0 comment Tuesday, November 25, 2014 | admin
Rick Sanchez, affirmative-action reporter on CNN, thinks that minorities who work for Fox News are 'sellouts.'
I've wondered about just what Sanchez's ancestry may be, since he appears 100 percent European. I guessed he was probably of (White) Cuban descent, meaning mostly Spanish, and I was correct, according to Wikipedia.
The son of Cuban political exiles who came to the United States in the 1950s from Cuba, Sanchez grew up in the city of Hialeah, Florida. He graduated from Hialeah High School in 1977 and accepted a football scholarship to Minnesota State University Moorhead. He transferred to the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis on a CBS/WCCO Journalism Scholarship in 1979."
There you go, another one of those arch-conservative Cuban-Americans of whom the Republicans like to brag, like Bob Menendez who is also a liberal son of Cuban immigrants. So much for that myth, right? No, I am sure the Republicans will cling to it, just like they cling to the idea of the precious Hispanic vote on which they are staking their political fortunes.
Sanchez has apparently been taking potshots at Fox News lately, as ''reporters'' on those ultra-left news channels do regularly, and it's rather absurd, really, since Fox is almost, very nearly, as politically correct as CNN, MSNBC, or any of the others. They certainly abide by the rules of PC and slavishly seek 'diversity' in hiring on-air personalities.
I notice they now prominently feature more black faces and minorities in general than in the past, no doubt partly in response to CNN's sniping, and the most popular one on Fox is the FReepers' pinup, replacing the blonde Laurie Dhue, is Julie Banderas.
Miss Banderas does not look like most Hispanics I've met; she looks more like an Anglo-American with a dark tan, and acording to her biography, her birth name was Julie Bidwell, and she is a descendant of John Bidwell, a prominent pioneer.
Went by her birth name Julie Bidwell while at WHSV-TV in Harrisonburg, Virginia and at WBRE-TV in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. She is a paternal descendent of John Bidwell. Her father's name is Howard D. Bidwell. She is partially of Colombian descent, henceforth the use of the Spanish name.
The biography of Miss Banderas says she is 'partially' Colombian, so I wonder why she chose to drop her birth name in favor of a Hispanic name. I suppose it certainly does not hurt one's career to claim minority ancestry these days. I suspect we will see a lot more of that, as this country becomes majority nonwhite, and Hispanics become the majority. I expect many White Americans will emphasize any ethnic ancestry they may have so as to escape the stigma of being White-bread, and if they have any Hispanic ancestry, even just Spanish, as Linda Sanchez the 'conservative' has, they will pick that as their identity for practical reasons.
Miss Banderas has replied to Sanchez:
As a wise Latina woman, I have no comment other than to say if I were Rick Sanchez, I wouldn�t look in the mirror, period.''
It does seem an ironclad law that just about anybody with one-quarter or more nonwhite ancestry identifies with their minority side; I see it all the time in real life too. I can't think of any exceptions, offhand.
The mainstream 'conservatives' hold to their faith that ''Democrats are the real racists, and they are keeping the minorities on the plantation. But one day they will wake up and see that Republicans are their real friends!"
Sometimes I think the mainstream conservative types are more lost than the liberals. They come right to the brink of understanding, and pull back every time.
Fox News helps keep them in the dark.
I've wondered about just what Sanchez's ancestry may be, since he appears 100 percent European. I guessed he was probably of (White) Cuban descent, meaning mostly Spanish, and I was correct, according to Wikipedia.
The son of Cuban political exiles who came to the United States in the 1950s from Cuba, Sanchez grew up in the city of Hialeah, Florida. He graduated from Hialeah High School in 1977 and accepted a football scholarship to Minnesota State University Moorhead. He transferred to the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis on a CBS/WCCO Journalism Scholarship in 1979."
There you go, another one of those arch-conservative Cuban-Americans of whom the Republicans like to brag, like Bob Menendez who is also a liberal son of Cuban immigrants. So much for that myth, right? No, I am sure the Republicans will cling to it, just like they cling to the idea of the precious Hispanic vote on which they are staking their political fortunes.
Sanchez has apparently been taking potshots at Fox News lately, as ''reporters'' on those ultra-left news channels do regularly, and it's rather absurd, really, since Fox is almost, very nearly, as politically correct as CNN, MSNBC, or any of the others. They certainly abide by the rules of PC and slavishly seek 'diversity' in hiring on-air personalities.
I notice they now prominently feature more black faces and minorities in general than in the past, no doubt partly in response to CNN's sniping, and the most popular one on Fox is the FReepers' pinup, replacing the blonde Laurie Dhue, is Julie Banderas.
