In the U.S., we've complicated English. We incorporate words from other languages and make up our own lingo. We have countless double entendres (double meanings, usually laced with naughtiness), dialects, colloquial language, slang and expressions — not to mention similes, metaphors and idioms. Oh, and homonyms (words that are spelled or sound the same but have totally different meanings — who thought THAT was a good idea?!?).
We also have double standards that make mastering U.S. English a nearly impossible feat. Let's consider a few ... (Warning: My subjects are going to get progressively stickier, so you may find yourself growing more and more uncomfortable as we go.)
What is a leader?
We women have been battling sexist labels in the workplace for as long as we've been in the workplace. But I'd like tackle just one concept here: What makes a good leader? I'm going to argue it depends on what gender that leader is. Many a study has been done proving that a woman in a leadership role exhibiting the EXACT SAME CHARACTERISTICS as a male leader often gets dismissed as a bitch, while her male counterpart gets dubbed a great boss.
What is presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's biggest character flaw, per many pundits? Her lack of "likability." Ummm ... OK. I'm just gonna leave this one right here.
So ... how does someone learning English come to understand what "leader" means in the U.S. — boss or bitch?
What is a farmer?
This nation originally had an agricultural economy, back in the day when it took an entire society's manpower (including slaves) to raise its own food. While far fewer people are needed to produce food today, farmers and ranchers still hold pretty revered status in our country. They do, after all, keep the rest of us alive — and they work punishing hours doing so, pouring blood, sweat, tears and money into their calling. Excluding the corporate farm owners, no one is getting rich in the field, either. They deserve credit as unsung heroes.
But an interesting dichotomy exists when it comes to discussing the people they hire to do the field work. Migrant workers are hired throughout the U.S. to pick crops, mostly fruits and vegetables — crops that cannot be harvested by machine (yet) and that need to be harvested quickly, all at once, to avoid loss to rot. You'll find migrants (potentially as many as 3 million) working as far north as Maine; you even find them in Mequon, Wisconsin, which happens to be one of the richest communities in the state. Many migrants follow the harvest seasons from southern states north, working nonstop from dawn to dusk for months at a stretch, often bringing their families along with them. This means their lives are nomadic, and they typically live in squalor in work camps that may look more like refugee camps. Oh, and they make poverty wages for their efforts, btw.
Unfortunately, farmers cannot recruit enough legal migrant workers — and forget about finding U.S. citizens who are willing to uproot their lives to work such demanding jobs — so the feds estimate that half the migrants work illegally. This apparently enraged people in Alabama, who believed the undocumented migrants were in fact stealing jobs from U.S. citizens, so much that officials decided to crack down on undocumented workers harvesting crops a few years ago, and the results were devastating ... for both workers and the farmers who hire them.
So ... how does someone learning English come to understand what "farmer" means in the U.S. — hero or villain?
What is a victim?
I find it fascinating that many of Donald Trump's supporters are said to be upset because the economy has left them behind. They loathe trade agreements (that arguably led to job outsourcing to other countries) and blame "illegals" for taking what few jobs are left here in the U.S.
OK, I guess I can understand their anger ... although ... technically, outsourcing became all the rage decades ago. The 1980s and '90s saw automakers move out of Detroit and steelmakers abandon Gary, Indiana. This is the reason the Midwest is labeled the "Rust Belt" of the U.S.: Manufacturing left, and the large cities that grew up around manufacturing plants were suddenly bereft of family-supporting manual jobs. What followed in Midwest cities were spikes in long-term unemployment, crime, drug use and white flight; deteriorating infrastructure and services; and increasing need for welfare programs. Economically driven mass depression played out on the streets of our cities.
Notice there was no equal "black flight" from cities. Why? A quick history: Back in the early days of manufacturing, when thousands of laborers were needed to get work done, blacks in the south were specifically recruited by manufacturers to work in the north because they were cheap hires. As labor organized and unions took hold, the jobs became gold. The black middle class was born, and — for the first time in U.S. history — blacks were able to buy houses en masse. They put down roots. Thus, when manufacturing left, they stayed; the Midwest was now home, and they were proud union laborers ... even though they were now unemployed. (It would be temporary, right?)
How did society respond to "urban decay," as it's often called? We arrested drug addicts (mostly blacks), because clearly drug users were a drain on society. Remember the crack epidemic of the 1990s and the subsequent "War on Drugs" waged by President Ronald Reagan? We cut welfare programs, because clearly urbanites (blacks) were just being lazy and refusing to find work. Remember when President Bill Clinton initiated the "Welfare to Work" reform? We created tax incentives that made it lucrative for remaining manufacturers to leave the cities and move to the suburbs, where their workers arguably wouldn't have to deal with crime (or blacks). We imposed exclusionary zoning in suburbs, which made it cost-prohibitive (or flat-out legally impossible) for builders to create low-income homes to which struggling displaced (black) workers could have moved.
