#I can’t really speak on AAVE as a white boy

[bisexualseraphim]

Mfw older white people are complaining about how “the way young people talk these days is ridiculous” and I take a look and the speech they’re referring to is just AAVE or queer slang

[jamerasjournal]

Black people speak two languages. Job interview and AAVE. Question: When I fill out a job application can I still check the box that says bilingual. Does my ability to code switch depending on the setting that I’m in count as a job skill? I am always subconsciously turning down my blackness in an effort to make other people more comfortable. Beyoncé once said, “Got all this money but you’ll never take the country out me.” I felt that. I started kindergarten already knowing how to read and write. And no matter how many times my mama made me practice Hooked on Phonics, my first language will always be Ebonics. Spell Mississippi. M-I crooked letter, crooked letter- I- crooked letter, crooked letter- I- humpback, humpback- I. Okay, but spell it for real this time. M-I crooked letter, crooked letter- I- crooked letter, crooked letter- I- humpback, humpback- I. Did I stutter? I bet my great-great-great-granddaddy had an accent so thick that one sentence sounded like one word. And what’s in that word? Levels upon levels of trauma that you couldn’t even begin to fathom. It’s a slave spiritual sung over plantation fields, the last two letters spun into the cotton in your t-shirt. An apostrophe added cuz If you say one more syllable, you just might get whipped, boy. It’s living in a world where you can’t read the words. Mispronouncing words you don’t even know how to spell. While the rest of the world looks at you like you ain’t got no sense. But tonight, I’m gon’ talk how I wanna talk, cuz that slang is in my bones. And if you don’t like it you can get up out my face. Period. And I don’t wanna hear a nan ‘notha word about me talking “ghetto” when I stand before you with a last name my ancestors wouldn’t even begin to know how to say. And every time I sign my name I’m paying homage to the white family that used to own mine. Our language is one of the only things that can never be taken from me. It’s embedded into generations from long before my time. It’s okay that you don’t understand it, I’m not allowed to speak it to you anyway. Lest you call me uneducated, illiterate, or unprofessional. I must censor myself, brush it under the tongue. That is until you make me angry. Then everybody and they momma gon’ know you got the wrong one. Try me if you want to. I was raised on, “Do I look like Boo Boo the fool?” and “Stop crying ‘fore I give you something to cry about.” And that’s word to my momma. What’s in a word? I see your eyes widen when the African American Vernacular comes bursting out. So foreign to you it sound like a Voodoo spell. Yeah, this how I really be wanting to talk. Fix ya face. I cannot be Afrocentric and Eurocentric at the same time. I do not have the Freedom of Speech if the way I speak determines my intellectual capabilities. I must always accommodate a society that refuses to accommodate me. But you knows what? I’ve gotten real good at talking “white.” But every once in a while, if you listen- I mean real, real good. You can still hear that one crooked letter. The black cracking through like a toothless grin. Yeah. That’s my great granddaddy saying, “Say it with your chest girl.” So if you hear me talking loud it’s cuz I’m finna say something real important. And when I speak, you better listen.

-jamera naquai, CROOKED LETTER

[ohayopoko]

Eren with a BlackFem!S/O Headcanons (NSFW)

Note: I am a black fem and I don’t really see Eren paired w ppl who look like me, all the Y/N stories are good don’t get me wrong but I’d like to see more of this particular pairing. This was also for my enjoyment so here we go!!❤️

Part 2 3 4

-Parents and siblings love him, he’s an Angel to them

-You litterally can’t phase Eren w/ the “Is it because I’m black?” Joke anymore🥱

-He rolls his eyes and goes back to whatever he was doing or saying before 🙄

-Doesn’t understand AAVE at first, but gets the hang of it the more he hears you using it

-Eren totally loves the fighting slang in AAVE “I’m really about Boom him” “I’m finna take off on yo ass” “you good, bro?” “Ran down on em”

-Eren’s drip game is on 1000 since he started fucking with you 😭 this man done upgraded from white Air Force 1s to Balenciagas

-Eren thinks it’s a pleasant surprise when he sees that S/o switches up her hair every week from natural, to bodywave frontals, to braids

-he names your wigs “Oh baby you should wear Cassiopeia today.” “Nigga, you mean the long blue one?” “Cassiopeia.”

-Eren does not use the N word, he doesn’t think it sounds right coming from him

-“Damn baby ya hair looks good, can I pull it while I fuck you?”

-“Boy you betta get outta my FACE, outta my FACE”

-Eren laughs knowing s/o will totally let him yank her natural hair while drilling her from the back

-eager to learn more about your hair products and hair care to be helpful on washday 😊

-Eren buys S/O new hair products when he sees she’s running low oh so sweet boy Eren ❤️🥺

-Eren wanted to buy you a wig but he doesn’t know anything abt them so he asks ur friends who tell him “40 Inch bodywave frontal human hair” and he’s still like “Bro, what the fuck????” but is so happy when he manages to pull it off and sees the happiness in your eyes when he gives it to ulol (even tho it cost him $400) 😩

-Openly into PDA! Sloppy kisses, grabbing your ass and hand holding

-Speaking of ass, Eren is OBSESSED with yours

-He wants u to put that ass on him anytime anywhere

-loves to watch you twerk, makes him so fucking hard “Come do that on my dick, Pretty girl”

-Eren forces u to do TikTok dances with him

-Eren total fucks w/ drill music like %100 “Buss a piñata, open ya matta” is Eren’s favorite line

-Eren definitely loves kissing you, he thinks ur lips are so big and soft

-you with pink/clear lipgloss and brown/black lip liner makes his dick hard

-something abt ur Glossy lips reallllly does it for Eren

-Baby boy begs for head when you got the gloss on (Those glossy lips slobbering all over his dick is p e r f e c t i o n)

-Is BLM ally OFC

-Eren loves to fuck s/o in the mirror when she starts acting bratty so she can see who really runs shit around here “Uh Uh, come here throw that ass back”

