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ebonyutley's review against another edition
3.0
In 2008, U.S. citizens elected their first black president. Kind of. It depends on whom you ask. Some say Barack Obama is black because he embodies the truest definition of the term African-American—his father was from Kenya and his mother hailed from Kansas. Others declare that Obama is not black but biracial since his mother is white. And well-intentioned, colorblind souls claim his race no longer matters because his election ushered in a post-racial society.
If there’s one thing on which these disparate perspectives can agree, it’s that Obama’s mere presence in the White House inspires national conversations about race and citizenship. H. Samy Alim and Geneva Smitherman’s new book, “Articulate While Black: Barack Obama, Language, and Race in the U.S.,” offers a refreshing take on how language informs those conversations
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If there’s one thing on which these disparate perspectives can agree, it’s that Obama’s mere presence in the White House inspires national conversations about race and citizenship. H. Samy Alim and Geneva Smitherman’s new book, “Articulate While Black: Barack Obama, Language, and Race in the U.S.,” offers a refreshing take on how language informs those conversations
Continue reading here
doublen's review against another edition
5.0
An absolute must read for everyone, but ESPECIALLY English/Language Arts teachers.
ejbookbroad's review against another edition
5.0
"Since outright racial discrimination is legally banned (though still widely practiced), language has become an even more important vehicle in the denial of access to resources." Linguistic profiling and discrimination are widely accepted practices in our society. This book was fantastic, and I highly recommend it to anyone and everyone, even if you think you have no interest in linguistics, pick it up or borrow it from me.
caseyjoreads's review against another edition
5.0
A little late in reading this one in some ways (it's been sitting on my shelf for years), but the content is just as relevant. Written in Black academic language, it packs a punch. And I LOVE that it ends with ethnographic work with students learning about their own language patterns.
I'm all about a strong ending, so check this last line out:
"Schooling should not be about convincing students to play the game but, rather, about helping them understand how the game's been rigged and, more importantly, how they can work to change it. Real talk."
I'm all about a strong ending, so check this last line out:
"Schooling should not be about convincing students to play the game but, rather, about helping them understand how the game's been rigged and, more importantly, how they can work to change it. Real talk."
grahamiam's review against another edition
3.0
Well-written book, but I came away from it (as someone who paid a lot of attention during the election) feeling like I didn't really get much out of it. A lot of the book seemed to be arguing against an audience who would never read it. The juicy bits, like the comparison of Obama's speech to some specific rhetorical moves in sermons, were grand, but they were few and far between.
Also had a few issues that every academic book has. Too much time on reviewing at the end, too much time spent premise-setting. I hate the following sentence, and it's in almost every academic book:
“While numerous books on [topic] have focused on [common approaches to topic], none has examined these issues from [my] perspective.” (Alim and Smitherman 2-3)
Also had a few issues that every academic book has. Too much time on reviewing at the end, too much time spent premise-setting. I hate the following sentence, and it's in almost every academic book:
“While numerous books on [topic] have focused on [common approaches to topic], none has examined these issues from [my] perspective.” (Alim and Smitherman 2-3)
nonfirqtion's review
5.0
“…black language and culture are not only made highly visible but are highly monitored, policed, and scrutinized for anything that might be considered “problematic” or as further signs of Black folks’ “deficiency,” “inadequacy”, or “incompetence”. Recognizing this particular type of racializing hegemony brings us to yet another fundamental concern in relation to Black speech: “On what basis is speech to be judged negative, positive, or neutral? On whose norms is such an evaluation based?"⠀
.⠀
As someone whose thesis was on codeswitching in my own community, reading this book where Alim and Smitherman style-shifted so gracefully and eloquently between both languages in writing was refreshing and important. Black language (and anything else other than standard English) has been maligned in the American public sphere. And this book helped dissect the politics of language. Everything in this world is political, including and especially language. What makes a language acceptable? What makes an accent acceptable? Whose norms should prevail?⠀
.⠀
I learned a lot from this book. From the etymology of the word muthafucka to how Obama’s speech style becomes a springboard to consider larger thought-provoking questions about language, education, discrimination. You might wonder: wait, what is there to talk about? Well a lot. From the moral panic over the pound, or “muthafucka”, and demands to “clean up” the language (which does nothing but eclipse more perturbing issues like poverty created by centuries of race-based and class-based social inequalities) to how censoring a language is essentially censoring an entire community and an erasure of the larger society’s responsibility to these people.⠀
. ⠀
We need to question how when we insist on sounding “white”, we are perpetuating the myth that the “standard” is somehow more intelligent, more appropriate and more important. And why do we continue to measure the worth of minorities and marginalized communities by their level of assimilation to the majority? ⠀
.
Alim & Smitherman aimed to disrupt the idiom "if it ain't White, it ain't right" & I think they did a phenomenal job at it!
.⠀
As someone whose thesis was on codeswitching in my own community, reading this book where Alim and Smitherman style-shifted so gracefully and eloquently between both languages in writing was refreshing and important. Black language (and anything else other than standard English) has been maligned in the American public sphere. And this book helped dissect the politics of language. Everything in this world is political, including and especially language. What makes a language acceptable? What makes an accent acceptable? Whose norms should prevail?⠀
.⠀
I learned a lot from this book. From the etymology of the word muthafucka to how Obama’s speech style becomes a springboard to consider larger thought-provoking questions about language, education, discrimination. You might wonder: wait, what is there to talk about? Well a lot. From the moral panic over the pound, or “muthafucka”, and demands to “clean up” the language (which does nothing but eclipse more perturbing issues like poverty created by centuries of race-based and class-based social inequalities) to how censoring a language is essentially censoring an entire community and an erasure of the larger society’s responsibility to these people.⠀
. ⠀
We need to question how when we insist on sounding “white”, we are perpetuating the myth that the “standard” is somehow more intelligent, more appropriate and more important. And why do we continue to measure the worth of minorities and marginalized communities by their level of assimilation to the majority? ⠀
.
Alim & Smitherman aimed to disrupt the idiom "if it ain't White, it ain't right" & I think they did a phenomenal job at it!
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