Kind of like Romain Gavras/M.I.A. Bad girls- motorcycle edition
(via basicsofman)
Why is life so hard in Portugal? Is it the result of the Eurozone Crisis? Diminution in linguistic influence in the lusophone world? Or the fact that it puts the P in PIIGS? Regardless, this is the most gangsta team in Europe based on the tattoos that all of them sport. Raul Meireles stay thuggin’ it. I’m surprised this joker don’t have a tear drop tattoo.
Football and Race in Europe
I understand that this blog is mainly about language (who are we kidding, I never write any posts), but the next few items will be about the language that everyone understands. Soccer! (Not love because that’s not gangsta) More importantly, I’d like to talk about racism and soccer. In the U.S., race and sports tend to intersect more in the realm of people arguing that black people have extra muscles in their legs enabling them to jump higher or run faster. This tends to really highlight the differences of how Europe and the U.S. view race and racism.
FIFA has been been “Saying NO to Racism in Football” for as long as I can remember. In the UK, to the best of my knowledge it is illegal to be racist. Now, does this look right? Of course you cannot keep people from being racist, but they take allegations of racism seriously. Presently, the captain of England, John Terry, is under investigation for claims that he racially abused Anton Ferdinand. This puts Terry and the multiple black English players (let’s not even look at his gangsta ass team, Chelsea) in a strange situation. What a fun locker room! In an attempt to emulate the Spanish leagues, a Chelsea supporter is being investigated by Chelsea’s own security on the allegation that he stated “They’re bringing on the monkey” talking abut the Bluesforwa rd and English national player, Daniel Sturridge. I don’t know if this is just Chelsea running interference on the Terry issue or just how seriously they take racism and I’m not certain that it isn’t both.
Recently, Liverpool has seen its own issues with Luis Suarez, a Uruguayan, being accused of racist remarks against Evra, a French player of Mozambican descent. The term in question, I believe, is “negrito.” And we are back to language!!! I’ve spent about two weeks in Uruguay and a year in Argentina (they’ll kill me for saying this, but these countries are similar, except that Uruguay has more black people per capita) and in Uruguay “negrito” is not necessarily insulting. In fact, anyone who has spent time in Latin America knows that political correctness standards are completely different.
My Argentine economics professor called a Syrian-Argentine classmate of mine “Turco”, a personal favorite because it implies that Turks and Arabs are the same ethnicity. If you have any Asian features you will be called “Chino” and even if you are dark, but not black, “Negrito” will likely be your moniker. Former Brazilian president, Lula da Silva was called “Cuento Corto” (Short story) because of his lack of tenth finger. The point is that language and culture have to be taken into consideration when dealing with name calling. But, I do think that Suarez has to become cognizant of how these types of terms can be perceived by Evra who comes from France where blacks face serious discrimination. However, I along with the entire continent of Africa would say that Suarez’s famous handball in the quarterfinals of the World Cup last year knocking Ghana out was pretty racist. (pictured above)
Who Runs the World?
The video pictured above is incredible in terms of the choreography, cinematography, and the fact that it has Beyoncé. Ostensibly, this is a video celebrating female empowerment. The lyrics celebrate Beyoncé’s accomplishments along with those of women in general even toasting all women degrees. The lyrics for the most part tend to fall into the “this is where we are” and “this is what we can do” mantra. But, there are certain parts where the women seem to celebrate their ability to do things well that men are assumed to do well. In these parts, the video depicts the women as being aggressive, almost violent, and uniformly sexy. I found no issue with the uniformly sexy part, but as I’m sure many people before me have pointed out- the women seem to gain their power from behaving like men.
I am not here to talk about the idea of society pushing behaviors upon men and women such as aggression versus care for others, but that is not important considering that these are the qualities associated with a gender. My perception is that the video champions success and “running the world” as the result of masculine behavior. The problem in the world is not that we do not have enough people exhibiting macho behavior. The issue is that we have not elevated feminine qualities to the same level (or beyond) that of masculine qualities.
As long as we continue to value masculine attributes more than that of women our society will remain crippled considering it is putting its ability to progress on one leg. This was illustrated by the media’s insistence that Secretary Clinton prove she was tough enough to be POTUS. The idea that Clinton isn’t tough is ridiculous, the idea that she can’t be tough is ridonkulous, the idea that she needs to be tough on some arbitrary scale of masculinity is ridonkeydick.
It is cliché now to talk about the fact that women outperform men in B.A.s, M.S.s, and Ph.d.s; of course, women are going to do well in society, the question is rather how is society doing? Or more directly, can our society’s values catch up with women? In fact, I would venture to say that a society that has become more equal, and that equality is achieved by a doubling of masculine traits—-has actually regressed.
I Can’t Read
As long as my visa comes today, I should be in China in less than three weeks. Here is the problem. I can’t read…in Chinese at all or really speak. Usually, I develop a very, very basic level of a language before embarking upon a new trip, but I’ve not really had that luxury before my upcoming voyage. The most ironic aspect of this whole situation maybe being that I’m going to China with the sole intention of learning Chinese. I guess that’s not entirely true, but it’s definitely my main objective and the problem is that there are no shortcuts to my learning Chinese. For example, originally I had one semester of high school spanish and then moved to Honduras. Then, I studied Portuguese and went to Brazil. Finally, I did the French thing in West Africa.
The point is I’ve really only had to learn one word for pass as in “pass me the ball.” (I tend to demand the ball a lot in soccer.) Pasamela-spanish, passe-french, passa-lo-portuguese. Granted, the accent is unique for each phrase but the idea is common and didn’t take me making that many new brain connections. In China, it very well may be pass on the soccer field, but something completely different when talking about the salt on the table.
This is where the difficulty will lie. Not only do the romance languages and English often have many words in common, but I’d imagine that they probably have more concepts in common even if the word is in different. I feel like I’ll be learning new words in Chinese, but also the suitability of each word/concept depending on the given situation. To use a very common example, we have the word to know in English and saber in Spanish, but Spanish (and French and Portuguese) have conocer, which applies to knowing people or places among other things. Learning Chinese for me is starting afresh, learning words and pronunciation, but also learning that jue de (to feel) and xiang (to think) are not the same where as in English they are often interchangeable.
La Chine
The last video post was a fictionalized version of a series of conversations my brother and I had about me going to China. As the video stated, I am leaving for Dalian, China in less than a month now. For the record, I do say things like “Deng Xiaoping” when I throw it up for three. In the real world, I hope to write a few things unrelated to China before I leave, but I’ll go ahead and explain some of my reasons for hitting up les chinois.
When I was living in Togo and traveling the region, I seemed to run into the Chinese everywhere. Howard French has written on the growing influence of China in Africa, but I wasn’t simply reading about it, I was seeing it in contracts for public works and almost private economic transactions. Obviously, I’ve a great deal more to say on this, but my brief time in West Africa piqued my interest in China. Let’s not even talk about the evolving relationship between the United States and China underscored by this xenophobic advertisment that was airing back in November. Let’s hope my visa gets here soon!
Happy Chinese Year and Happy Black History Month!