-S/O is a total pillow princess “Don’t fuck me like that, fuck me like this”

[youtuberswithalex]

hold on i found all of my old Christian music and im emotional, the nostalgia, so im just gonna do a react post--

first song was Hope is Coming by Nate Deezy and oh boy. oh boy. i met the dude and knowing how he talks and listening to his music. oh boy, he was kind of mimicking AAVE and it’s. not great to listen to now. the song is a bop music wise but. yikes

Overcomer by Mandisa. I used to BOP to this song and you know what? I still do. I saw her in concert and she was AMAZING

The The Earth Is Yours came on, which already was one of my favorites, and it was the cover by Gungor (or their original? I can’t remember) and I almost started crying because. Gungor’s music always made me feel really close to God, like He was my best friend. and now I kind of feel like I’ve lost a friend in stopping being Christian, and though I know I can still pray and stuff while still not being Like That, it just... hurts too much because it was so weaponized against me. I miss relying on Him for everything though.

Pause to get lunch

Good Morning by Mandisa and TobyMac. Hearing “top of the morning to ya” set off a visceral reaction to high five the air. also hearing them interact at the end is adorable

COME ALIVE BY CROWDER OHHH IT’S A BOP!!! 

YOUR LOVE!!! 

IS A LEMONADE

call me out by gungor?!?! how could i have forgotten this one!!!!! OH MY GOD AND I JUST REALIZED??? HOW RELEVANT THIS IS????? IF YOU TAKE OUT THE CHRISTIAN STUFF THIS IS STILL HOW I FEEL?????? CALL ME OUT WHEN I DO THINGS WRONG PLEASE

could i......... do a sanders sides animatic to this

WHITE MAN BY THE MICHAEL GUNGOR BAND. THE SAME BAND BUT A DIFFERENT NAME. THIS SONG NEEDS TO BE PLAYED TO EVERY CHRISTIAN WHITE SUPREMECIST. GOD IS NOT A MAN. GOD IS NOT A WHITE MAN. GOD IS NOT A WHITE MAN SITTING ON A CLOUD. GOD IS LOVE AND HE LOVES EVERYONE.

i just copied and pasted a link to the song on facebook jfkdlsjf pray for me (no pun intented)

Beautiful Day by Jamie Grace... I’m pretty sure I first heard this song on Veggietales? or maybe i freaked out when I saw it on Veggietales bc I already loved this song lmao. But it is still... you guessed it... a bop

i also just realized how much more diverse my music was back then versus now... out of the four artists I’ve listened to, half (if not 3 of them? i don’t remember what Gungor looks like) are POC. bruh current alex, I know all you listen to now is the RWBY soundtrack, but like. Diversify my dude

OHH HEAVEN BY GUNGOR??? THE CHILLEST CHRISTIAN SONG I ADORED

YOU ARE!!!!!!!!! CROWDER AGAIN

oh my god. oh my god jesus freak by newsboys. this song is fucking WILD to see in concert. the drummer goes up on a platform that goes sideways and starts SPINNING. while he’s going H A R D. also this song totally matches up with what i listen to now, style wise??

oh my god im getting dizzy from jamming to this one

R E S T A R T WE’RE GETTING ALL THE NEWSBOYS JAMS SUDDENLY

if anyone’s wondering what im doing as i listen to these, i’m currently checking out these artists’ twitters to see if they’re like... White Supremacist christians. Michael Gungor has made me happiest by blatantly retweeting and talking about the BLM protests, along with a tweet stating firmly that he accepts LGBTQ+ people. I knew I could trust this guy. I followed him. Crowder didn’t have anything blatantly for or against but he did make one post about not hating people using that one Dr Suess book, so like. he can slide for now but im not following him

DO LIFE BIIIIG!!!! JAMIE GRACE!!!!! THIS WAS THE ONE ON VEGGIETALES... WAS IT??? IT WAS AT THE END OF THE STAR TREK KNOCK OFF, I THINK???

OH BABY, FISHERS OF MEN BY NEWSBOYS

GO-O-O-O, GO-O-O-O-O

please be my strength by Gugnor? I don’t remember thohhhhh my heart i remember now

i used to harmonize to this all the time. it was one of the first ones i did that with :(

Steal My Show!! it’s pretty alright still. TobyMac didn’t really Get Me Worshipping like he did with a lot of other people, but I respect him at least-- wait let me check his twitter

alright i can respect him, he’s alright

Ah. Oceans by Hillsong United, AKA the song that every church-goer in 2015 hated because everyone played it every week. good reason to-- it’s really good still. are people still sick of it?? I remember holding my hands up to this a few times. and harmonizing many more

.......but oh man is it long. i do remember that now. eight minutes.......... why....... i definitely cried my eyes out and calmed down at conference one time during the length of this song

just realized that Jesus is a Friend of Mine isn’t on this playlist. Wow, Alex. Wow. What a waste of a Christian playlist.

THAT’S HOW YOU CHANGE THE WORLD

it’s so unfair that so many Christian artist put out That Kind of christian music, while Newsboys just. stole all of the talent. like come on guys spread it a bit. not EVERY song has to be a bop, you know /j

Speak Life by tobyMac. i... think im gonna skip this one jfkdlsj im just so not in the mood for this. He is definitely that That Kind of Christian Music style

LORD YOU ARE GOOD AND YOUR MERCY ENDURES FOREVERRR OH HOW WE JAMMED TO THIS AT CONFERENCEoh god it’s a live version and you can hear the Presbyterian Clap in the crowd

OH MY GOD MUSCLE MEMORY JUST BROUGHT BACK THE DANCE THAT WE HAD AT CONFERENCE OH MY GOD I COMPLETELY FOR GOT ABOUT THIS

i wish it brought back more than just the bridge before the chorus lmfao

alright skipping the rest of this because oh boy is it repetitive

STRONGER BY MANDISAAAA i forgot about this one omg. i loved this one, it used to be my Uplifting Song

Got another tobyMac and just skipped it jfkdsl

OH GOD’S NOT DEAD BY NEWSBOYS the movie was a lot of christians-are-oppressed propaganda but the song is pretty good still, i catch myself singing it sometimes still tbh

TRADING MY SORROWS?!?!?!?!? TRADING MY SHAME???!!!!! LAYING THEM DOWN FOR THE JOY OF THE LORD?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? A BOOOOP

this was another one we had a dance for!!!! i remember this one more bc it was so much easier lmfao

HAPPY DAY!!!!!! THIS WAS MY FAVORITE ONE TO SING AT THE BIG MORNING AND EVENING MEETINGS AT CONFERENCE!!!!!! but this version is so slooooow but i couldn’t find any other version

....You Have Me. The song I always said that, when I die and go to Heaven, I’m going to find God and dance with Them to this song. Maybe, if They’re up there, we still will. This song gave me so much comfort in a time when I felt so alone.