Miss Banderas does not look like most Hispanics I've met; she looks more like an Anglo-American with a dark tan, and acording to her biography, her birth name was Julie Bidwell, and she is a descendant of John Bidwell, a prominent pioneer.
Went by her birth name Julie Bidwell while at WHSV-TV in Harrisonburg, Virginia and at WBRE-TV in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. She is a paternal descendent of John Bidwell. Her father's name is Howard D. Bidwell. She is partially of Colombian descent, henceforth the use of the Spanish name.
The biography of Miss Banderas says she is 'partially' Colombian, so I wonder why she chose to drop her birth name in favor of a Hispanic name. I suppose it certainly does not hurt one's career to claim minority ancestry these days. I suspect we will see a lot more of that, as this country becomes majority nonwhite, and Hispanics become the majority. I expect many White Americans will emphasize any ethnic ancestry they may have so as to escape the stigma of being White-bread, and if they have any Hispanic ancestry, even just Spanish, as Linda Sanchez the 'conservative' has, they will pick that as their identity for practical reasons.
Miss Banderas has replied to Sanchez:
As a wise Latina woman, I have no comment other than to say if I were Rick Sanchez, I wouldn�t look in the mirror, period.''
It does seem an ironclad law that just about anybody with one-quarter or more nonwhite ancestry identifies with their minority side; I see it all the time in real life too. I can't think of any exceptions, offhand.
The mainstream 'conservatives' hold to their faith that ''Democrats are the real racists, and they are keeping the minorities on the plantation. But one day they will wake up and see that Republicans are their real friends!"
Sometimes I think the mainstream conservative types are more lost than the liberals. They come right to the brink of understanding, and pull back every time.
Fox News helps keep them in the dark.
Labels: Affirmative Action, American Diversity, Ethnic Identity, Fox News, Media Bias, Old Media
0 comment Sunday, September 14, 2014 | admin
April is Confederate History month, and the following is from a release by the Sons of Confederate Veterans:
"Confederate History Month commemorates the men and women of the Confederate States of America who came from all races and religions that include: Irish-born General Patrick R. Cleburne, Black Confederate drummer Bill Yopp, Mexican born Colonel Santos Benavides, Cherokee Born General Stand Watie and Jewish born Confederate Nurse Phoebe Pember who was the first female administrator of Chimboraza Hospital in Richmond, Virginia where she served until the end of War Between the States."
"Confederate History Month commemorates the men and women of the Confederate States of America who came from all races and religions that include: Irish-born General Patrick R. Cleburne, Black Confederate drummer Bill Yopp, Mexican born Colonel Santos Benavides, Cherokee Born General Stand Watie and Jewish born Confederate Nurse Phoebe Pember who was the first female administrator of Chimboraza Hospital in Richmond, Virginia where she served until the end of War Between the States."
Labels: American Diversity, Political Correctness, Southern Heritage
0 comment Tuesday, September 9, 2014 | admin
Recently I read this Daily Mail article on the decline of the Southern American dialect, and of course this is a subject that is close to my heart.
According to a recent study, the upper and middle classes in the South are especially prone to lose their Southern accent or speech pattern.
The article quotes a Robin Dodsworth, the linguistics professor who collected recordings of Southern speech for the study. At the conclusion of the article, Dodsworth says that
''It's not realistic to talk about "saving" a dialect or accent,' she said, 'because the fact of life is that dialects change.
'The Southern accent the way we think of it now is different than the way people in the South talked 50 years ago, 100 years ago, and so forth.'
Oh yes, this is the politically correct 'descriptive-not-prescriptive' approach to linguistics, which I learned at the feet of my lefty linguistics teacher in college in the late 70s.
The thinking behind it is that standards are elitist, and that language is organic; it just grows, and nobody should try to control the growth in any direction; just let it follow its natural course like a meandering river. Grammar rules should not be emphasized, says this school of thought, because it stifles natural growth and change. Ebonics should be allowed to flourish, of course, because it is a natural outgrowth from vibrant black culture. Now, I wonder what Dodsworth would say if someone said they wanted to 'save' the black American dialect? I have a feeling the answer would be very different.
I didn't buy the PC view of linguistics back in college and I don't now. I think that 'change' in language, just as in culture generally, should be kept within limits, and that's done by not giving way to every change that comes along, such as ephemeral slang, (as the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary recently did) and by not letting things like social change and mass media influence change the regional dialects willy-nilly. Language would change in a chaotic way if we did not make efforts to preserve existing speech habits.
