All right first of all I don't want to play the "are you racist?" game when I already do it with genuine racists to begin with. So let's take a good look
(skipped SA, not being racist but the whole black lingo made it difficult for me to tolerate)
It is of merit, I think, to note your statement that you're "not being racist". It indicates to me, anyways, that you are as aware as I am that there is something racially inflammatory in your coming statement. Whether or not you are racist isn't a question I even care to address. But what I do want to argue is that yes, you are being racist.
Let's first take a relevant detour into various stages of black identity as portrayed by the media. The first is the stereotype. Hopefully you know these:
the Brute, the Mammy/Tom, the Pickaninny, and the Coon. Details on each are in the link. In most modern media, the stereotype has been removed, or at worst, supplanted by a new one (hey ima funny black friend white girl WATCHHOOOO SAY??? *eyes bug out*) but who knows if these offshoots and hybrids will have the staying power of the others.
Then you have the archetype, where in order to separate themselves from the stereotype, they adopt the exact opposite stance. Blacks are not thugs with lots of chain, they are doctors wearing sweaters. Blacks are not poor, they are rich. Blacks don't speak ebonics or slack grammatical style, they can be more erudite and cultured and savvy than white people. This type of archetype likes to believe they have more in common with WEB Du Bois and Frederick Douglass, ignoring that despite being well educated, Du Bois never forgot the struggle he and all his race would face in his life and beyond; and swore that the American Negro "would not bleach his Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows Negro blood has a message for the world. He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be
both a Negro and an American, without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of Opportunity closed roughly in his face." (emphasis mine)
Which leads to the third identity, the antitype. The idea that being "white" does not mean being "normal". It's where Nas, Ella Baker, Tupac, and Malcolm X got their identities from, and it's the realest of the lot; rather than becoming a golliwog doll or pretending to put on white face and ignore your race, the key is to recognize race as one of the major factors in your life, and to never forget it. To have pride in one's culture, as opposed to hiding from it to fit in and be "normal".
And this brings us to our discussion, and I'll go ahead and post your follow up as well:
@Steel: I see what you did there. But in all seriousness I feel its a valid complaint. Same as if the dialogue was in old English, or if GTA 4 happened to use as much vocab as Ulysses. :P
Your parallel here is false because old English is almost impenetrable at conversational speeds and Ulysses is not so much vocab oriented as it is stream of consciousness writing. Neither of these can be applicable to the Ebonics situation in that one is a dead method of speaking and the other is physically impossible to do. No, what your comparision is trying to illuminate is that anything other than good old English language or slight variations of it are welcome, but anything else is abnormal. The very game you're choosing to remake recasts words like Shiva, Sephiroth, and Midgard, from their original tongues into words that are completely without meaning. It also introduces nonsense words like "Kupo!" "Mako" and "Materia". Future games would include slow talking blue creatures that controlled the world's shoopuff system and Quina Quen's own unique Jar Jar take on English.
The problem is not linguistic modification (is referring to your gun as a "gat" any more severe than referring to magic as "materia"?) but something else. I could leap to what I'm sure it is, but I'll hold my tongue even though I've got the reason all lined up and ready and instead ask for your own justification. What is so wrong with ebonics and this time, spare the vague analogies to dead languages or those that are not applicable?
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