I hope They aren’t mad at me for abandoning them. I hope They understand why I stopped going to church and listening to my parents about Them. That I remember who They truly are supposed to be, and that it’s not Them I left, but the church, and I struggled to disconnect the two. If They’re real... I hope they know that. And I hope They aren’t upset with me. I hope They know I’m sorry.

Fuck. I’m crying.

They DO still me. They DO still have my heart. But it’s the people that pretend to know Them that ruined me. I need to find a way to sever the connection. I want my best friend back. I miss Them. I miss being able to talk to Them about things and trust that They’ll take care of things and take care of *me* because They love me, no matter what my parents say, and They know who I am and They don’t love me despite that, but because of it.

THAT’S what I was taught. THAT’S the God I worshipped. Not the fake one the White Supremacists have taken hold of and ruined. The God that gave up Their only son to prove to us that They love us.

I don’t understand a lot about religion anymore. But I miss Them. I miss that comfort and love.

Fuck. Maybe that’s a good place to end this. If you made it this far, congrats! Thanks for coming on this journey with me. It was a long one. You’ve seen a piece of my heart that I’ll probably stamp back into the closet within a couple of hours lol

[tariah23]

LmfOooooo it’s so funny how non Black folks use AAVE incorrectly and you can just tell that they picked it up because “ohh, is this the new slang???” ajsjsj. Omg, especially on twitter!!! I know that people are always using Chicago and NY’s AAVE the most and to be fair, a lot of POC from NY kind of get along and blend in a little by how they speak. I was listening to some Djvlad interview with this Asian rapper from NY and I wasn’t looking at the video at first, just listening while I was drawing, and I legit thought it was a Black dude from NY talking lmfaooo. His interview was cool and he was dressed like the typical NY dude.... timbs and all and I lost it ajsjshsh. I think his name was Jin? I forget but he was talking about how he went to jail because he shot this other Asian rapper at a club lmfao. The guy survived. Or I think he was the one to get shot??? I forget. Why do they.... like timbs so much? It’s wild that it’s not just a meme lmfaooo. I guess I’m just thinking that you can tell by how much interaction another POC has had with Black people and can tell that it’s not just a front or them trying to act and speak like us just because they think it’s cool and trendy. The ones who grew up in Black neighborhoods usually speak just like us too and that’s so funny to me? Lol... I also found this funny Youtuber and I REALLY was not prepared. I thought he was Black as well... he literally sounded like a Black dude but I was confused because his comment section would be full of “Bro, you can say the “N” word” and first of all, I hate seeing other Black people say this shit lol. Stfu. BUT I was thinking, “hey, this guy’s Black, what the heck are they talking about????” Then I saw his face and it was a whole ass White Boy lmfaooo. I am still not over that. I could tell that it wasn’t an act either like? I could tell that he most likely grew up in the a Black neighborhood, went to an Urban school, and that he interacted with them on a daily basis? He showed a picture of himself when he was little and all of his friends were Black too and it was kinda like “aww....” then he posted a few live stream videos of him driving with his Black friends and they were all roasting each other lmfaooo. Apparently, his ass can’t drive that well so they were really going in on him but no one was trying to get OUT of the car or take the wheel from him 🤔? Lmfaooo

[mc-slowwalker]

Hey there! I hope this doesn't come across wrong b/c I can't really read ur tone and idk what you meant by it, but about ur "sapnap's whiteboy speak is just aave" post, idk if you know this or not but Sapnap's from Texas and there's a HUGE overlap between southern/rural slang and AAVE! Got to do with class, mostly, I think. Unless that's what you were saying?

There is, and also a ton of aave has been introduced to middle class white people but I guess my arguement is that it’s still aave?

It’s more people will comment that they can’t understand his “white boy speak” and then follow up quoting phrases that are just aave and I just brrrrr you know

[teresatranbooks]

Dear Blog,

Prompt: Write a new blog post with your reaction to the Beuhler chapters that you read for task 3 this week. How does Beuhler's work match with how you view your new role as an English teacher? What experience did you have with YAL in middle or high school? You will go more in depth with Beuhler and YA pedagogy in the fall. 

Beuhler’s Chapters 1 and 2 discuss reading YA books with passion and purpose, and viewing YA literature as complex texts as teachers who will one day teach and share YA books with their students. 

One of Beuhler’s tenets is in order “to learn, grow, and thrive, what all of these students need is...a wide landscape for reading” (Beuhler 3). That is, most students view reading as a chore, because for many of them, it is something they have to do, over something they want to do. It is an assignment. It is an expectation. It is another box they have to check off the list or a line they have to cross of on the agenda. And because they’re required to read mostly classics written by dead old white dudes, they’re “cut off from the larger world of literacy” (Beuhler 3). Because students aren’t directly told or handed diverse reading options, they fall out of love with reading and don’t develop that muscle of reading for later on. That is why many students, my friends, and myself included, over the years, began to repeat the sentiment of “I’m not much of a reader anymore.” It’s depressing!

