An Embarrassment

Here's a rare pre-workout post.

Obama has stepped in it yet again.

It’s embarrassing when Europeans come over here, they all speak English, they speak French, they speak German. And then we go over to Europe and all we can say is merci beaucoup.

Embarrassing, eh?

Ich habe eine Frage: welche Fremdsprache hat Obama als Erwachsener freiwillig gelernt?

(I have a question: which foreign language has the adult Obama voluntarily learned?)

In fairness, the senator's statement was couched in an excellent message to young black students in Georgia:

You can’t find a job unless you are a really, really good basketball player. Which most of you brothers are not. I know you think you are. But you’re not. You are overrated in your own mind. You will not play in the NBA. You are probably not that good a rapper. Maybe you are the next Little Wayne, but probably not. In which case you need to stay in school.

But the guy cannot mange to send a decent message like this one without screwing it up and pointing to his own hypocrisy.

Obama is scheduled to address the League of United Latin American Citizens’ national convention in Washington, DC, this afternoon [yesterday].

Did he tell them to stay in school and learn English? I'll find out when I come back.

UPDATE: From the Georgia gathering:

I agree that immigrants should learn English. I agree with that. But...but understand this: instead of worrying about whether immigrants can learn English--they'll learn Englsh--you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish. ::: unenthusiastic applause::: You should be thinking about how your child can become bilingual.

Why? See, there's a reason that Europeans know each other's languages: proximity and history of conquest.

And why does the second language have to be Spanish? (Not really asking.)

We should have every child speaking more than one language.

Then he starts into the 'embarassing' statement.

Is there any reason that the Obamas are proud of America and Americans? Or is shame all they are selling?

(Thanks to Hot Air)

Comments

[DarkStar]

So, when we went on vacation to St. Maartin, on the French side Black people assumed I was from Guadalupe or was it French Guyana. Anyhooo...

They would start speaking French and I had to stop them and say I only know English. One guy laughed and then we had a nice conversation in English. Here's someone who came to St. Maartin to make money, he's poor and he said so, but spoke 5 languages fluently and could get by in 2 others. When I worked in England and traveled to London to party for the weekend, I came across African cab drivers who spoke multiple languages and one chastised me for only knowing English. He got a good tip 'cuz we had a GOOD discussion on American vs. European politics.

I see nothing wrong with what he said.

[DarkStar]

I just heard the audio. There is a line where he says "learn Spanish" that is going to cause a lot of flack.

[Sharon Ferguson]

I would grant that it is always an excellent idea to learn a foreign language, but not everyone HAS to, you know. The majority language here IS English, and should remain so, and those Spanish speakers should know good and well that in order to succeed here, they had better learn English before they can give people the opportunity to override their prejudices about the uneducated who come to this country looking for a handout.

On top of that, I used to temp for a law firm here in Houston that dealt with a lot of international contracts - the lawyer I spoke with was adamant that while learning the various languages was always a plus, ENGLISH was the INTERNATIONAL Language of Business. EVERYONE is EXPECTED to know English and was found to be the best language for handling legal affairs.

English is an absorptive language, and adapts to include so many of the idiosyncrasies of other languages...thats why its so hard for someone who follows a more rigid language to learn it.

Having said all that, Obama is a tool and a pig. I hope he loses BIG TIME.

Islam delenda est.

[baldilocks]

Just because they chastised you, Darkstar, doesn't mean they were right.

BTW, Africans know European languages mostly because of colonialism.

I had sort of reverse situations in Germany; Germans saying things about blacks right in front of me. The looks on their faces when I answered back auf Deutsch...priceless.

[Delayna]

Heh. I went on a European trip last year; I spent hours with language tapes so that I could at least say a few sentences. I went into a gelato shop in Rome primed and ready to say "Une gelato cioccolato, per favore," and before I got a single syllable out the person behind the counter interrupted me in fluent (American-accented) English. Kinda hard to learn when you can't practice...

But if Obama, or anyone, seriously thinks Americans should be conversant with a second language, perhaps they could omit the self-esteem classes and teach kids in elementary school (instead of waiting until they're teenagers)?

