{"id":60774,"date":"2016-11-02T11:30:43","date_gmt":"2016-11-02T16:30:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=60774"},"modified":"2017-04-21T10:38:15","modified_gmt":"2017-04-21T15:38:15","slug":"appropriate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=60774","title":{"rendered":"Appropriate"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why, no, Ms. Social Justice Warrior, I’m not appropriating Latino culture by eating a burrito. \u00a0This is a P\u00f8lse<\/em> – a lefse (potetkakke<\/em>, to be precise) wrapped around meat, vegetables and sauces to taste.<\/p>\n

Not a freaking burrito.<\/p>\n

Check your privilege.<\/p>\n

\n

We have offically hit<\/a> Peak Social Justice:<\/p>\n

In a piece for the\u00a0Patriot, the school\u2019s official student newspaper, Leah Power explains that although she has \u201cattempted to build up a thick skin towards the insensitive jokes, stereotypes, cultural appropriation and overall ignorance\u201d that she sees around her, she just cannot help but get very upset every time she hears someone who is not from the South use the word \u201cy\u2019all.\u201d Power writes that she remembers traveling outside of the South when she was young and having to deal with \u201cpeople joking about my accent and the stereotypes of the dumb, inbred, redneck hicks who made up the southern states,\u201d but that \u201csometime in the last year or so, [\u2018y\u2019all\u2019 has] gone from a redneck pronoun to a socially acceptable form of addressing a group of people.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well, Ms. Power, all I can say is “d’uuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhh”.<\/p>\n

Yes, it has. \u00a0And I’ve contributed to it. \u00a0And I will continue to contribute to it.<\/p>\n

English is one of very few languages without a second-person plural. \u00a0 In German, the singular you is “Du”; if you’re referring to more than one person, it’s “ihr”. \u00a0(In formal situations – another thing English lacks – it’s “Sie” and “Ihnen”).<\/p>\n

But for English – since the demise of “Ye”, anyway – we have no word for second-person plural.<\/p>\n

And there are times that causes problems.<\/p>\n

Enter “y’all” – the southern dialect group’s great contribution to grammar. \u00a0It\u00a0is\u00a0<\/em>a second person plural. \u00a0And unlike the Northern dialect group’s “Youse”, it’s \u00a0not phonetically awkward; it’s easier to go from an “L” to most other sounds than from an “S”.<\/p>\n

So yes Ms. Power; by your leave (or even without it), I’m going to use “y’all”. \u00a0 I’m also going to appropriate any parts of southern culture that suit me – Tom Petty, a sarcastic “yee haw” on occasion, Emmylou Harris, rockabilly, cheese grits, whatever.<\/p>\n

And not just southern culture, either. \u00a0I\u00a0will<\/em> take whatever parts of other cultures and incorporate them into my life in any way I see fit; I’ll listen to R&B, Jazz and black Gospel music; I’ll incorporate\u00a0words like “Boondocks” (stolen from the Philippines) and “Cojones” (Mexico) and others into my vernacular; \u00a0if something in another culture makes my life better and more interesting, I’m going to take it,and I’m going to dare you to do anything but whine about it.<\/p>\n

Because\u00a0that’s how all human cultures throughout history have formed, intermingled and grown<\/em>. \u00a0Western European culture is the result of 2,000 years of various levels of mixture of Latin, Gallic, Frankish, Saxon, Anglic, Teutonic, Slavic, \u00a0Near Eastern, Nordic, Greek, and countless other cultures, customs and languages, none of which existed anymore in the original forms, because they all appropriated each other, and themselves, out of existence. \u00a0 And it’s the same for every other culture on the planet – African, Asian, you name it. \u00a0The only exceptions are tribes in the impenetrable wilds of New Guinea or the Philippines that have gotten through these last 2,000 years with no other human contact.<\/p>\n

So save us the jabbering about appropriation. \u00a0Every culture appropriates every other culture, always has, and always will. \u00a0Take what you need and leave the rest.<\/p>\n

Or whine.<\/p>\n

Your call.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why, no, Ms. Social Justice Warrior, I’m not appropriating Latino culture by eating a burrito. \u00a0This is a P\u00f8lse – a lefse (potetkakke, to be precise) wrapped around meat, vegetables and sauces to taste. Not a freaking burrito. Check your privilege. We have offically hit Peak Social Justice: In a piece for the\u00a0Patriot, the school\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[128,18,374],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-battle-for-the-language","category-pc","category-social-justice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=60774"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60799,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60774\/revisions\/60799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=60774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=60774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=60774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}