But as Beuhler states in his chapter, students must be given a balanced reading diet. They need room (specifically time and space) to discover new books written by people who aren’t dead old white dudes. They need motivation to seek out those books. They need to hear from their teachers that them reading for “fun” and as a “hobby’ is not only good for them, but also encouraged in their ELA classroom. There needs to be room for students to develop their own reading tastes and reading stamina, but they can’t do that if they’re not allowed to employ a sense of agency within their choice in books. It is only through this sense of agency and a diverse palette of YA books will students begin to see reading as less of a chore, and more of a fun activity they can’t wait to do. 

This text also made me think about the multiple ways I, as teacher, can do to encourage this love and space for YA literature in the classroom. First, I want to create a space where students who already possess a love for reading YA books outside of the classroom don’t have to steal time to read inside the classroom. In other words, I want my classroom to be a place where students will have a dedicated time to read their contemporary YA titles and keep reading logs about them and talk about them with their peers. I don’t want my students who already consider reading as a hobby to ever feel like they have to sneak around me and the state-mandated curriculum to read their YA books -- and then be afraid I’ll take their books away from them, like the many times teachers did this to me. (I still think about these moments all the time...even in college. I lowkey have some trauma from that LOL).

Second, I want to create whole entire units around YA literature. But this might require going against state standards and school subject departments. So how can I make the case for YA lit in the classroom? Beuhler suggests marketing them as an outlet and/or case study for students’ personal and academic growth. The thing about YA lit is that it is entirely written for them. “YA list offers a way to meet students where they are now -- not just as readers, but as teens who are still figuring out their place in the world...YA lit honors that process of self-discovery” (Beuhler 3). When students read YA lit, they grow as the main characters grow. When students read YA lit, they see their personal journeys and feelings of adolescence (going from young child to young adult) paralleled in heightened and relatable ways. When students see themselves reflected in the literature they read, they end up feeling less alone in the world and develop a sense of community with other students who feel similarly. 

When we think about young adult students, we also think about puberty. We think about the multiple weird strange awful beautiful changes that happen physically, emotionally, mentally, and socially for them. We think about our own experiences during that time and how equally tumultuous it was for us. YA lit offers itself as a space for students and people in general to put their feelings and weirdness somewhere, where it’s private and peaceful and doesn’t make adolescence any more more embarrassing than it already inherently is.

In addition, when students read YA lit, they grow as readers. “If students in our classrooms might not have been readers in the past, but they can become readers now -- if we create conditions that support their individual development” (Beuhler 6). When making the case for YA lit in the classroom, I will emphasize how YA lit creates that confidence within students to believe that reading is something they can do. YA lit inherently has qualities that push students to motivate themselves to continue reading and develop a stronger reading muscle for heavier, longer, and more complex YA texts. YA lit makes reading accessible, breaks down barriers, enhances reading comprehension and critical thinking skills, and promotes a sense of creativity, all of which are qualities state standards try to achieve for students but can’t. 

And third, Beuhler talks about how his favorite YA novels are “those that defy categorization” (Beuhler 27). I think about how not only young teens, but kids and adults and seniors are reading YA lit more and more over other categories. Why? It’s because YA lit does so much at once to fulfill their reading and personal needs. They’re complex and rich and tackle so many relevant themes and experiences, but probably most importantly, they model a development arc that many folks are always secretly seeking. That sort of adventure of becoming into one’s own and developing confidence as a person with better informed opinions and forming new friendships and relationships with people. For kids and teens, it’s the excitement and hopefulness of growing older and breaking away from adult authority and becoming your own person. For adults and seniors, it’s the nostalgia and also hopefulness of returning to what youth was like and experiencing new things again. Because there is so much complexity in YA lit, it will require a complexity when teaching YA lit. 

As a teacher, I want to change the conversation about YA lit, dismantling the idea that it’s a category mainly for teenage girls, which, btw, what the hell is wrong with THAT? So what if it is mainly saturated with stories for and about teenage girls? Most of the books students have had to read have been led by boys and men and written by men -- and students of all genders have had no trouble reading them. But when suddenly girls’ and women’s perspectives are prioritized in narratives, or a category is predominantly centered around the experiences of girls and women, suddenly it’s beneath people and not as complex as other categories? Can someone say SEXISM?. While some people might argue that that is not why they view YA books as not nearly as “complex” as the classics, I think there’s no mistake that gender plays a big part in informing that particular mainstream point of view about YA lit. 

Furthermore, alongside Beuhler, I also believe that “sometimes calls for increasingly complex texts are really code for keeping classic literature at the center of the curriculum” (Beuhler 28). More specifically, I believe that most people’s calls for “complexity” in their reading, what they’re really calling for is either 

(1) books written by dead old white dudes about the American Male ExperienceTM where they find excuses to be racist or sexist or BOTH (fun!) and argue that it’s a relatable part of being an American Man (which ew! and wow, the bar is low), OR 

(2) books written by BIPOC authors that focus on the “Authentic�� experience of being BIPOC, but mostly as a vehicle for white folks to fetishize the trauma and pain of BIPOC, without neither the actual empathy and compassion for BIPOC, nor the active commitment to creating systemic and individual change against the trauma and pain that BIPOC often face living under the white capitalist patriarchal police state that these books are often thematically preaching about.

Here’s the thing. YA lit definitely can perpetuate those same harmful practices that the classics often do. In fact, some YA novels already do. I can point to many of the YA Book Twitter drama that rightfully calls out problematic books, such as The Black Witch, on the daily. However, YA lit has shown over and over again that it can reach far beyond its intended target audience and tackle complex themes without infantilizing, again, their intended audience...which is young teens. The thing about literature and education and the passing on of information in general is that if you are an academic or a student or a teacher or an individual and you can not relay your perspective and/or argument in such a way where another person can understand it (even if they might disagree with it)...you have failed. 

