Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Is It Wrong To Teach the Police Ebonics?



I need some guidance y'all.

Is this racist or informative? (Correct link to a police written Ebonics guide from Smoking Gun.)

  • A crude "ghetto handbook" distributed to police patrolling Houston's public schools has resulted in the suspension of one officer. The eight-page booklet--a copy of which you'll find below--was handed out in May by a officer with the city's Independent School District, but did not come to the attention of school brass until recently, when a discrimination complaint was lodged. The booklet, which was given to about 20 cops, is subtitled "Wucha dun did now?," and purports to help the reader "learn to speak ebonics as if you just came out of the hood...because you could find you self with a problem one day and ebonics could save your life." The booklet offers definitions for street slang like "hoodrat" ("scummy girl") and "foty" (a 40-ounce bottle of beer) and concludes with a "poem" that quotes Big L.

Granted, the cop is being cute with this handout. But is he wrong? And should he have been suspended for trying to arm his fellow officers with the language of the street?

(I can't tell if the cop was black or white, but if he was white and he quoted Big L's "Ebonics" he should get a medal for having his finger on the pulse of the black community, not a suspension.)

If you've been near public transportation when school lets out, you've seen the jungle that ensues and non-English that is spoken, especially in the South.

Between Soulja Boy's "Crank Dat" and the "A Bay Bay's" it's hard to keep up with today's up and coming jig.

Look at the picture below,



Cops need a guide to understand this shit because I don't.
Are these jigs :

A) Going to volunteer at the local church
B) Responding the HBO's open call for "The Wire" or
C) Trying to get their Larry Craig on outside the bathroom stall.

I'm trying not to become a grumpy ass Bill Cosby type Negro in my young age, but I really don't get this shit.

Hip-hop culture flaunts it's hyper-masculinity and heterosexuality while dismissing all things remotely gay with a "No homo" yet the standard bearers of the culture walk around with showing more ass than the back of the Village Voice.

That's why I'm not even upset with the fact that baggy pants that are under your ass will now be illegal.

The jigs who wear their pants like that shouldn't be mad either.
Pants under the ass is just prison culture seeping through the civilian culture which now takes you right back to prison.

It's the circle of life, inner city style.

And besides they're already used to their pants being under their ass. The transition to prison bitch is suddenly a lot smoother.

5 comments:

  1. You are hilarious. Well done.

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  2. I can't really knock the slang guide...I just learned ebonics was listed as ebony and phonics. Burn. My only justification for knocking this move is to keep people out.

    In our citypaper Vincent Williams said he wanted to support the dude that drafted that baggy pants law in Atlanta...but he couldn't support a law about dress code from someone wearing a tie and a short sleeved dress shirt.

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  3. Wow, you pulled no punches on that one.

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  4. I think they need more than a handout to understand so-called ebonics. There should be classes or seminars, where things can be explained and people can ask questions.

    That handout could give an officer a false sense of security, which could lead to injury or worse.

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  5. Ties with short sleeved button-downs are a true crime against humanity.

    I'd sign that law Amadeo.

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