"Gandalf Grey"
infectedmail.com> wrote in message
news:45809017$0$1604$9a6e19ea@news.newshosting.com...>
> "yossarian"
chaos.org> wrote in message
> news:3vadnbTJaPvhFR3YnZ2dnUVZ_ruknZ2d@comcast.com...>>
>> "Gandalf Grey"
infectedmail.com> wrote in message
>> news:458035f9$0$1617$9a6e19ea@news.newshosting.com...>>> Saying goodbye to my "Fargo" accent
>>>
>>> By Robert Jensen
>>> Created Dec 12 2006 - 8:25am
>>>
>>> Ever since the movie "Fargo" came out a decade ago, my ability to mimic
>> the
>>> Scandinavian-inflected accent of my hometown and home state of North
>> Dakota
>>> has been a guaranteed way to elicit laughter during my public speaking.
>>>
>>> That joking ended earlier this month, when I realized -- in a painfully
>>> public manner -- that my use of that North Dakota accent was in a small
>> but
>>> undeniable way supportive of a white-supremacist account of the history
>>> of
>>> this country. The story of that episode illustrates not just the depth
of
>>> the pathology of white America but also a way we white folks can --
with
>>> self-reflection and help from others -- start to transform ourselves.
>>>
>>> For those who have never seen the 1996 movie or heard a white person
from
>>> the Dakotas or Minnesota (despite the title "Fargo," which is the
largest
>>> city in North Dakota, the film is set in Minnesota), the accent has an
>>> amusing sing-songy quality and trademark phrases such as, "Ah, geez"
and
>>> "Yah, you betcha!" In print it may not sound particularly funny, but
with
>>> the right delivery it can be a crowd-pleaser.
>>>
>>> That is, it's a crowd pleaser in certain crowds -- such as an audience
at
>>> the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where I was speaking,
and
>>> where few are likely to think much about real Dakota history.
>>>
>>> I was at the university to participate in a panel on racism and white
>>> privilege, a subject about which I've written a book, making me an
>>> alleged
>>> expert. In my introductory remarks I made reference to my upbringing in
>>> North Dakota and the accent made famous by the movie, using it for a
bit
>> of
>>> comic relief in a discussion of a difficult subject.
>>>
>>> On that panel with me was D. Anthony Tyeeme Clark, a professor of
>>> American
>>> Indian Studies at that university and a citizen of the Sac and Fox
Tribe
>> of
>>> the Mississippi in Iowa. Although I didn't poll the audience, I'm
pretty
>>> sure Clark was one of the few indigenous people there. (Clark told me
>> later
>>> that of the 100-plus students and faculty who have self-identified as
>>> American Indian on campus in recent years, about 15 to 20 are citizens
of
>>> Indian nations or tribal members, and even fewer are tribally
connected.)
>>>
>>> In his remarks, Clark spoke about the racism in that university's
>> continued
>>> use of a caricatured Indian mascot, Chief Illiniwek, which is a
constant
>>> reminder of the arrogance, ignorance, and cruelty of the dominant white
>>> culture. [For examples of this manifestation of white supremacy, see
>>> websites in support of the mascot's use at
>> [1]
the
American
>>> Indian Studies faculty and the staff of the Native American House at
the
>>> university is at
http://www.nah.uiuc.edu/statements.htm [6].]
>>>
>>> In the course of his talk, Clark made reference to the fact that in the
>>> United States, English is a foreign language. That remark set off in my
>> head
>>> a chain of thoughts that left me resolved to never again joke about a
>> North
>>> Dakota accent.
>>>
>>> Let's start with the obvious: While some of the indigenous people
killed
>> or
>>> displaced by Europeans and their descendants learned to communicate in
>>> English with the settler-colonizers, they did so in a second (or third,
>>> fourth, or fifth) language. English is not a native language in the
>>> territory we now call the United States -- it's the language of a
>> colonizing
>>> people who pursued a genocidal strategy to acquire that territory and
its
>>> resources. Though I've spent some time reading about that history, it
had
>>> never occurred to me think of English in that way; being part of the
>>> dominant group in a society allowed me to avoid those kinds of obvious,
>> and
>>> harsh, realities.