YA lit is an example of when perspectives and themes and experiences that are often considered “complex” is successfully communicated to a young teenage audience because of its accessibility. If a classic cannot reach a bigger audience or in this case, reach a young teen demographic, it’s not because of a complexity that YA lit “lacks,” it’s because of the unnecessary, often racist and sexist gatekeeping in classic literature that privileges upper class white folks and their experiences which are often communicated in a language only other upper class white folks can speak and understand. Think about how many classic books are written in AAVE, aka African American Vernacular English? Most people will think of Toni Morrison or James Baldwin...but those are only two Black authors. Two. Out of how many white authors? However, I can think of countless YA lit books written not only in AAVE, but also different Chinese, Spanish, and African dialects by Chinese, Spanish, and African authors. As a teacher, I want to use all of these arguments and evidence I’ve just laid out to argue for the case of YA lit in the classroom. 

I always viewed my role as an English teacher as one with deliberate purpose. I’ve always wanted to be more than just an English teacher. I wanted to be the one person whose students would go to when they finished a book and wanted someone to listen to them rattle off about the parts they liked and didn’t like. I wanted to be the one person whose students would look to when they got bullied by other students or teachers and protect and comfort them, especially my fellow students of color. I wanted to be the one person whose students would ask for book recommendations and ask to read over their writing projects because they trusted my opinions. I wanted to be the person I needed when I was younger. If I can’t go back in time to the past, I’ll make sure I become that person in the present for the kids of the future generation...

And I’ll start with introducing them to YA lit.

[themelaninmamifiles]

Don’t Unpack Your Baggage at Your Kids’ Feet

It’s been a bit since I’ve written my own “think pieces” on MMF, but last night into today I read something so ridiculous that I was left saying “what in the Smokey Robinson is this?!” First, let me begin by saying, I’m a huge fan of Very Smart Brothas. It’s a site that got absorbed into The Root family of websites. But I always like them because they’re equal parts intriguing and shady—and I’m always here for a bit of shade. While I’m not a super fan who goes to their site daily to check out new content, if one of their article posts manages to fight the FB algorithm and win, I usually click through and read it. And if you’re not familiar with VSB or The Root, they’re both black-centric sites/platforms that looks at everything through the lens of blackness. And in the case of VSB, it’s usually taken from an angle of an enlightened black man.

Late last night I was scrolling through FB before bed (a bad habit which I don’t have any plans on changing) and saw a post from VSB written by a guy in an interracial relationship with biracial children. The title was How Raising Multiethnic Kids Reshaped My Blackness. I was intrigued because I’m also a black parent raising a multiethnic child. I wanted to see what he had to say and clicked the link. But the very first sentence was a hot ass mess, and it went downhill from there. The article basically rolls through the psyche of a man who married out to a SE Asian Indian woman and now has to grapple with the idea of raising biracial and multicultural children and how best to expose them to their culture. On its face, this would be a good article, but it wasn’t. 

So I made a hot takes post on my personal FB feed, but I woke up still thinking about that ridiculous article, and decided to rebuttal...a tad savagely. As background if you aren’t familiar with MMF or its previous iteration, TM2B, I am a black woman raising a multicultural child who is half black and half Puerto Rican. So, I feel I can effectively talk about this article and everything I think it got wrong.

1. The first sentences makes being black sound like a life sentence.

My wife is not black.

Our daughters, by no choice of their own, are.

Quite frankly the entire tone of the article continued on in this fashion. But coupled with the picture he posted at the start of his two adorable daughters, it felt more like he was let down that his children didn’t come out super light and ambiguous. I’m not going to go so far as saying he fetishized light skinned children like a lot of people in general do, but he emphasized a bit too frequently how his daughters would be instantly identified as black rather than having people ask them “what are you” their whole life. So, as a result, the whole article reeked of “sigh...I guess they’ll be black then”.

There’s nothing wrong with being dark, or identifiably black or whatever culture you are. And this is the flip side of interracial/interethnic relationships that lead to children. The man’s wife is Indian, so even if she is light skinned, there’s a lot of genetic variation in India. I’ve been to the country (had a fab time!) and can tell you, I saw more people my shade and darker than super light. If you take Bollywood movies at face value for what Indians look like, you’re going to be disappointed. So, anytime two people from two largely varied gene pools hook up, you have no idea what skin color your child is going to have. The same thing happened with Tay Tay. Is she significantly lighter than me? Yes, however, she was born paler than my husband and now she’s his shade and there’s always the possibility she could still get darker.

2. This man mentions his wife’s ethnicity in a cringe worthy manner

Let me backtrack for a sec. While my wife isn’t black, she’s also very much not white. She’s Indian (see: Tandoori, not Thanksgiving), and she’s Canadian.

Sir...just no. Tandoori is not a way to describe people. It’s an oven and a way to cook food. Thanksgiving is hardly a positive thing to mention to Native Americans because, well, see history. I’m not sure if he was trying to be sarcastic or pithy here, but it fell flat and I wasn’t alone. People in the comments on the article page and on VSB’s FB post also called him out for it.

Also, let’s not pretend Canada doesn’t have an issue with minorities or even their own First Nations...that’s being intellectually dishonest. Are they more evolved on the whole than the U.S.? For sure...but I’ve heard plenty of stories from Black Canadians.

3. Black people are not a monolith

This was probably the most irritating part of this awkward article. I hate when people of other cultures try to pigeon hole us but it’s 10x worse when it’s coming from within. We’re not a monolith, we’re not the Borg. We don’t all have the same interests, thoughts, feelings and responses to things. If Joe in California stubs his toe, we don’t all suddenly feel a tingle telling us that Joe is injured. There’s no one defining way to be black. The narrator (a black man) had such a narrow and depressing view of what “blackness” was that if I wasn’t a black person and read that, I’d think being black was probably the worst thing that could happen to someone. According to him black people don’t:

Wear flip-flops

Listen to anything except hip-hop, R&B or soul/neo-soul music

Don’t play acoustic guitar (but like really? How would you come to this conclusion with all the black musicians who—wait for it—play the ACOUSTIC guitar?!)

