At 9:15 PM -0600 12/20/96, Matthew J. Miszewski wrote:

Jesus Tim. You're letting your lilly white show.

-feeling-oppressed-by-every-law-in-existance-white-boy

Yeah, Matt, in a free society I wouldn't have to "speak Ebonics." (Personally, I interviewed several folks while I was at Intel who could not speak standard English. I recommended against their hiring, and they in fact did not get invites to be interviewed at the main facilities. So much for their jive talk habits.) Understand, I have nothing against the colored people speaking "Ebonics" to each other, or to anyone who'll listen. But I don't have to deal with this nonsense, nor do I have to hire them. (Until the People's Republic of Political Correctness demands that I "justify" why not speaking standard English is a "valid job requirement," and refuses to take my "Because I say it is" as a valid answer. Not surprisingly, the Clintonistas have decided to enter the Proposition 209 challenge on the side of the pro-discrimination side.) If I were designing a genocidal program to destroy the colored race, I would be pushing for Ebonics, for encouraging coloreds to study "Human Potential" and "African History" instead of math, science, and engineering, and pushing for hiring quotas. --Tim May Just say "No" to "Big Brother Inside" We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1398269 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

At 11:10 PM -0800 12/20/96, Mike Duvos wrote:

When I read Tim's original message on "Ebonics", I thought it was one of those witty parodies he occasionally comes up with.

Thanks for the compliment! The "Ebonics" notion is too strange for my imagination to have come up with, though.

Then I turned on the NBC Nightly News, and lo and behold, "Ebonics" was one of the featured stories, replete with commentary by former New York mayor Ed Koch.

Indeed, the Oakland, California school system is teaching children in a "bilingual" program of "standard English" and "Ebonics." At least Ebonics is simpler: I be, you be, he be, she be, we be, dey be, it be, etc. So, how long before a lawsuit is filed ("it be filed") demanding that election ballots be printed in Ebonics, along with those printed in Spanish, Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Korean, Serbo-Croation, Blatislavan, Talegu, and the other 43 officially recognized languages? How long before it becomes a crime to "discriminate" (or, in Ebonics, "discimnate") against a person ("a peeples") who speaks Ebonics as his primary language? Democracy has run amok in this country. There is no hope for reforming at the ballot box, as democracy only makes things worse. Only a crypto reign of terror can purge this land of the scum. --Tim May Just say "No" to "Big Brother Inside" We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1398269 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

It was Hayek who wrote: "We have no intention, however, of making a fetish of democracy. It may well be true that our generation talks and thinks too much of democracy and too little of the values which it serves... Democracy is essentially a means, a utilitarian device for safeguarding internal peace and individual freedom. As such it is by no means infalliable or certain. Nor must we forget that there has often been much more cultural and spiritual freedom under an autocratic rule than under some democracies -- and it is at least conceivable that under the government of a very homogenous and doctrinare majority democractic government *might be as oppressive as the worst dictatorship.* [emphasis mine -DBM]." -Declan On Sat, 21 Dec 1996, Timothy C. May wrote:

Democracy has run amok in this country. There is no hope for reforming at the ballot box, as democracy only makes things worse. Only a crypto reign of terror can purge this land of the scum.

// declan@eff.org // I do not represent the EFF // declan@well.com //

Two minor points: First, Ebonics (Black English) is grammatical, but its grammar differs from that of standard American English. Second, from what I heard on the news, Oakland wants to call it a separate language because they discovered that they got better results teaching standard English to Black students if they used secondary language techniques, as opposed to treating Black English constructions as "wrong" or "inferior." Martin Minow minow@apple.com