a terrible infectious disease has crossed our border! it's the plague of dumb-ass!

[lolaraincoat]

So of course I am greatly enjoying the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the US Supreme Court. But I was also, unkindly, entertained by the NY Times retraction of the wording of a May 19 article about her: they had called her Puerto Rican parents "immigrants." Although it is true that PR remains a colony, not a state, Puerto Ricans are still US citizens (duh.) So calling people who were born there but live in the Bronx "immigrants" makes just precisely as much sense as referring to my Connecticut-dwelling parents as "immigrants" from Michigan, in case you didn't know. I am kind of shocked it took the Times a full week to print the retraction - unless they did it earlier and I missed it?

Well, anyhow, it was entertaining until I noticed that the 6:00 newscast on CBC radio also referred to Sotomayor as the "daughter of immigrant Puerto Ricans." Argh! CBC people, I know they just fired like 800 of you, but could the rest of you please buy a map? It wouldn't have to be a map of the whole world, mind you. Just North America would do.

Comments

[fledgist]

Swarthy people from offshore islands have to be "immigrants". They can't be citizens or the discourse collapses and you have to start counting them as human beings. I was struck by this during coverage of the 1998 World Cup when antillais players on the French football team were described as immigrants by American commentators. How you immigrate into your own country, I want to know.

[lolaraincoat]

Heh. You know, I was just saying to someone that newspaper journalists like to claim that they are writing "the first draft of history" but that's only true if we understand them to mean that they are writing the first draft of discourse history.

And yes, in 2002 and again in 2006 I heard Mundial commentators en ingles describe members of the French squad as "immigrants" over and over again, which seemed to be rather missing the point. But I got to watch most of the '98 WC in Rio, where nobody could hear a word from the giant outdoor TVs because the music was too loud.

[fledgist]

North Americans may be short of maps. I just finished reading an article in Newsweek, in which the writer described her feelings on visting Elmina Castle. I found them pretty conventional. Horrors of slavery. Ancestors passing through Door of No Return. Tears at the thought of what they must have suffered. Looking out over the Indian Ocean (in fact, the Indian Ocean was mentioned twice in the piece).

I phoned a colleague in my department who's led two faculty-student expeditions to Ghana, and told him the above. When he stopped laughing, he wondered if Newsweek had fired all its fact-checkers. I wondered if Ghana had been moved when I wasn't looking.

[lolaraincoat]

Oy gevalt, as my ancestors used to say back in the Olde Country they called Detroit. Oy veh ist mir.

[jakeinhartsel]

And teachers want more money, but then maybe the problem is not the teachers, maybe just maybe it is the parents.

[fledgist]

Or the students who did not pay attention in class.

[jakeinhartsel]

True.

[jakeinhartsel]

More likely with society in general. I know in my 73 years I have seen many, many changes in the attitude of the majority of people.

Such things as seeing an importance in having a degree but not an education.

I read in the paper a couple of days ago that the sale of books is down, but the sale of Romance Books is up.

Jake

[kaiz]

Didn't you realize that "...some, people out there in our nation don't have maps and, uh, I believe that our, uh, education like such as, uh, South Africa and, uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and, I believe that they should, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., uh, or, uh, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future, for our [children]"[source]? *eg*

[lolaraincoat]

Ah hah hah, I remember that one! And I never go out to the garden without thinking of that line about "putting food on your family." Why are we weeding the onion patch? So we can put food on our family.

I still grin like a crazy person every single time I see the phrase "President Obama." It's just - he's - and things were so bad and then - he's President! And he's not an inarticulate evil-doer! And !!!

!!!

[kaiz]

things were so bad and then - he's President!

This. *happy sigh*

[fledgist]

If you hadn't linked that I was planning to do so when I looked up from revising class outlines.

[kaiz]

It is a total classic. Alas :-)

[jakeinhartsel]

It is interesting to note that before Bush's War, Iraq had the highest literacy rate in the Middle East with the exception of Israel.

Jake

[winterthunder]

I love the title to this. :D

[lolaraincoat]

Thank you kindly!

[laughingrat]

But they're not white! And they speak Spanish! They can't be Americans!

Argh, never have our prejudices and preconceptions been so lucidly, if inadvertently, displayed. OK, there's probably been other instances, but this is a good one.