Don’t go camping (I don’t go camping, however I’ve been hiking and in general do like outdoorsy things)

And apparently if we do the above, we might get our black card revoked. Meanwhile according to the author, all we do is play spades, watch Soul Train, fry up balogne on the weekends and speak solely in AAVE.

I haven’t seriously watched Soul Train since I was in high school. I don’t eat balogne because it’s literally scraps from meat processing plants pressed together into a mystery meat. I play a passable hand of spades but it’s not the first thing I run to at the cookout. And I DO NOT speak in “traditional” AAVE except for the occasional “guuurlll” or “chillllee”. However, I wear flip-flops religiously in the summer, and I live for K-Pop (BTS Army!).

4. I’m confused by what this man expected from “marrying out” but not marrying white.

In the article, he mentions how he married out, but his wife isn’t white she’s Indian. Okay. But his awkward explanation makes it seem like he thought that because he didn’t marry a white person, there wouldn’t be growing pains, disconnects or times where you won’t see eye to eye. What?!

Look, I’m 36 years old, and I’ve spent over a third of my life in an intercultural relationship with the same Puerto Rican man. Yes there are a lot of similarities between us and how we grew up, but there’s a lot that wasn’t the same. And culturally, we’re very different, even if we have shared pop cultural things like Hip-Hop, the Commodore 64 and Disney World. Heck, the hubs is probably closer to Hip-Hop than me because his dad was and is part of the rise of Hip-Hop and DJs as we know it in the Bronx in the ‘70s and ‘80s whereas I just consumed it in passing.

Even two black people from opposite parts of the country like the North and the South would have cultural differences. You could marry the boy down the street and still have cultural disconnects because...#3 WE’RE NOT A MONOLITH.

5. Why are you trying to force your kids to choose “your side” at the expense of your wife’s “side”?

I’m the first to admit that raising multicultural children can be challenging. But making the choice for them and treating them as only black or only Indian is a major disservice. They’re not just one thing. I get it, visually his children are black, but that doesn’t mean that you can legitimately deny their Indian side or downplay it—especially if mom is in the picture.

Right now, my daughter looks more identifiably Latina than anything else, right down to her hair. Although everyone says she has the hubs’ hair and skin and my face so... But the point is, she is Afro-latina. So, she’s going to learn about everything. And the choice of whether she more identifies with being Puerto Rican or black is one that she needs to make. My husband and I can’t force that on her. It’s her identity, not ours.

6. It’s clear you’re still grappling with blackness, don’t lay that at your kids’ feet

This was honestly the biggest takeaway I got from this article. He wasn’t sure how to define blackness for himself, and as a result, he’s trying to shape it in an odd way for his children. And maybe he really does feel like being black is the shit. But the way he caricatured blackness through the scope of this article was piss poor. Whether he’s feeling some type of way because he married out or because he feels his children are (unfairly?) labeled as black are things he needs to work out on his own time and not put those stigmas on his daughters.

Photo by Sai De Silva on Unsplash

[chekhovs-thug]

This is exactly why I’m tired of white people.

White people think they’re the experts on everything, including the racism that they blindly perpetuate. It’s hilarious, really. The second list really has almost nothing to do with the first. Just some white boy’s social anxieties about not being the centre of attention when we talk about racism.

The reason why no one over here cares or wants to hear what you have to say about racism, white folks, is because we heard it already. We’re all already aware of your feelings. You and every Chad/McKenna/Hunter/Carietta out there have told us. It’s boring now.

That all said, let’s rewrite his list to show how it came off to people with reading comprehension skills and enough common sense to fill a thimble.

1. I don’t like people telling me that I’m not the centre of attention. I am a free American, and as such it is my right to speak whenever I want, about whatever I want, to whomever I want. Anyone who tells me they’re not interested in what I have to say is denying my freedom to tell them anyway. Anyone who tells me my opinion on a subject is unhelpful (or hurtful) is pro-fascism!

2. I assume that people of colour grow up in ‘slums’ and neighbourhoods with mostly PoC are automatically slums to me. The best thing to do for those PoC is to push them out of their homes and businesses and make the area pretty and safe for the new white people who will live there 🤗

3. When people tell me I’m hurting them or being insensitive, I see it as a personal flaw of the other person because there’s no way I’d ever. How dare they not like what I have to say?

4. My one Black acquaintance is enough to clear me of racism, even though I’ve written this whole list that most Black folks would likely find offensive. But you can’t call me racist for not including Black people. Gotcha!

5. I haven’t ever read anything academic about AAVE, Spanglish, etc. I dunno how they work or what they are but they must be inferior to whatever English I speak. Anything different from me is “fucked up”.

6. I, a white person, know EXACTLY what racism is and how it affects PoC today. My expertise on racism is equivalent to, if not superior to, the experiences and knowledge of the PoC who actually live it everyday.

7. I’m too milquetoast to actually tell myself that I’m racist, let alone anyone else. Being called a racist makes me feel bad, and if I can’t transfer those feelings into better behaviour, surely no one else can.

8. I have one example of fighting racism that I don’t like, which may or may not be based in reality. Let’s apply it broadly to all forms of fighting racism, to refute the claim that fighting racism takes different forms. That’ll get those SJWs!

9. I feel forgotten because people are realising that being white isn’t special. Why don’t they like me? Why don’t they care about my obviously important opinion. This is reverse discrimination. I want my oppression too!

10. You hurt my feelings and called me a mean name! Just for that, I’m going to keep validating the label that made me feel bad.

A ‘fucked’ list indeed.

A guide for white people.

[yahoo-puck-daddy-blog]

Puck Daddy Bag of Mail: What's the ideal Stanley Cup final?

The Predators and Bruins would make a compelling Stanley Cup pairing. (John Russell/NHLI via Getty Images)

We are now officially one week away from the start of the playoffs, and no one seems to be thinking too much about anything else.

Well, that’s not totally true, because the Sedins are retiring and I got one question about them. It’s understandable and I love talking about the damn Sedin boys, so I’m all for it, but otherwise, it’s all playoff stuff, baby.

