It's "whether" not "weather" dear. (Unless you're talking about a rainstorm or heatwave).

One thing I've never been good at is spelling. This includes many alternate words of different spellings.

Go though a handful of my blog posts & you can verify this pretty quickly...

Ebonics is a bunch of nonsense. How about putting time and effort into better education in the ghettos so they can learn to speak properly.

You are in fact correct. However, my point here is the simple fact that so many activists wanted it recognized as a language of its own.

Its very unfortuante that the minorities are thoes who seem to suffer the most in education. The proportion of African Americans who end up in prision compared to the number that end up in college is a travisty. With as much extra money sunkin in to education in general without any increase in results in general, it makes you wonder if you could re-funnel the bulk of the useless increases into thoes area hardest hit would actually do more than just haphazardly increasing education spending... Its just sad that so much of our education tax increases end up being for nothing...

This seems to be a complexion issure and they want it both ways.
Much like everything else they are involved with.

They all need to read what Bill Cosby said about them.

This is what Mr. Cosby said:

"They're standing on the corner and they can't speak English. I can't even talk the way these people talk:
Why you ain't,
Where you is,
What he drive,
Where he stay,
Where he work,
Who you be...

And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk.

And then I heard the father talk.

Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth.

In fact you will never get any kind of job making a decent living. People marched and were hit in the face with rocks to get an education, and now
we've got these knuckleheads walking around.

The lower economic people are not holding up
their end in this deal.

These people are not parenting. They are buying
things for kids. $500 sneakers for what ?

And they won't spend $200 for Hooked on Phonics.

I am talking about these people who cry when their son is standing there in an orange suit.

Where were you when he was 2 ? ?

Where were you when he was 12 ? ?

Where were you when he was 18 and how come you didn't know that he had a pistol ? ?

And where is the father ? ? Or who is his father ?

People putting their clothes on backward:
Isn't that a sign of something gone wrong?

People with their hats on backward, pants down around the crack, isn't that a sign of something ?

Or are you waiting for Jesus to pull his pants up

Isn't it a sign of something when she has her dress all the way up and got all type of needles [piercing] going through her body?

What part of Africa did this come from??

We are not Africans. Those people are not Africans; they don't know a thing about Africa .

With names like Shaniqua, Taliqua and Mohammed and all of that crap, and all of them are in jail.
Brown or black versus the Board of Education is no longer the white person's problem.

We have got to take the neighborhood back.

People used to be ashamed. Today a woman has eight children with eight different 'husbands' -- or men or whatever you call them now.

We have millionaire football players who cannot read.

We have million-dollar basketball players who can't write two paragraphs. We, as black folks, have to do a better job. Someone working at Wal-Mart with seven kids, you are hurting us.

We have to start holding each other to a higher standard.

?We cannot blame the white people any longer."

Dr. William Henry "Bill" Cosby, Jr., Ed.D.

You are assuming that it's a single group of people that are hypocrites, as opposed to (at least) two different groups that can be defined as those that think ebonics should be recognized as a dialect, and those that think it's an embarrassment.

That latter group would've been offended by the handbook with good cause.

One thing to consider in that regard: Who are we to listen to???

I could re-word my argument to say since some people supported ebonics, those people in disagreement with the book needs to first take up the issue with those who do support ebonics as a language. As until there is an excepted consensis, any argument that the book is wrong would be better spent trying to illiminate such a need for the book in the first place...

Until they make the effort to do that, criticizm for the book is being placed on the wrong people.

It's less of a matter of who to listen to than it is a matter of who to agree with.

Besides, it's not like they're not making an effort. Bill Cosby is a pretty obvious face of such a movement. One can't criticize someone's faults WHILE THEY'RE TRYING TO CORRECT THEM.

That'd be like telling someone their backflip sucks while they're still learning it.

In that environment, criticism of the book is totally acceptable.

Bill Cosby is also constantly attacked for his views. He's regularly demonized...

But what it boils down to is it is hipocritical to demonize someone who is having to make due in a situation while at the same time leaving the situation and those who actively play a role in wanting to preserve it out of said attack...

Bill Cosby is both constantly supported and constantly attacked for his views, as public as they were.

I don't understand what that second paragraph is saying. It's one vague run-on sentence to me. Might you restate that?