In the meantime, manufacturing got even "leaner." In addition to outsourcing, they've stepped up automation in manufacturing, which means far fewer laborers are actually needed to get work done. The inevitable happened with manufacturing, just as it did with agriculture: Technology changed the industry. Now, the U.S. is becoming a knowledge economy — an economy in which "idea" and "solutions" people are the most highly valued. Many of the best jobs require a college degree or an area of technical expertise or both, such as jobs in information technology. It's not a friendly environment for middle-age (read: technically-less-savvy-than-Millenials) and uneducated people, including whites.
Now that middle-age uneducated whites — the bulk of Trump's supporters — have been displaced by the economy, we are hearing a different message than we did back in the '90s. For example, the heroin epidemic sweeping the suburbs and rural America, linked to the pain of being left behind by the economy, is being called a "public health crisis." Addicts are being cast as victims of dealers and offered amnesty, unlike the crack addicts of the cities (who, btw, are to this day often turned away from overwhelmed public drug treatment centers because the addiction is damn near impossible to break, and who still face much stiffer prison sentences than opioid users). Hmmm ... Perhaps it's because we now understand mental health and addiction better than we did 30 years ago, or ... well, given the plight of crack addicts, let's just say the issue appears glaringly black-and-white.
So ... how does someone learning English come to understand what "addict" means in the U.S. — criminal or victim?
When rural whites today refuse to leave the homes that have been in their families for generations to find work, we don't call them lazy; we say they have been abandoned by industry — literally.
So ... how does someone learning English come to understand what "displaced worker" means in the U.S. — lazy or abandoned?
Now, I could come up with many more examples. For example, when blacks were denied mortgages in the 1960s, banks were seen as employing "sensible lending practices," but during the housing bust of 2009 (which affected many races), we came to understand banks were actually employing "predatory lending practices." Desperate people during natural disasters are either "looting" or "finding" supplies, depending on their race. But I'll stick to just one more big one ...
What is a patriot?
We recently had some Western ranchers, specifically the Bundy family of Nevada, make a stand. Clive Bundy doesn't believe he should have to pay grazing fees for use of federal land, which he uses to sustain his herd of cattle. Other folks out West agree with him. So ... when the feds came calling, demanding cattle in lieu of back fees, the Bundy family and their supports — mostly belonging to militia groups — grabbed their guns and stood their ground. Literally. These "modern-day cowboys" were proudly hailed as patriots by their peers, defending their rights as given by birth against the overreaching federal government. A second standoff later followed in Oregon, with the same "patriotic" players involved.
The nation held its collective breath, assuming there would be bloodshed. But the feds backed down. Arrests did follow later, but ... there were a whole lot of folks amazed by the fact that armed men aimed military-style weapons at federal agents — LITERALLY — and lived to tell about it. Oh, and let's remember that this all erupted over land-usage fees, which other ranchers willingly pay (because they are nominal, compared to rents for privately held land).
Travel east to Ferguson, Missouri, where the death of a black man at the hands of a police officer sparked violent rage in the black community there ... and birthed the Black Lives Matter movement ... and led to a scathing report by the Department of Justice outlining how unconstitutional — and arguably inhumane — the criminal justice system in that community has become. Move farther east to Baltimore, Maryland, where yet another black man died at the hands of police ... and sparked more rage ... and let to yet another scathing report by the DOJ about how how unconstitutional — and arguably inhumane — the criminal justice system in that community has become. I've lost count now of how many police shootings there have been since Ferguson — justified, unjustified, of armed men, of unarmed men, of men, of women, of black ... and of white, and of brown, and of native.
Regardless of the circumstances, though, what I hear most following protests of these and other police shootings, by people who fear for their lives and are fighting for dignity, is that THERE IS NO JUSTIFICATION FOR VIOLENCE. Thugs, these (black) people are called, not patriots trying to stem government (police) overreach. Ummm ... OK.
Didn't each of these situations start with, uh, violence — state-sanctioned violence?
(Oh, and a side note: "Riot" is another loaded word. When college students burn up their towns after sporting events, we as a nation rarely take notice, as the media often uses terms like "melee" in headlines; but when blacks demanding equal treatment under the law burn up their towns, they quickly get condemned by national media and audiences who prefer "riot" to any number of other terms.)
The experts — of all races — agree with the black community that modern policing in some communities has crossed the line into unconstitutional territory. (For god's sake, the police in Baltimore perform strip and cavity searches of potentially innocent people in public — ON THE STREET IN BROAD DAYLIGHT — without arresting anyone for anything.) Folks protest, some with guns ... and society immediately labels them "thugs." And, yes, many of these instances involved criminals, some armed; but isn't that exactly what Bundy and his supporters were — armed criminals, who lived to serve their prison sentences? Bundy was fighting for property, while blacks are now fighting for ... oh, I'll let this guy explain it this time.
So ... how does someone learning English come to understand what "patriot" means in the U.S. — cowboy or thug?
White or black?
Alive or dead?
