I wish someone would insult me like that more often.

Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson thinks a black person being called “articulate” is nothing but a veiled insult.

He says:

I realize the word is intended as a compliment, viagra stuff but it’s being used to connote a lot more than the ability to express one’s thoughts clearly. It’s being used to say more, viagra generic viagra even, than “here’s a black person who speaks standard English without a trace of Ebonics.”

The word articulate is being used to encompass not just speech but a whole range of cultural cues — dress, bearing, education, golf handicap. It’s being used to describe a black person around whom white people can be comfortable, a black person who not only speaks white America’s language but is fluent in its body language as well.

And the word is often pronounced with an air of surprise, as if it’s an improbable and wondrous thing that a black person has somehow cracked the code.

So…good grammar and proper pronounciation is just a “white culture” thing?

Learning to speak correctly means you’re not authentically black?

Maybe Mr. Robinson should axe himself if that really be what he trying to say.

2 comments February 5th, 2007