in "moral hazard" and, unless there is major reversal (which I see on the horizon in no direction), a large amount of the capital accumulated since the advent of the industrial revolution will simply be consumed. The next generation will be the first to be poorer than the preceding and that succeeding even more so. Those in the "first world" will simply endure progressively lower standards of existence (and sharper political and race-related divisions between "haves" and "have-nots"). But Third-world suffering will be on a scale never before experienced and hard even to imagine: not less than two or three billion dead of starvation, disease, and conflicts arising as a result of profound poverty (prosperity in the third world, slim as it is presently, is largely dependent on massive transfers from the advanced nations, which will dry up with their steadily-increasing inability).
Londoner wrote:
"If European culture survives in the long term it may be largely or exclusively because Germany continues to prosper"
Economic ups and downs are a parlor game, to some extent.
Deaths have exceeded births in the Federal Republic every single year since 1970. The population of essentially-purely 'Germanic' ancestry in Germany continues to decline. I believe the figure is now one-in-four of 'migratory background' among under-18s.
"...can we pls get him[Obama] out of way and back to the black lagoon of Chicago politics that he came from before he finishes wrecking the country and ruining the furniture in the Oval Office by putting his shoes up on it?"
You're awfully hard on Obama, Charlotte. He probably mistook his desk for a footrest, the way he mistook a window for a door or more recently, the way he mistook the Mongolian president's face for a photographic backdrop.
Isn't it understandable that blacks would support Obama, and the primary reason being his race (and political orientation too,) given the history of slavery and Jim Crow?
Obama perhaps, but you do know that the Democrats were the party of the confederacy and Jim Crow.
Blacks would not support Cain if the Democrats ran a White guy against him. Blacks are less wedded to Black political figures than they are to the political party that promises wealth transfers from the rich.
As a result of HBD, the rich are largely White. A further result of HBD is that the poorest are largely non-white.
This is the essential tension that will ultimately tear apart the country.
I've taught drop outs (and kick outs) who are trying to get their high school diplomas for several years. The majority of my students are Hispanic and Latino. They speak English almost exclusively. They stubbornly refuse to take their mandatory annual ESOL tests, because they don't want to be labeled as English language learners. I agree with Gene Berman citing the "cool" factor of English, which is a massive strength of the language that doesn't seem to get much acknowledgement on this site. Every catchphrase, all the slang and casual chat in which my students want to engage is in English. Spanish isn't cool. They associate Spanish with their overemotional grandparents and parents. They don't want to shout; they want to be self-possessed. Anyone their age who speaks only Spanish, or is loud and boorish, is either viewed with pity or looked down on as an ignorant peasant. La Raza ranters are spinning their wheels. At the end of the day, if the kids don't go for it, it's dead - and the kids don't go for it.
I don't subscribe to the fatalistic tone that runs through many of the comments on this subject. I've see the triumph of English and American culture on a daily basis for too long to dismiss out of hand hope for its survival.
"I agree with Gene Berman citing the "cool" factor of English, which is a massive strength of the language that doesn't seem to get much acknowledgement on this site."
Right, English is the historical winner. In 2011, that's pretty clear.
Anonymous: I've taught drop outs (and kick outs) who are trying to get their high school diplomas for several years. The majority of my students are Hispanic and Latino. They speak English almost exclusively. They stubbornly refuse to take their mandatory annual ESOL tests, because they don't want to be labeled as English language learners. I agree with Gene Berman citing the "cool" factor of English, which is a massive strength of the language that doesn't seem to get much acknowledgement on this site. Every catchphrase, all the slang and casual chat in which my students want to engage is in English. Spanish isn't cool. They associate Spanish with their overemotional grandparents and parents. They don't want to shout; they want to be self-possessed. Anyone their age who speaks only Spanish, or is loud and boorish, is either viewed with pity or looked down on as an ignorant peasant. La Raza ranters are spinning their wheels. At the end of the day, if the kids don't go for it, it's dead - and the kids don't go for it.
I must say I really enjoy the comments on this blog. Among other things, they often provide fine nuggets of reality, based on personal experiences and related in a highly-credible matter-of-fact manner. Since so much of the regular media is dominated by astroturf-type PR hirelings, dishonest political pundits, or crazed ideological activists, these extra datapoints are very useful in formulating an accurate view of reality.
a) pretty certain English overlords were repressing the use of Irish Gaelic
Anonymous:
It was widely spoken in the western half, where there were many British owned farms w/Irish tenants who were mostly evicted in the 1840s&50s.
b) not sure there was much of a written form of Celtic dialects until later attempts at revival
Anonymous,
Perhaps you are confusing the Irish with sub-Saharan Africans, or American Indians (certain academics have displayed similar lack of discernment.) Ireland had had its own written language although Latin was the choice of educated people in the middle ages. There had been written Irish for hundreds of years, and Modern Irish (defined as Irish roughly after 1500) was actually encouraged by Queen Elizabeth I and certainly not opposed by succeeding monarchs. I doubt the landowners gave a clod about the gabble their peons spoke.
