Iowa's First Lady......and something she said.

[MsUSA]

http://news.bostonherald.com/dncConvention/view.bg?articleid=37171

She was being talked about as VP wasn't she??? This isn't good.

[displacedtexan]

1. This quote explains it all...

An educator for 30 years and former eighth-grade language teacher, Vilsack has made language and literacy priorities as first lady.

If you get English teachers started, they'll all make some kind of remarks like those of Ms. Vilsack.

[PeaceForever]

2. I'm confused about why this is so bad.

What she wrote just seems like her personal observations about how different people talk. I hear those sorts of observations all the time. So what?

[MsUSA]

4. Yeah,

may-be I'm reading more into it.

[Sean Reynolds]

5. Yeah.....you're right.

Like you know, following your logic it's ok to say Middle Easterns stink, and fat people are ugly...'cause those are personal observations of many Americans.

[PeaceForever]

6. Discussing regional accents is different from insulting people.

There is no requirement that a person like New Jersey accents. There is no requirement that people like urban culture. Personal preferences are not the same thing as racism and stereotyping. To confuse the concepts is to water down what racism and stereotyping really are.

[Sean Reynolds]

8. So you don't believe she insulted them?

You don't find this insulting?

`I am fascinated at the way some African-Americans speak to each other in an English I struggle to understand, then switch to standard English when the situation requires,'' Vilsack wrote in a 1994 column in the Mount Pleasant News, while her husband, Tom, was a state senator.

So in other words, she finds it funny that blacks actually have a different dialect than typical Anglo Americans. I think that was an insult, insinuating that blacks do not grasp the basic notion of English.

But we continue:

Vilsack wrote that southerners seem to have ``slurred speech,'' wrote that she'd rather learn Polish than try to speak like people from New Jersey, and wrote that a West Virginian waitress once offered her friend a ``side saddle'' instead of a ``side salad.''

This is a stereotype, used to continually feed the notion that southern Americans are not very intelligent.

The whole argument is a blatant slam against regional English. I find that offensive.

[sangh0]

10. You're distorting what she said

She said "I am FASCINATED at the way some African-Americans speak to each other in an English I struggle to understand...

You twisted that into "she finds it FUNNY that blacks actually have a different dialect..."

[Sean Reynolds]

11. BS.

She's stereotyping different regions/cultures because of the way they speak. THAT is the undertone of this article, hence her support for the English only initiative.

[PeaceForever]

15. I agree with you to some extent.

We should always be careful not to offend people. I just don't think it's as big a deal as Drudge and company are making it out to be.

[Sean Reynolds]

16. I don't think it should be made a big deal of....

Just think politicians should think before they speak/write...because they may offend people.

[PeaceForever]

17. Agreed, now that I've had time to think about it. n/t

[PeaceForever]

13. She didn't say that they don't grasp standard English.

She said they sometimes don't use it.

She has a personal preference for standard English over urban slang. Personal preferences aren't racist. If they were, then everyone would be racist, since we all have personal preferences.

I don't like rap music. Does that make me racist? I hope not.

About the accents issue, I dunno, I just don't see how that's so bad. I have a southern accent myself (being from rural Georgia), and I definitely felt weird when I was in New York recently, since I talk so much slower than the average New Yorker.

I'm not bothered by people who talk differently from me or use bad grammar or whatever. But at the same time, I just don't see the point of going on a politically-correct rant over the Iowa first lady's lack of sensitivity in an article written 10 years ago. Surely there are bigger issues to worry about?

Anyways though, I do agree with you that she should have been more careful about what she wrote. We always have to be careful that we don't offend people, since all humans are unique and therefore different.

[leyton]

18. I don't find a problem with most of this.

First off, she does not insinuate that blacks don't grasp English; she is stating that she's noticed that many blacks speak more clearly (to her ears) when the situation requires. Frankly, I've found the same thing. I'm not writing in the paper about it, but I don't have a problem with her doing it.

Secon, ahm a Suhtherner an ah slur m'speech when ahm in a hurry, an obyusly all freely admidid. Sometimes I can't understand my fellow Southerners, that's just how it is.

[Beetwasher]

3. No, Her Husband Was Being Considered for VP

So what?

[ET Awful]

7. So . . . preferring that people speak in a grammatically correct

manner and that they enunciate correctly is a bad thing?

Sorry, but if someone can speak perfectly coherently one moment, then turn to their friend and speak in something that barely resembles English due to atrociously incorrect grammar the next, they deserve to be called on it.

[TexasSissy]

9. Those are horrible comments. She is making fun of, deriding how others

speak. I don't see how anyone can be okay with that.

To encourage people to speak standard English is one thing....to make fun of the shape of one's mouth in speaking is simple derision, and there's no place for it.

It seems she has trouble understanding some people because she is unaccustomed to getting along with others different from herself. I guess she thinks the British "slur" their speech. Whereas the British think it is WE, the Americans, who have abused the English language. It all depends on your point of view, doesn't it?

She's not talking about standard English, by the way. She is making fun of dialect, which is something else, and is discriminatory and hurtful.

I'll bet Edwards doesn't agree with her. I wonder if he knows he sounds like a slurred-speech drunken bum?

[Thrill]

12. Thank goodness

Vilsack wasn't named VP.

[NewJerseyDem]

14. I'm offended as a resident of NJ

I suddenly really don't like her at all because of those statements. This is mainly because NJ really doesn't have an accent. Any person that has ever spent any significant time in the state would know that most people do not have the so-called "New Jersey accent" and in fact only a small portion of the state has anyone that speaks like that (I would bet someone a lot of money to find anyone in my town with a "New Jersey accent"). I also find it peculiar that she keeps returning to NJ if she has such a problem with how we talk since, if I remember correctly, she and her husband were on vacation along the NJ shore when Kerry selected his VP. Perhaps, she should look somewhere else next time to find a beach to go to.

[RummyTheDummy]

19. If she were a Repug she'd be getting crucified

Ahhhhh the double standard.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

21. Her Comments Are Inane

Time to move on......


She's not on the ticket..... Thank God......

[JI7]

20. her HUSBAND was being considered for vp

[cygy2k]

22. Common sense

Common Sense, English should be the only language of an English country.

[question everything]

23. Des Moines Register: Poll: Iowa supports V.P. picks

Iowa voters aren't sorry that Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry selected John Edwards as his running mate instead of their governor, Tom Vilsack. Few of them say Vilsack would have been a better choice.

When it comes to the Republican ticket, a majority of Iowa voters stand by Vice President Dick Cheney despite talk among some political pundits that it would be better for President Bush's re-election chances if he chose a new running mate.

Those are some of the key findings of The Des Moines Register's latest poll of Iowans who say they definitely will vote in the November election.

Nine percent of likely voters say Vilsack would have been a better choice than Edwards, a U.S. senator from North Carolina. Seventy-two percent say Edwards, who finished second to Kerry in the Iowa Democratic caucuses in January, was the right selection.

More..
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040726/NEWS09/407260326/1001&lead=1

[sandnsea]

24. Context???

It's impossible to really know what she meant by any of these comments without the entire column. It's possible she was trying to promote understanding of different dialects, it's possible this was all tongue-in-cheek. I'll wait to find out because Christie Vilsack seems like such a genuinely kind person.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

25. Even Kind And Smart Persons Can Occasionally Say Stupid Things

NT