And I want to send out an extra special thank you to the question-askers this week for not asking me anything about the MVP race, which has broken the brains of many otherwise smart people, including some very good friends of mine who maybe used to run this site. Anyway, not getting a single MVP question this week has done my heart (Hart, ha ha ha) good, and tells me I have cultivated an audience of exceptionally smart people who do not exist solely to antagonize. It’s better than I deserve!

Anyhow, lets get to it:

Brad asks: “Ratings implications aside, what would be the most interesting Cup Final match-up?”

I gotta tell ya: I truly can’t care about the ratings. I know as a professional hockey writer I’m supposed to gnash my teeth if they’re down a fraction of a percentage point, but people are gonna watch what they’re gonna watch, and if that’s another episode of Young Sheldon then what do I care?

And I have a boring answer for this one, too: I think it would be most interesting to see the Bruins and Preds absolutely smash each other. They’re the two best teams in the league, they’re both exciting to watch, they have fun personalities on both sides, etc. I would also accept Tampa and Winnipeg as a good Cup matchup. Hell, even throw in the Leafs.

Basically I think there’s a solid top five of those teams and then the rest are kind of less engaging to me as options. I just feel like there’s a big gap between them and everyone else in terms of being interesting.

Harry asks: “Should the Caps keep Trotz around?”

Of course they should.

Look, we all thought the Caps were gonna take a step back this season, and potentially kind of a big one. Instead, they won their division again, which is really not that much less competitive than it was last year in a lot of ways, and cleared 100 points again.

They lost a lot this summer to free agency and necessary trades, and it seems to have affected them very little, if at all. Some of that can be attributed to luck (they have the third-highest PDO in the league) and the overall quality of the players still sticking around, but you have to say Trotz did a pretty good job managing the reduced talent.

Put another way, the question of “Should ________ keep _______ around?” should always be followed with, “… and would his replacement do a better job?” While there are probably coaches who can maybe wring a little better of a process out of this group (they’re running a sub-48 Corsi share) but with this group, I’m not sure how much.

Basically, I don’t know how you let a guy like Trotz walk unless you’re sure his replacement would be as good or better. If Joel Quenneville becomes available, half the teams in the league might fire their coaches to try to get him, and if that’s something Washington could do, then sure.

But otherwise, I let him ride out the rest of the Caps’ window.

Tony asks: “Nashville and Winnipeg are the two obvious favorites to come out of the West, and the rest seem like they’re all in the same tier. Who’s your favorite of the bunch?”

The easy answer here was to say Minnesota. They’re still running pretty hot, and have been for months, but I’d need to see more proof of concept since Ryan Suter got hurt.

I can see San Jose doing some damage, especially if they get deep enough into the postseason to get Thornton back. Maybe LA if Quick can get on one, which has certainly happened before. And maybe, maybe you say Vegas, but I think everyone knows where I stand on them.

After that, I don’t have a lot of faith in any of the three other teams in the wild card hunt.

CF asks: “Was the review in the Panthers vs. Predators game a sign that goaltender review is trending in the right or wrong direction?”

I think it’s going in the same direction as before. Which is to say, “Nowhere anyone likes.”

Let’s not forget, everyone hates this, but the GMs did almost nothing and the league’s solution was to tell everyone, “Please stop complaining about this.” So now, instead of NHL referees in the rink not really understanding the rules and making a call anyway, you have former NHL referees watching on TV not understanding the rules and making a call anyway.

But here’s where I say something people won’t like: That overturned goal was a 50/50 call, moreso than any other controversial review in recent memory. I can see the argument that Luongo got pitchforked a little bit, and I can see the argument that he turned himself a little bit.

My whole thing now is that video review is ruining the NHL and we should probably just do away with it until we can just microchip everything and write better rules, because there’s so much subjectivity on goalie interference and offside that it’s effectively guesswork and a coin flip. Everyone hates it, so you have to change everything.

Tom asks: “Is there a model now on how to ‘rebuild on the fly’? Three years ago I thought the Bruins and Penguins windows were closed.”

I’m not sure I agree that either were really rebuilds on the fly. The Penguins just stopped giving middling wingers $5.5 million AAVs just because they were playing with Crosby and Malkin, traded for Phil Kessel, and let some expensive defensemen walk. Some of their contributors were certainly drafted and developed in-house but these are guys with skillsets better suited to what Crosby and Malkin needed all along.

With the Bruins, I’m more convinced that this was a successful rebuild on the fly, for sure. But they lucked into no one picking Charlie McAvoy before 14, and that includes THREE other defensemen. Other than that, who are their newer contributors among the young guys? In this argument I’m not counting David Pastrnak since he’s been in the league four years now.

Only one was a first-round pick (Jake DeBrusk, and they shouldn’t have taken him there), and a few more were taken in the second. I guess I’m wondering how much of a skill it is to have a handful of third- and fourth-round picks come in for you, and how much is luck. Certainly Don Sweeney seems to be doing better than most people would have expected, but he still traded away an elite defenseman for picks, so…

As with any other rebuild, I think the ones on the fly only work when teams get a little (or a lot) lucky and have elite players already. If you want to call that a formula, go for it, but it seems tough to replicate.

Cornelius asks: “How [BS] is it that Chara has only one Norris?”

Extremely. He’s the best defenseman of his generation and got screwed out of at least two, one of which (the Nick Lidstrom lifetime achievement award) was total and utter BS to an alarming extent. He’ll be a first-ballot Hall of Famer and the fact that he was only recognized as the best defenseman in the league once is a bit silly, no?

Hey speaking of underappreciated Hall-of-Fame careers…

ZA asks: “The consensus in British Columbia seems to be ‘The Twins are no-doubt HHOFers.’ Are Canucks fans in for a fun new type of disappointment?”

You never say it’s a sure thing with the Hall of Fame because those old white guys hold grudges and make dumbass decisions all the time.

That said, I think they’re pretty safe because they’ll have a pretty strong advocate in Brian Burke really banging the drum for them, and they deserve it.

