LixyChick,

Way cool! I hope to provide you with all the soapboxes you’ll ever need!

I’m with you on the whiny “no whites allowed - no fair!” cover for bigots. In this period of politically correct speech, organizations with exclusive names sound somewhat insensitive, but I guess they’ll have to take that rap.

I have to say that I think you are on shakier ground in re language. Be it laudable or no, language marks us in the eyes of others. Norwegians speak Norwegian, Greeks are taught their Greek. What would you expect to be the language of choice for a lady from Spain? Germans refer to their fatherland as Deutschland, and in it the natives speak Deutsch. Hell, here in the States, we have a grand time poking fun at how people from distant corners of our nation sound: Texans with their “erl” wells, and New Englanders with not an “r” to be found. Remember when Jimmy Carter was elected? I know a lot of people had a good old time with how he enunciated. Few things mark us more clearly than how we say what we say. Verbalizations are one of the attributes which bind us with our communities.

I suspect that most immigrants who do become citizens learn English because they want to get ahead in their new home. In America, English is the language of success. I am very suspicious indeed of those programs which try to wrap a protective cocoon around people. If two similarly qualified people apply for the same job, the one who is articulate in the operating language is rather more likely to get the position.

Language is very slippery, and ignorance of, or even a significant deficiency in the lingua franca of one’s community can place an individual at a distinct disadvantage. Does that make those in the surrounding environment racist? I am unconvinced.

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Eudaimonia