After Super Bowl 44, Let’s Kill “Who Dat?”
by L. Arthalia Cravin
Who Dat? Who Dat? Who Dat? I’ve just about had enough of “Who Dat?” I know it’s Super Bowl time, and the N. O. Saint’s haven’t been to one in forty years, but a person can only take so much of “Who Dat?”
In August 2007 I wrote a column entitled: “Shibboleth: Honey Bunches Of Oats.” The column can be accessed at this website by clicking on “Wednesday Wisdom Archive” in the left-hand links, then reviewing the list of past columns. In my “Shibboleth” column I wondered how many people have paid close attention to the then Honey Bunches of Oats commercial that was airing on television. I wondered if I was the only person in the world who has noticed the way in which the black lady said: “Have you tried Honey Bunches of Oats?” If you saw the commercial, she was the first to appear and was wearing a white covering on her hair. What bothered me enough to fire off letters to Kraft Foods executives was what I saw as “deliberate denigration” of the black woman requiring her to pronounce “of” as “uh” so as to make her appear uneducated or illiterate. Well a Kraft Foods executive called me immediately after reading the column explaining that her articulation was her natural speech to which I then asked: “Is it to harder to say “uh Oats,” than to say “of Oats?” “Of Oats” rolls off the tongue quite effortlessly, while trying to say “Uh Oats,” is quite unnatural and requires too much effort. I then asked the “good executive” why no one else in the commercial mispronounced “of?” They agreed to review the commercial. Well the commercial changed, and given the recent economic downturn, it may have been pulled altogether.
In my “Shibboleth” column I asked this: “Have you ever heard of the term “shibboleth?” If you haven’t, turn to the Old Testament book of Judges. Judges is the seventh book in the Old Testament and appears after the book of Joshua. Now go to the 12th chapter and the 6th verse, which reads: “Then said they unto him, Say now SHIBBOLETH: and he said Sibboleth: for he could not frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him, and slew him at the passages of Jordan: and there fell at that time of the Ephramites forty and two thousand.” So what does “Shibboleth” and the Book of Judges have to do with “Honey Bunches of Oats?” A lot. Webster’s dictionary defines a “shibboleth” as “a password, phrase, custom, or usage that reliably distinguishes the members of one group or class from another.” If you will now re-read Judges 12:6 you will see that the person who could how pronounce the “SH” sound in the word “shibboleth” was killed on the spot. Wonder why? If you will read the rest of the story in Judges you will see that the Gileadites and the Ephramites were at war with each other. The Gileadites left over Jordan, and it just so happened that a group of escapee Ephramites wanted to go along as well. When they were confronted about their identity, the Gileadites asked if they were Ephramites, to which they responded “No, we are not.” They were then required to pronounce the word, “shibboleth.” As each one failed to pronounce the “sh” sound he was killed.
It has long been believed, as an element of black stereotyping, that African Americans do not or cannot clearly enunciate certain words. The letter “s” in the possessive form has been identified as one such “shibboleth.” Recently I read the following: “There is not, probably, in the whole south, a plantation where the English language is more imperfectly spoken than on Col. Lloyds. It is a mixture of Guinea and everything else you please. At the time of which I am writing, there were slaves there who had been brought from the coast of Africa. They never used the “s” in indication of the possessive case.” The same article gave examples of how slaves spoke using phrases such as “Oo you dem long to: meaning “Whom do you belong to?” and “Oo dem got any peachy, meaning, “Have you got any peaches.” Well, I’m not about to condemn how my African slave ancestors pronounced words while trying to incorporate their native tongues into English given the horrible conditions under which they came to be exposed to English in the first place. But I do have a problem with folks in the year 2010 still saying, “They here” for “They’re here,” “He got,” for “He’s got,” or better still “He has,” and a slew of other phrases that require the possessive case.
Last night a new Miss America was crowned in Las Vegas. Her name is Caressa Cameron and she happens to be black and from Virginia. Apparently she strutted her stuff and sang her way to the title, but I doubt seriously if she did it by sounding like our slave ancestors, many of whom planted and picked tobacco leaves on Virginia slave plantations. Ms. Cameron, a journalism major, who wants to pursue a career in television, certainly knows that you can only go so far in that business saying, “Who Dat?” I quote again from my “Shibboleth” column. When I was growing up I routinely heard the term “lazy tongue.” It was used to describe the failure, of many African Americans especially, to articulate or enunciate their words. My high school English teacher, Mrs. Ruth Esther Manning Jones, would not tolerate a lazy tongue. Every day she told her students to “spit out those “Ts.” She wanted her student to say “that” and not “dat,” “those” and not “dos,” “it” and not “id.” She constantly reminded us to “speak up and to speak clearly.” When we read George Bernard Shaw’s play, Pygmalion, she told us that we could also benefit from saying, “The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plains.”
Again, as I said in my “Shibboleth” column, some of the most eloquent speakers to ever walk this planet have been African Americans. Frederick Douglas was an orator without par, as were thousands of other black men and women, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who had a command of the English language and the art of oration unmatched by any Anglo. I cannot imagine Dr. King saying “Who Dat?” not even out behind the barn. And so, as soon as this Super Bowl is over, just as quickly as “Who Dat?” moved front and center, let’s treat it as if it were a football placed on the 30-yard line for scoring the winning touchdown in the second overtime. Let’s put our collective feet to “Who Dat?” and kick it as far out of the arena as we can. Enough of “Who Dat?” Our children are already grammatically ignorant enough. We do not need to add “Who Dat?” to “I seen,” “She had went,” “He had ran,” “I is,” “You is,” and “You done done.” Well–I guess as one final goodbye we can ask, “Who Dat, Miss America?”
Copyright 2010 - L. Arthalia Cravin. All rights Reserved. No part of this commentary may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the author.