[Casey]

DarkStar, it's nice that you've met such accomplished people; I'd be tickled pink myself if I met the English cab driver you mentioned.

Still... What does that have to do with Barry's suggestion that it's embarrassing that Americans only speak English?

Europeans speak many languages because their countries are TINY. Wiki gives the US a total of ~ 9,522,055 km². At the same time we have France (547,030km²), (357,021km²), Italy (301,230km²), Norway (324,220km²), and so on. Europeans speak multiple languages because they have to.

Americans can drive from Bangor, Maine, all the way to San Diego, California in the secure knowledge that they'll encounter English-speaking people the entire way. Anyone trying a similar stunt in Europe (assuming they start in NE Finland) will run out of land around the Bay of Biscay, the equivalent of western New Mexico. And that's after they had to pass through Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, France, Spain, and Portugal at the very least. By my count that's ... seven different languages.

So I ask again? Why should Americans be embarrassed that they speak only English? This a purely utilitarian question which certain elitists wish to push as "cultural superiority."

I think Cosby even did a bit along the same lines, which reminds me: try to find a capture of the bit where Cos proves that Kissinger is from Alabama; hilarious!

Parenthetically, I took four years of high school French, and two years of college. Alas, that was twenty years ago. Pity. I got pretty good, but never had the chance to actually use my learning. :(

Encouraging students to expand their horizons is quite different from making them feel ashamed or embarrassed about their so-called lack of education. I would rather schools focused on things like basic political science, Civics 101, English (NOT "creative writing"!!), and history. We should go old-school and make kids memorize things like the Declaration of Independence, the Gettysburg Address, Rudyard Kipling, and Stephen Vincent Benét; especially his Litany for Dictatorships. If they finally grow up then they'll begin to understand what was pounded into their heads.

But that's going rather far afield from the original post. :)

[Casey]

Whoops. Thought I closed that bold tag after embarrassed!

[IronMike]

There is a great article out there called "Gaelic? What gall!" about a man who studied Irish for a while then went on a trip to Ireland (the real Ireland, in the west) where he wanted to use it. Everywhere he went, the Irish people he spoke to (in Irish, natch) asked him if he spoke English. None of them could, or wanted to, speak Irish.

We have the same thing here. My family have studied languages for years (ask Baldi, she knows us) and it's a nice intellectual exercise to study German or Russian or Esperanto, but unless you're going to use it with fluent speakers, it is no more than an intellectual exercise.

We taught, er um, forced our kids to study German for a year, but then we took them on a 5-wk trip to Germany and Switzerland, where they used it, with great success. Now that we're back, they're studying Spanish, because we currently live in Mexifornia, so Spanish is useful.

[IronMike]

OK, Baldi, I have no idea why everything is in bold....HELP!

baldilocks sez: Somebody left a tag open somewhere. I'll find it.

[DarkStar]

Just because they chastised you, Darkstar, doesn't mean they were right.

True, but since I was traveling (I have an interesting weekend in Paris story that cracks me up still) it made sense.

BTW, Africans know European languages mostly because of colonialism.

True. I know that.

I had sort of reverse situations in Germany; Germans saying things about blacks right in front of me. The looks on their faces when I answered back auf Deutsch...priceless.

I have a cousin-in-law whose mother is German and whose father is, now retired, military. She tells interesting tales of being on public transportation and hearing the Germans say derogatory things in Germans about Blacks. Sometimes she responded and sometimes she didn't.

She came to the U.S. to attend an HBCU and now goes back to visit her mother.

What does that have to do with Barry's suggestion that it's embarrassing that Americans only speak English?

Because the U.S. is not the only country in the world and having done some international traveling, while no where near many, but far more than most, the inability of Americans to be functionally literate in a foreign language when in other countries IS embarrassing (even when it's me) and, from my observation, a direct correlation to "Ugly American Syndrome" which DOES exist. And, frankly, I'm surprised more American tourists aren't killed because of nasty assed attitudes.