I thought it was quite poinient, but I will boil it down further...

Anyone can point at this situation and say the creators of the book did a bad thing. But you are being disingenuous if you do so while actively choosing to ignore the situation that caused the books need.

But would it still be so if they pointed at the book and denounced it WHILE addressing the problems that led to the book in the first place? Because I believe the insulted party matches the above description.

Also...need? Whether the booklet was simply a guide to local slang (this is what you're assuming) or an insulting attempt at humor would greatly depend on the actual content of the booklet itself. As the contents have not actually been released yet to my knowledge, you can't say for sure this is hypocrisy anyway.

I can still make an educated guess based off of what the story contains. It may be turn out to be different than the initial story reported. But to say I can use what information I have available to me to make an educated informational post.

I also do understand the NEED for things like this for people not familiar with the lingo. The plain and simple fact is it can be difficult to understand these forms of slang. Truth be told, part of the reason its sometimes used is to try to keep those out of the loop in the dark. If in fact the officers were all well versed in the slang, then the NEED would not be there, but more likely than not, not all of them were fully fluent in its use...

I can understand this issue on multiple levels, one being my wife who doesn't speak fluent English, and so there is an enherent communication block between us, that two years after our wedding and 5 years after meeting each other still sometimes causes understanding problems between us...

I also understand that the slang is not only fairly far advanced, its also continusly evolving. So there is also a need to stay on top of new terms as time goes on.

Would it not be hippocritical if they address the problem as a whole as well as the book? I don't believe it would be. Because at least there not ignoring the situation which caused the book to be brought into existance in the first place...

The name of the book wasn't fully appropriate, I agree. But at the same time people need to step back and look at things as a whole.

Say the book as it was executed was inappropriate, acknoweldge situations do cause a need for something like this, and make the effort to make things right as apposed to pointing a finger...

I'm no fan of cops, which you can easily see by searching my blog. But at the same time they do fill a necessary need, and by far much of what they do is good. When cops do bad things such as violating citizens rights, or being disrespectful to someone they deserve harsh punishment. When they so something for a logical reason, even if there's a hint of comedy in it, don't demonize the entire act and say it was fully evil...

Three words: Cockney Rhyming Slang.

In any case, I don't think there was ever a need for this. People who speak ebonics switch speech patterns when they need to function in a noncompatible environment. Of course, that could just be an optimistic view and there could be people who couldn't function in mainstream society at all (I swing between being an optimist and a pessimist).

Anyhow, the fact is that whether the offended group should be offended depends on whether the booklet is closer to this or this. You talk of not demonizing such an act, but I don't think any such thing as taken place.

By the way...

"Would it not be hippocritical if they address the problem as a whole as well as the book? I don't believe it would be."

means the same thing as

"Would it be hippocritical if they address the problem as a whole as well as the book? I believe it would be."

...just so you know.

The double negative tripped me up. Sometimes I think too fast for my typing and end up typing incorrectly. And I didn't bother to proofread...

At any rate, I think it is important for law enforcement to be able to understand what people are saying. If someone is talking in a different language talking about blowing up a building, is it reasonable to think that since that person can speak english, they will go ahead & explain to a cop what they were talking about?

The fact is, there IS valid reasons for them to understand the lingo...

And I'll say this again: If the book was solely a joke, then there is a serious problem. But I go back to the story. It indicated the book was created primarily to help understand the lingo.

If you have factual information from another location that fully refutes this account, then again I will measure it validly. But to say it could be this, without any concrete information to support this gives me little reason currently to focus on that possibility...

First: The media tries to stir people up with these things. Both sides are presented in a controversial way.

Second: The police department that suspended the officer are in no way ebonics proponents.

Third: The handbook was humorous. I think that's great, but some would mistake that as being demeaning.

Fourth: There is a double standard. Minorities are allowed to use words like "ghetto." Whites need to be very careful about those words because of the racism that is just beneath the surface in this country.

It's shameful that so much ignorance is displayed here. With very little effort, you could've LOOKED at the handbook before you spouted off your ridiculous, uneducated and unenlightened nonsense. thesmokinggun.com has the entire handbook. ONE LOOK will tell you this was not about safety or understanding a foreign tongue. Read. Research. Explore. before you shoot your ignorant mouth off in cyberspace. "I can make an educated guess..." apparently not.