Among players with at least 800 games played since the turn of the century, they’re fifth (Henrik) and seventh (Daniel) in points, with Marian Hossa — another slam-dunk pick — between them. This despite spending a lot of time on rotten teams, often playing with subpar players. They’re not quite on Jarome Iginla’s level of scoring a ton while not exactly having a lot of help, but they’re certainly in that conversation.

Walker asks: “Why do colleges put such emphasis on hiring a coach with previous ties to the school? Minnesota added Motzko, Michigan hired Pearson, and Wisconsin got Granato to name a few. Why do ADs immediately cull their options so dramatically?”

First of all, thanks for asking a college hockey question.

Second, I think this is a function of a couple issues being in play. First, alumni, who tend to donate a lot of money, love stuff like that and might see other guys as being more mercenary or not really Understanding The Culture of the program or school or whatever. Second, I think it probably engenders a lot more loyalty to the team and, if you do well, might convince you to stick around despite some potentially better offers.

Take, for example, Norm Bazin at UMass Lowell. He played there in the early 90s, met his wife there, was an assistant coach there after his playing career ended, all that stuff. He then went to other programs as an assistant, got a few years of head coaching experience in Div. 3, and got hired at Lowell. In doing so, he beat out guys with NHL pedigrees like Ron Rolston, among others.

And obviously it’s worked out great for all involved. Bazin wins a ton of games for his alma mater, and his alma mater sells a lot of tickets as a result. Plus, Bazin’s contract was expiring after this season, so last summer he interviewed for the AHL job in Utica a number of times. How serious he was about taking it isn’t for me to say, but my guess is, “Not very.” He used it to leverage a slightly better annual salary and a new deal out of the school.

In the long run, if you can get a good coach who isn’t likely to leave your school for greener pastures when the opportunity presents itself (like, say, I don’t know, Bob Motzko), that’s extremely valuable. It shouldn’t be the primary determining factor, but it should probably be in the mix.

Ryan Lambert is a Puck Daddy columnist. His email is here and his Twitter is here.

All stats via Corsica unless noted otherwise. Some questions in the mailbag are edited for clarity or to remove swear words, which are illegal to use.

[darkasincynicalasdarkistohue]

For me I can’t separate my blackness from where I’m from. I grew in suburban parts of Round Lake and then Antioch. Little known fact about me I used to like playing fantasy football and my team name was “Downtown Dirty Atown” as a way of honoring the place I mostly grew up. I was and still am a foster kid to my very core I think. I was adopted by a mostly white “middle class” family, and was mostly taught to be “racially blind” and “unaware”. I can remember a moment when I driving in the car with mom and she was listening to Mariah Carey, me a black kid who mostly grew up around other black and people of color at point shouldn’t understand why a white person would be fascinated with “my music”. So, I asked my mom why she was listening to Mariah for, and I said that I thought it was “black people music”. (This was meant to be prideful and in no way diminishing.) Then she told me that Mariah wasn’t “black” which it would take me years to realize wasn’t true Mariah is black and Hispanic I think. Anyways, this made gave a realization that I don’t think I would realize until the gravity of until much later that I didn’t own shit. I did have cultural role models though, though I must admit they were largely based off of my parents own interests and politics. I grew up idolizing a white washed version of Martin Luther King and I also grew up idolizing Bill Cosby, I think though my parents intent was never to harm me I think the reason they admired these people was in part due to their perceived “respectability politics”. The fact that they offered a “nonthreatening” image of a black man, which they thought I was at the time. I believe I was always subtly told and modeled to be different from “the other black people” the perceived negative images of gang bangers and thugs. I even believe in some ways this let them to regulate my aesthetic and way of speaking. I remember I could never wear my hat backwards without some chiding from my dad when he would ask me if I had “joined a gang”. My parents also made me feel like it was wrong to speak in AAVE especially my dad who would say things like “he didn’t understand why people talked like that” or “that people didn’t need to talk like that”. I also believe that I was taught to racially degrade myself for white people’s amusement. I remember growing up a and lot of the jokes I would make would be at my own expense. I think I was taught to view racism as not a big deal as long as someone wasn’t being “intentionally racist” and to view racism as something that happened “in the past” and was largely over. I even remember being in high school demeaning a group of black kids who would sit off by themselves in the high school cafeteria in my mostly white school as “the BET table”. I also remember a time in high school when I had to perform a monologue that was mostly in black dialect and I remember saying something to my teacher like “I don’t talk that way” meaning that I didn’t speak the way black people it was thought stereotypically spoke. All these moments now looking back on them, come from someone who clearly hated themselves, but I think more importantly was taught to hate themselves and perform blackness to others liking. Also growing up in the town I grew up in there was no one really knew how to take care of my hair, I remember going to my mom’s beauty salon and having to have a special person cut my hair because she was the only one who knew how to deal with black hair. Fast forwarding, a little bit growing up in the suburbs I believe means you are required to go through an emo and boy did I go through one, although I believe there are many people who would argue it still happening LOL. I remember being really into evanescence, flyleaf, breaking Benjamin, and some other lighter soft boy music. As much as I don’t really like to think about or talk about this time period in my life very much because I feel like I was a terrible person, I can’t escape the fact that it has made me who I am today and is still very much a part of who I am. I think sometimes that’s why I have such a hard time with living in Olympia and connecting with members of the black community here is because I feel like they have this perspective of people that don’t either come from the South or the hood as soft or as people who hate themselves because their perspectives of blackness are different than theirs. In Olympia in a very weird way I believe there’s always this feeling that one’s is being judged and tested based upon this, which feels very limiting and in some ways suffocating. And in a lot of ways it feels like a black version of white supremacy to hold our people to certain standards of being to recognize their humanity as real and valid. Especially with the colorism debates, growing up in the suburbs I feel like the white people there and their white supremacy didn’t care whether I was “a light-skinned or a dark skinned. They just saw me as black a token, someone who would be cool with their racism, someone who they would still find a way to remind that they were black every chance they could get.