I've written before about how the Southern American dialect has been declining in recent decades, and how I noticed that the younger generations often speak a kind of generic media English and not the Southron dialect that their parents and grandparents speak. It shouldn't even be necessary to explain why I think that is a shame.
Michael at the Southern Nationalist Network blog writes about the Daily Mail article here. He notes that the media and the schools promote a negative view of our culture and Southron people, and that the message being received by young people about their heritage, including their dialect, is a negative one.
Just as most nationalists from around the world emphasize the importance of language in preserving a sense of identity and heritage, those with roots in the South should recognize that language is vital to a healthy sense of identity and heritage. The erosion of the dialect weakens the culture and the people of the South.
There's little doubt that many Americans outside the South tend to have a negative perception of Southern people, based on their speech patterns. I recently had someone tell me that she thought a certain new neighbor from the South was 'stupid' when she first met him, ''because of his accent.'' I am not sure why many Northerners think that people from the South sound 'ignorant' or dull-witted. Is it because of the comparatively slow way of speaking, the fabled 'drawl'? Or is it because of different locutions, syntax and grammar among real Southern speakers? Of course these critics take it for granted that their way of speaking is the 'right' way, without realizing that there are actually different dialects that have their own conventions and habits? This same acquaintance tends to think that any deviations from the dialect she speaks are absurd or wrong. That, my friends, is ignorance.
I think it's a shame that many young people think they need to conform to mass media English, as spoken on TV and in movies. They perceive the dialect their forefathers spoke as 'backward' or embarrassing. I understand the desire for peer approval at that age. When I first came up North as a teenager, I succumbed to the pressure to talk like those around me, because of the teasing and giggles that my accent elicited from my classmates. However pride in my heritage eventually overcame the desire to 'fit in'. I can speak 'standard' English if I choose, or I can revert to what is comfortable and speak Southron. It is true, also, that we tend to be influenced unconsciously by the way people speak around us, and being surrounded by 'standard' American English affects everybody, I suspect. And then there is the growing influence of black idioms: words like 'ho' and bling and other such ''enrichments.''
But what can we do? In the Daily Mail article, Dodsworth says that we can just 'keep speaking that way' and thus preserve our ways. It may not be that easy, especially with the societal change going on around us. I think there should be some effort to hold onto our linguistic heritage, and again, Michael at SNN speaks about such efforts in the video here.
He puts forth some good ideas on how this might be done. One of the projects mentioned is a Southern lexicon or dictionary. I had thought of doing that as a personal project over the last few years, but I think it needs to be a collaborative project with a number of people involved. There are a lot of different variations of the Southern dialect, and input from many different people would be ideal. Michael says contributions to a dictionary are welcome, and I think it's a worthwhile project.
I expect to have more to say about this in another post.
What say you all?
According to a recent study, the upper and middle classes in the South are especially prone to lose their Southern accent or speech pattern.
The article quotes a Robin Dodsworth, the linguistics professor who collected recordings of Southern speech for the study. At the conclusion of the article, Dodsworth says that
''It's not realistic to talk about "saving" a dialect or accent,' she said, 'because the fact of life is that dialects change.
'The Southern accent the way we think of it now is different than the way people in the South talked 50 years ago, 100 years ago, and so forth.'
Oh yes, this is the politically correct 'descriptive-not-prescriptive' approach to linguistics, which I learned at the feet of my lefty linguistics teacher in college in the late 70s.
The thinking behind it is that standards are elitist, and that language is organic; it just grows, and nobody should try to control the growth in any direction; just let it follow its natural course like a meandering river. Grammar rules should not be emphasized, says this school of thought, because it stifles natural growth and change. Ebonics should be allowed to flourish, of course, because it is a natural outgrowth from vibrant black culture. Now, I wonder what Dodsworth would say if someone said they wanted to 'save' the black American dialect? I have a feeling the answer would be very different.
I didn't buy the PC view of linguistics back in college and I don't now. I think that 'change' in language, just as in culture generally, should be kept within limits, and that's done by not giving way to every change that comes along, such as ephemeral slang, (as the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary recently did) and by not letting things like social change and mass media influence change the regional dialects willy-nilly. Language would change in a chaotic way if we did not make efforts to preserve existing speech habits.
I've written before about how the Southern American dialect has been declining in recent decades, and how I noticed that the younger generations often speak a kind of generic media English and not the Southron dialect that their parents and grandparents speak. It shouldn't even be necessary to explain why I think that is a shame.
Michael at the Southern Nationalist Network blog writes about the Daily Mail article here. He notes that the media and the schools promote a negative view of our culture and Southron people, and that the message being received by young people about their heritage, including their dialect, is a negative one.
