From: "Mark Rosen" <mrosen@peganet.com>
Date: Sat, 21 Dec 1996 10:05:41 -0800 (PST)
To: "Matthew J. Miszewski" <tcmay@got.net>
Subject: Re: Ebonics
Message-ID: <199612211754.MAA04080@mercury.peganet.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


> Yeah, Matt, in a free society I wouldn't have to "speak Ebonics."
> 
> (Personally, I interviewed several folks while I was at Intel who could
not
> speak standard English. I recommended against their hiring, and they in
> fact did not get invites to be interviewed at the main facilities. So
much
> for their jive talk habits.)
> 
> Understand, I have nothing against the colored people speaking "Ebonics"
to
> each other, or to anyone who'll listen. But I don't have to deal with
this
> nonsense, nor do I have to hire them.
> 
> (Until the People's Republic of Political Correctness demands that I
> "justify" why not speaking standard English is a "valid job requirement,"
> and refuses to take my "Because I say it is" as a valid answer. Not
> surprisingly, the Clintonistas have decided to enter the Proposition 209
> challenge on the side of the pro-discrimination side.)
> 
> If I were designing a genocidal program to destroy the colored race, I
> would be pushing for Ebonics, for encouraging coloreds to study "Human
> Potential" and "African History" instead of math, science, and
engineering,
> and pushing for hiring quotas.
> 
There are several problems with your argument:
	* You are making glaring generalizations regarding all members of an
ethnic body; you don't seem to realize that intellect is based not on color
or how you talk but on your brain (which has the same color and other basic
properties in all humans, I believe)
	* You are completely forgetting the other "non-English" group in America;
the so-called White Trash or heavy Southern accents, which are violate just
as many prissy and stuck up rules of grammar as Ebonics
	* You don't have to speak ebonics. You also don't have to speak with a
Southern twang (or whatever the politically correct name for that is)

	I also think that you are forgetting about the human aspect of your
discrimination. For a second, put yourself in the place of a really smart
black guy applying for a job at Intel. He is overqualified for the job. You
turn him down. Have you ever wondered what it does to a person to be turned
down not on the basis of their moral character or intellect but by their
skin? For someone to be told that they are stupid and are not competent to
do this job? You don't realize that you are crushing _human_ lives, people
who have feelings. If you would just put yourself in their place, you would
realize the hurt that your are inflicting.
	Out of curiousity, do you refuse from hiring people with Southern Accents?
Or people who have heavy "asian" accents? I'm very surprised that a smart
person like you, who believes in the power of strong cryptography, one of
the greatest equalizing forces in the world, actively discriminates against
other people who don't look or talk like you.

Mark Rosen
FireSoft - http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Pines/2690
Mark Eats AOL - http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/6660