Like "Do y'all Bernie Bros not know Bernie be racist af?"
Why do online white liberals write like that?
Yes, exactly this.
And using signifiers black people use with other black people makes whites feel like they’re participating in progressive thought, but tends to end up alienating minorities instead. There are some white people who use AAVE from growing up poor, but they have less of a faux-academic vibe.
One of my best friends growing up has become an insufferable lib, and rants on Facebook about how horrible the latter is while constantly doing the former.
I once saw a professor talk to us with AAVE right until the moment a black guy walked into the classroom. The most embarrassing shit I've seen a professor do, and I've had professors explain the virtues of the bile balancing approach to medicine.
They're trying to be folksy like we're all at a hoedown together, despite the fact I have not and likely will never attend a hoedown, nor will they. But being stuffy and academic in language is reactionary because it doesn't sound like black people.
Now, to express my thoughts, the problem is not that AAVE is being used in politics, but that people are using this technique to act like they're close to me when neither of us talk that way natively. And this style distances black people from these groups because they see someone imitating them for clout But using black culture to gain some sort of realness and down-home style while still keeping out black people is part and parcel of american society.
one conversation this site isn't ready for is the fact that AAVE is closer than white americans to the way british people speak
because, online, others can't really tell how mechanical and fake they would sound if they actually tried to talk like that with their voice. it's the most accessible way to seem like they can code switch IRL and give themselves the clout of being the kind of interesting person that moves between milieus.
There’s definitely a difference between white southern dialect and AAVE though. Both use yall, but the phrasing of “Bernie be racist” instead of “Bernie is racist” is more of an AAVE thing.
"y'all" is fine, most other languages have a word for it and it's just normal. Day y'all or youse or whatever to your heart's content.
"X be like" is definitely in the still-racist limbo that terms go through when they're imported from the American black community into non-black American life. But if you (specifically you, Mayo-American) use terms like, "X is the bomb" or "X game is on point" or "chilling out" you're still using appropriated terms they've just exited the limbo and nobody cares anymore.
I feel ridiculous using it because I'm not a cowboy but it is a convenient word. I also can't use "youse" because I'm not from new joisey either.
"You guys" is what I used to say but I don't like that it's not completely gender neutral even if you could make an argument that "guys" here is used in a gender neutral way, much like "dude" can be which I do use a lot.
I consistently say "sometimes it just be that way" when life goes to shit should I stop
Counterpoint:
A person who looks like they're from the capitol in the hunger games trying to talk like what they think black people are like is funny in that it exists.