Just as most nationalists from around the world emphasize the importance of language in preserving a sense of identity and heritage, those with roots in the South should recognize that language is vital to a healthy sense of identity and heritage. The erosion of the dialect weakens the culture and the people of the South.
There's little doubt that many Americans outside the South tend to have a negative perception of Southern people, based on their speech patterns. I recently had someone tell me that she thought a certain new neighbor from the South was 'stupid' when she first met him, ''because of his accent.'' I am not sure why many Northerners think that people from the South sound 'ignorant' or dull-witted. Is it because of the comparatively slow way of speaking, the fabled 'drawl'? Or is it because of different locutions, syntax and grammar among real Southern speakers? Of course these critics take it for granted that their way of speaking is the 'right' way, without realizing that there are actually different dialects that have their own conventions and habits? This same acquaintance tends to think that any deviations from the dialect she speaks are absurd or wrong. That, my friends, is ignorance.
I think it's a shame that many young people think they need to conform to mass media English, as spoken on TV and in movies. They perceive the dialect their forefathers spoke as 'backward' or embarrassing. I understand the desire for peer approval at that age. When I first came up North as a teenager, I succumbed to the pressure to talk like those around me, because of the teasing and giggles that my accent elicited from my classmates. However pride in my heritage eventually overcame the desire to 'fit in'. I can speak 'standard' English if I choose, or I can revert to what is comfortable and speak Southron. It is true, also, that we tend to be influenced unconsciously by the way people speak around us, and being surrounded by 'standard' American English affects everybody, I suspect. And then there is the growing influence of black idioms: words like 'ho' and bling and other such ''enrichments.''
But what can we do? In the Daily Mail article, Dodsworth says that we can just 'keep speaking that way' and thus preserve our ways. It may not be that easy, especially with the societal change going on around us. I think there should be some effort to hold onto our linguistic heritage, and again, Michael at SNN speaks about such efforts in the video here.
He puts forth some good ideas on how this might be done. One of the projects mentioned is a Southern lexicon or dictionary. I had thought of doing that as a personal project over the last few years, but I think it needs to be a collaborative project with a number of people involved. There are a lot of different variations of the Southern dialect, and input from many different people would be ideal. Michael says contributions to a dictionary are welcome, and I think it's a worthwhile project.
I expect to have more to say about this in another post.
What say you all?
Labels: American Diversity, English Language, Southern Dialect, Southron Heritage
0 comment Thursday, July 10, 2014 | admin
I haven't been in New York City for some time. Over the years of my experience of that city, when I lived there at two different periods of my life, I grew to have a love/hate relationship with it. Whatever may be said about New York City, it is a different world for those of us who come from small-town or heartland America.
When I first laid eyes on New York City, in the latter part of the 70s, I was young and naïve, and having come directly from a Texas town of about 5,000 people, naturally I experienced quite a culture shock, and I never really got my bearings in the place, despite my living and working there for a time.
Later on, I came back for a longer sojourn, and learned to acclimate myself to the place and the people, and I felt I 'conquered' it in a sense, at least to the extent that I was able to live there. I even appreciated some aspects of life there. Ultimately, though, I concluded that to stay there would mean becoming something other than myself. I could only really be myself in my own natural environment.
I came across a set of old photos of New York, of Brooklyn, to be precise, taken in the 1970s, not too long before I first laid eyes on New York. The pictures show it looking very much like my first glimpse of it. To be honest, I was utterly dumbfounded by what I saw at first: the graffiti, the squalor, the noise, the harried atmosphere.
The graffiti you see in the pictures at the link may seem unremarkable now, because most of our urban (and suburban) areas are equally plagued with this blight. Now, it is commonplace and some are even bold enough to call it 'art', a description with which I heartily disagree. When I first saw graffiti like this, I was appalled and shocked. It seemed, in some places, to be on every wall and signpost, even all over subway cars, inside and out, on statues, everywhere.
I suppose the younger generations who grew up with this atmosphere of decay take it for granted. It's a part of our environment that seems to be here to stay, because everyone has become tolerant of it, like so many other forms of blight and decay.
I posted, above, the video of New York City in an earlier era, just as a contrast to the images of 1970s New York. Granted, change is inevitable to some extent, but the contrast between the two eras in startling, to me.
Change the people, change the place. The people make the place, as I often say. Make of the pictures what you will.
New York City and the changes it has undergone over the decades is just an accelerated instance of the kind of transformation the rest of the country is undergoing even now. We see the results more starkly in New York City because the process was so much more rapid.
Just something to ponder. As New York goes, so goes the country? Or maybe not. It all depends.