It remained the majority language up until 1800. Of course most educated people learned & wrote in English by then, but there was written Gaelic.
Ireland was the "Land of Saints and Scholars" during the dark ages. The Irish, famous for learning and for artistic calligraphy/illumination of holy books, were tutors for many of the royal families at that time (including Charlemagne), and were among the most responsible for spreading Catholicism. I guess that's why they stayed in that way--very invested historically & culturally.
The incredibly beautiful Book of Kells from that era is on display.
c) Irish in Montana?
Yes Anonymous, there were Irish in Montana. As a result of the railroads. Once they got that far working on the railroads, they just settled. Saw it on a PBS series about the Irish is America, well documented w/photos and written recollections.
"From my observations, the percentage of actual Irish Catholics voting for Kennedy was probably closer to 100."
I don't think so. You'd be surprised how many were deeply suspicious of those rich ponces.
There's a whole toilet roll of names of Irish pols&pundits committed to everything JFK did not stand for. Some may have quivered with uncertainty, hand on the lever, but it was no 100%. I know an Italian Catholic guy from Ohio who said he & friends silently cheered when the assassination was announced in their schools because he hated the administration's desegregation moves. Then there was the mafiosa who recounted in his autobio, the he was pleased as punch when a fellow Catholic was elected (after all, they would have had a few mutual acquaintences) but toasted his Boss with champaign on the evening of Nov. 22, because things had gone well as planned. How opinions can change in just 3 years.
No way Jose did 100% of Irish Catholics vote for him. I think both the ones that voted for him and the ones that didn't felt guilty and went to Confession about it.
"Charlotte:
"In recognizing that the source of the trouble is bigger than any individual, you've hit the nail squarely on the head, whether or not you actually understand just where the source of trouble lies.
Believe it or not, the "source of trouble" lies squarely enshrined within the Constitution,"
Gene Berman: You are right. But I think there was a coup in 1963 that made it all proceeed more brazenly than before. They probably show the Zapruder film to all subsequent presidents, so they know what they've signed on to.
I have a better opinion of Reagan than I used to, and think he had genuine respect for the U.S., but not the intellect to deeply understand the Constitution. I mean you'd think they'd sit any candidate for POTUS down and give him something equivalent to the SATs to see what he knows about U.S. government and history, including the number of states that the current dumbo-in-chief got wrong.
The only person I could imagine voting for now is Ron Paul.
But anyone who wants be POTUS is full of his (or her) own nuts.
"You're awfully hard on Obama, Charlotte. He probably mistook his desk for a footrest, the way he mistook a window for a door or more recently, the way he mistook the Mongolian president's face for a photographic backdrop."
Alas, life under the B.O. admin has made me hard & bitter.
I wish he'd look in the mirror and mistake himself for a big fat loser and go away.
@Charlotte
The English controlled Ireland for centuries and did their best to stamp out Irish language and culture before the famine years. It is no surprise that late 19th Century Irish-Americans rarely founded Gaelic speaking towns - they mostly spoke English before they got off the boat. As for return rate, political, social and economic factors in Ireland precluded that for many years. The Republic of Ireland did not exist so at the time they were leaving the dreaded United Kingdom, ruled by their mortal enemies - the Anglo Saxons.
"I wish he'd look in the mirror and mistake himself for a big fat loser and go away."
Yeaaaah, and fall down in a big fat pile of doo-doo!
"Alas, life under the B.O. admin has made me hard & bitter."
But are you clinging to your guns and religion like a typical white person? I hope so. You wouldn't want to make a liar out of the man who presides over all 57 states in this great nation of ours, would you?
"I wish he'd look in the mirror and mistake himself for a big fat loser and go away."
I'm afraid that he wouldn't do that even if Michelle were standing beside him. Too much of a narcissist.
"The English controlled Ireland for centuries and did their best to stamp out Irish language and culture before the famine years."
Their best wasn't good enough until the famine. TO avoid a strictly English education, secret schools formed. Among the unlettered, the language was a majority language until 1800, with some books written in Irish Gaelic. The use of Irish did not decline to obscurity until the turn of the 20th century. So I guess the Brits won in the end.
The Irish, like much of the rest of the world, has wanted this for their land: the the British should go home.
Not sure the Brits calculated the natives clinging to their soles on the return.
"Yeaaaah, and fall down in a big fat pile of doo-doo!"
He's already in deep doo-doo.
