I've been tossing this thread around in my head for a while now and it's occurred to me that nobody ever really addressed the point in Thomas Thai's original message. Immediately it was awash with accusations of racism, masking the idea he attempted to express.
I believe the underlying point was that we do have the ability to communicate with people in many different ways. How we choose to address each other can convey a lot more than the words we select. Think about how you might sound to a person who uses an entirely different code of verbal communication. Your attempts at being respectful might sound condescending. When you approach a problem with a group of noisy disruptive teens on the street, they may be more responsive if you address them in some casual manner they reserve for each other. Or maybe they'll just fall over laughing at your attempt to sound like them. Anyway, that's what I took from T. Thai's post, and I think its a good point. If you wanna draw in a diverse group of people to this discussion, gotta make people feel their ideas are more important than the words used to express them.
On a related note:
This hullabaloo over Thai's use of Ebonics while attempting humor is a glaring example of the limitations imposed by this techno-medium of communication. Yea, it's great to be able to freely exchange ideas, info and opinions with a geographically dispersed group of Minneapolitans, but are we really any more connected by this? Perhaps we're actually MORE isolated as a result of relying so heavily on a technology that has us staring at a screen for hours on end sitting flat on our asses, all the while creating this illusion of instant communication. Through this we're unable to allow for the nuance and risk of REAL conversation and personal engagement that comes with it. Humankind nonverbal, facial expressions, etc. Like Les McCann said, "gotta talk to the people!"
Conor Donnelly WaitePark
TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. 2. If you don't like what's being discussed here, don't complain - change the subject (Mpls-specific, of course.)
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