Labels: American Diversity, History, Social Change, Social Decay, Urban Decay
0 comment Wednesday, May 28, 2014 | admin
At Steve Sailer's blog, there is a post on National Merit Semifinalists, and of course the Asian issue becomes the main point of discussion in the comment thread.
At the time I am writing this, there are 164 comments, and only one or two of them seem to come to the obvious conclusions.
It's rather ironic that a number of posts accuse the regular posters of anti-Asian bias, which is amusing to me because I see just the opposite among that group of commenters: they admire Asians, specifically East Asians, to an almost fawning degree. They are very much in awe of the high IQs of East Asians (although usually credit is given to 'Asians' in general) and of their superior academic skills and study habits.
It seems to be widely accepted, even on the pro-White right, that East Asians are much more intelligent than Whites. Fine; credit where due. But as one or maybe two commenters imply, if high IQs and academic prowess don't result in a people's homeland being more liveable and more well-functioning, then are they really as super-intelligent as most seem to think them to be?
Why are so many of the people from the high IQ East Asian countries bound and determined to leave and to come to the West? Oh yes, we know, for ''opportunity'' or ''a better life.'' But why not use that superior brainpower to create opportunity and a better life in their homeland?
As always, I am a big believer in results. Intelligence will out. The highly intelligent, or those of ''superior'' minds, should be able to create countries that are liveable, countries where people are not eager to escape. Of course, the Japanese have created a very liveable and safe society, given that no society is perfect. All credit to them.
However the rest of East Asia hardly looks like the work of intellectually superior people.
Having high intelligence on paper is insignificant if no proof is shown in the kind of environment these superior intellects create for themselves.
Or maybe, as some commenters suggest, something besides IQ is at work in making successful countries -- or individuals.
One thing that exasperates me (still) is the almost-universal belief that 'culture' shapes people; to me, this idea is a cop-out, a way of avoiding the elephant in the room: race, and the differences in abilities among the various races. Perish the thought that we might consider that the people themselves produce the culture, and it reflects their innate qualities and strengths and weaknesses. Where, for heaven's sake, does the vaunted Asian culture, with its emphasis on learning and academic success, come from?
The people make the culture, not vice versa. And genetics, to a great extent makes the people.
But it seems many Americans are wary of any such thoughts. So we go on pretending that, exposed to the right cultural influences, all races could achieve at the same level. Right.
At the time I am writing this, there are 164 comments, and only one or two of them seem to come to the obvious conclusions.
It's rather ironic that a number of posts accuse the regular posters of anti-Asian bias, which is amusing to me because I see just the opposite among that group of commenters: they admire Asians, specifically East Asians, to an almost fawning degree. They are very much in awe of the high IQs of East Asians (although usually credit is given to 'Asians' in general) and of their superior academic skills and study habits.
It seems to be widely accepted, even on the pro-White right, that East Asians are much more intelligent than Whites. Fine; credit where due. But as one or maybe two commenters imply, if high IQs and academic prowess don't result in a people's homeland being more liveable and more well-functioning, then are they really as super-intelligent as most seem to think them to be?
Why are so many of the people from the high IQ East Asian countries bound and determined to leave and to come to the West? Oh yes, we know, for ''opportunity'' or ''a better life.'' But why not use that superior brainpower to create opportunity and a better life in their homeland?
As always, I am a big believer in results. Intelligence will out. The highly intelligent, or those of ''superior'' minds, should be able to create countries that are liveable, countries where people are not eager to escape. Of course, the Japanese have created a very liveable and safe society, given that no society is perfect. All credit to them.
However the rest of East Asia hardly looks like the work of intellectually superior people.
Having high intelligence on paper is insignificant if no proof is shown in the kind of environment these superior intellects create for themselves.
Or maybe, as some commenters suggest, something besides IQ is at work in making successful countries -- or individuals.
One thing that exasperates me (still) is the almost-universal belief that 'culture' shapes people; to me, this idea is a cop-out, a way of avoiding the elephant in the room: race, and the differences in abilities among the various races. Perish the thought that we might consider that the people themselves produce the culture, and it reflects their innate qualities and strengths and weaknesses. Where, for heaven's sake, does the vaunted Asian culture, with its emphasis on learning and academic success, come from?
The people make the culture, not vice versa. And genetics, to a great extent makes the people.
But it seems many Americans are wary of any such thoughts. So we go on pretending that, exposed to the right cultural influences, all races could achieve at the same level. Right.
Labels: American Diversity, Culture, Education, Egalitarianism, Ethnic Differences, Immigration, Intelligence, Multicuturalism