Now what was this thread about? Oh yes, Spanish speaking in America.
"There had been written Irish for hundreds of years, and Modern Irish (defined as Irish roughly after 1500) was actually encouraged by Queen Elizabeth I and certainly not opposed by succeeding monarchs."
Ah yes, I'd forgotten. Instead of being a pre-literate society, Ireland was a previously literate society with a great emphasis on the education of all levels of society and women as well. Some other cultures were superstitious and only allowed an exclusive priestly caste book learning but not Ireland, rational and egalitarian from the beginning.
And Latin America is growing economically a lot faster than the U.S. Brazil, for instance, has been growing at close to 7% a year for the past 15 years, and it has literally doubled it's GDP since the start of the millenium
Not true.
Brazil has been growing faster (and more 'sustainably,' given the market incentives and financial structure now in place) over the last seven, eight years than at any time since the 1970s but the performance hasn't been quite as spectacular as what you assert. Google around, it's easy to verify you're wrong.
Silver
Truth,
No, this is not my understanding of the truth; from what I have read, violence is down everywhere in the world when broken into large regions.
Yes. Another interesting datapoint: the homicide rate in Thailand was somewhere between 20-25 per 100k in the late 70s/early 80s. http://apps.who.int/whosis/database/mort/table1.cfm (Choose country, select year, scroll down to 'homicides'; sum Male and Female and divide by 48,000,000 (the Thai population in 1980) then multiply by 100,000 for the standard per 100k stat.) That represents a lower bound, by the way, since public health records can often be at variance with police records, so the true homicide rate may have been even higher. (This almost certainly true for Haiti, whose World Health Organization data for 1980 records 1 homicide.)
That is, except in the Middle East where white people drop bombs on wedding parties from airplanes. The corresponding murder rate in Baghdad and Kabul, etc. over the last 20 years is higher than in any inner-city ghetto.
Not true.
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/ (A leftwing outfit who would certainly seek to maximize the number of Iraqi attributable to the American invasion.)
According to their databse annual Iraqi civilian deaths in their database, I compute the following annual 'homicide rates' per 100k: 2003 - 46.5; 2004 - 41.8; 2005 - 57; 2006 - 102.5; 2007 - 89; 2008 - 32.8; 2009 - 16.2; 2010 - 13.7; 2011 - 13.8* (*extrapolating for full year). These computations are based on the Iraqi population growing from 26 million to 30 million from 2003-2011 at a rate of 500,000 per year.
These figures include both civilian deaths from bombing as well as civilian deaths caused by insurgents.
If we're to consider only civilian deaths directly attributable to coalition action the figures are far, far lower.
Now, are these numbers higher than can be found in any inner-city ghetto? Hardly. Even the peak of the Iraqi civil war failed to exceed the murderous violence of an East St. Louis at its worst.
Silver
Oh no my friend, you have made another simplistic mistake. You are attributing only DIRECT CIVILLIAN KILLINGS made by US troops. Per the website:
I"raq Body Count is an ongoing human security project which maintains and updates the world’s largest public database of violent civilian deaths during and since the 2003 invasion."
This does not include "enemy combatants" (who are, in reality, teachers and farmers defending their land), or subsequent deaths caused by injury, water contamination, depleted uranium weapons, farm bombings, etc. Here you go:
http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/1-over-one-million-iraqi-deaths-caused-by-us-occupation/
Now St. Louis has roughly 1/100 the population of Iraq, and it gets roughly 64 killings for 100,000 people, that adds up to 192 a year, multiply that by 8 years and you get 1,536 over an 8 year period, extrapolate that 100 times to match the population of Iraq and you get 153,600 murders. That's opposed to a million.
http://www.neighborhoodscout.com/mo/st-louis/crime/-
"yes, I'd forgotten. Instead of being a pre-literate society, Ireland was a previously literate society with a great emphasis on the education of all levels of society and women as well."
What are you on about? I didn't even bring up anything about women in the Irish scenario, and have no idea of what female literacy in Ireland was at that time.
I am presenting some pretty well known facts about Ireland's pretty well known advances in the early middle ages by the standards of the early middle ages. This is hardly an obscurity. "Isle of Saints & Scholars" is an old cliched compliment, but references past glories.
There were scholars among them famous for illumination of manuscripts, learning & scholarship, travel and missionary work. I am referring to the early middle ages, 500s on. Not the "pre-literate" Ireland. Christianity brought reading and writing, and the Irish took to these activities. By the time the English took over, c. 1300s, it was pretty much in the past.
Anonymous @ 7:53 on 23/11 - Ireland has never been rued by the Anglo-Saxons. Between the 11th and 20th centuries it was ruled, as was England, by the Normans. They remain in charge of England - as the "British", the aristocracy and the upper classes.
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