Word: vaux
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Whether you consider what Vaux did inappropriate depends critically on whether or not you have the slightest idea of what you are talking about. Let me explain...
...Jewish. Suppose I were sitting in the popular Core class Social Analysis 34, “Knowledge of Language,” and the Jewish a cappella group Mizmor Shir gave a performance before class, as singing groups sometimes do. Suppose that, right afterwards, Associate Professor of Linguistics Bert Vaux said that Mizmor Shir’s performance made a nice segue into a discussion of the vocabulary of Yiddish. Would I have any pretext, any justification, any reason, to accost Vaux after class and demand an apology...
Last month, Kuumba demanded an apology from Vaux for daring to say that their brief performance at the beginning of “Knowledge of Language” made a good segue into a discussion of Ebonics...
Perhaps the crowning irony of the whole Vaux affair is that anyone who has taken Social Analysis 34—as I have—knows that Vaux takes great pains to combat the common misconception that Ebonics is some sort of ghetto patois that is “inferior” to English...
Some of the Kuumba members reportedly stayed for the lecture in order to talk with Vaux afterwards. I wonder whether they paid attention during the lecture. If they had, they would have seen Vaux treat the dialect with respect, seriousness and academic rigor. One Kuumba member’s belief is that the comment was, “really detrimental to the work a lot of members of Kuumba are trying to do in erasing misperceptions about what black culture and diversity are.” On the contrary, Vaux’s lecture supports their stated goal. The quotation...