>>>
>>> As I sat at the table next to Clark, I realized what his remark meant:
I
>>> don't really speak with a North Dakota accent, and to label my speech
as
>>> such is to obscure that history of European colonization and barbarism
>>> toward indigenous people. What would a real Dakota accent, North or
>>> South,
>>> sound like? Nothing like the characters from "Fargo," that's for sure.
>> That
>>> white Dakota accent is mostly Scandinavian, transplanted through
>>> colonization.
>>>
>>> As all this ran through my head, I realized I should scrap my planned
>>> closing remarks and use my last few minutes to face this issue. I told
>>> the
>>> group that I was embarrassed that for so long I had not recognized
these
>>> obvious points. I was emotional and probably not being all that clear;
I
>>> looked out at the audience and saw that I wasn't explaining it well. So
I
>>> went to the blackboard and wrote "North Dakota," and then erased
"North."
>>> What's left? "Dakota." Who are the people today who really speak with a
>>> "Dakota" accent? Their ancestors aren't from Scandinavia or any other
>>> part
>>> of Europe.
>>>
>>> Those people were -- and still are -- the Dakota, Lakota, and Nakota,
>>> usually collectively referred to as the Great Sioux Nation. Their
>> languages
>>> are part of a family that linguistic anthropologists call Siouan or
>>> Siouan-Catawban, which is still spoken on the Great Plains of the
United
>>> States and parts of southern Canada.
>>>
>>> I don't speak any of those languages. I can't reproduce the accent with
>>> which those peoples speak. In other words, I can't do a real Dakota
>> accent.
>>> I can only do the settler-colonizers' accent.
>>>
>>> In my home state, we took not only the land of the people of those
>>> nations
>>> but their name as well, and we then pretend that we are Dakotans. It's
>>> perhaps a small point, but an important one: I am not of the Dakota
>> people.
>>> I am of the people who tried to exterminate the Dakota and who
colonized
>>> their land.
>>>
>>> And what of those original colonizers and their descendants? I can hear
>>> my
>>> people in North Dakota saying something like this: "Hey, most of those
>>> so-called colonizers were relatively poor farmers from Scandinavia and
>> other
>>> parts of northern Europe who came to the United States to scratch out a
>>> living and who built a prosperous life through a lot of hard work."
>>>
>>> Fair enough; those folks did work hard under arduous conditions. In my
>>> family, the last immigrant from Scandinavia was my paternal
grandfather,
>> who
>>> came from Denmark as a teenager and worked hard his whole life as a
>>> blacksmith, mostly in North Dakota and Minnesota.
>>>
>>> But no matter what the stories of our families, two things are
>> unavoidable.
>>> First is that the land on which those immigrants worked so hard was
>>> available only because of a genocidal campaign that eliminated most of
>>> the
>>> indigenous population. Second is that the majority of those immigrants
>>> and
>>> their descendants never challenged that injustice. Like most European
>>> immigrants who came here without much privilege, they accepted what was
>>> to
>>> be a privileged place in a white-dominant society by embracing white
>>> supremacy.
>>>
>>> It's easy for me to sit back, writing this essay, to make all these
>> obvious
>>> points about the white supremacy that exists out there, in the world.
But
>>> the fact remains: For years I have used the "Fargo" joke without any
>> thought
>>> to those very same points. This is a story not only of the crimes of
the
>>> past and present, but of how I -- like so many white people -- can both
>> know
>>> these things and ignore them at the same time.
>>>
>>
>> Ah, jeeez!!! Fine get rid of the Illinek mascot, but do you have to lose
>> your sense of humor? No one
>> will stand around for five minutes to hear you deconstruct the origin
of
>> the accented impression to please
>> the furrowed brow crowd before you actually do your inpression. Ah,
>> jeeeze.
>>
>> Yossarian
>
> Oh Yah?
Yah, ya betcha! :)
Yossarian
>
>>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
>> ----
>> I am using the free version of SPAMfighter for private users.
>> It has removed 1559 spam emails to date.
>> Paying users do not have this message in their emails.
>> Try SPAMfighter for free now!
>>
>>
>
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
I am using the free version of SPAMfighter for private users.
It has removed 1559 spam emails to date.
Paying users do not have this message in their emails.
Try SPAMfighter for free now!
