First off - hope everyone is staying safe from the storm. Be well, Donovans! Stay safe/hydrated/enjoy your tomorrow off!
Secondly - IDK if any of you catch the Comedy Central sketch show "Key & Peele", but I thought this was a relevant (and hilarious) takedown of the white privilege behind "Your name is funny" comments. The reversal is that a teacher of color substitutes in a posh suburban school and tells a group of white kids - Aaron, Blake, Jacqueline, that their names are "weird" and "don't make sense". I'd always thought it was more than vaguely racist when acquaintances of mine joked about names outside of the mainstream, but never saw it articulated as well as this sketch. What do you think? Insightful, problematic - both?
ETA: On rewatch, I can see how this pushes the "angry black dude" meme. Nevertheless, I like how it deconstructs the racism behind making fun of non-mainstream names.
Jess this was a great find. The "reverse" relationship they create with the black teacher and suburban children is eye opening. It made me focus on what it means to pronounce a name in a different dialect for SAE. It really changes the focus of things from the spelling of words to who the interpreter of the words is. It makes me think back to a question posed by Luis, Marcus, and myself when working in our small groups two weeks ago - what are we taking away from students when we impose the rules of SAE on their interpretation of words? Furthermore, how does this force categories of interpreters while still allowing words to move fluidly?
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