DW2a "Ghetto Handbook"

The blog website that I found was on the BET.com website. There was an article posted about a police officer who created and distributed a handbook of Ebonics. He made the handbook in order to provide other officers with the language of African Americans. The police officer called the eight-page guide ”The Ghetto Handbook” and it sparked an outrage in the black community. The handbook was said to have mocked African Americans. It gave definitions for words that are used in Ebonics, such as, foty, which is a 40 oz. bottle of beer and hood rat, which is meant for a scummy girl. The book was described as being able to teach anybody to speak as though they had just came out of the hood. The officer’s punishment is to be a short suspension and to attend sensitivity training. The discussion board was asked if they thought this was enough punishment for the cop who distributed the booklet. The blog website provided an opportunity for people to write in their thoughts and comments about the topic and get feedback as well.

I found it very interesting how different everybody’s views were and how people took different sides. Mona writes “No I do not think that the punishment is severe enough. He/she needs to be fired and made to make a public apology. Enough is enough. Black people are as equal as any other race. It saddens me that blacks are always the ones considered to be ignorant, what does this say about others?”. And the opposite view was taken by AJ who wrote “You can’t be mad at anybody for this incident. Only people you can blame is our own race. If we weren’t so ignorant that we would make up our own language people wouldn’t’ have to decipher what we are saying. It just shows how much we don’t care for education in the black community. We need to stop using this language anyway”. Someone then argued back at AJ, Black Pride writes, “AJ, making up a language is far from ignorant. The problem comes when black people speak only Ebonics and can’t speak Standard English. I don’t know what black people live around you, but we do care about education very much. If “other” people cant decipher what we say too bad for them because the language wasn’t meant for them in the first place.”

Even though the website targets African Americans it still allows people of any race to share their opinions. The website doesn’t seem to be censored, people can say whatever they way and not have to worry about repercussions. People can express themselves and not be afraid of what they say or how they say it. There were fifty-eight responses to this posted article on the first day and forty-seven on the second day, it was a very heated topic and it is nice to know that there is a place for people to speak their minds and vent their feelings.