Over the past year, I’ve become a Cardi B fan. She’s funny and sharp and a great addition to the mainstream pop-culture landscape. While she’s been around for years, Cardi B really became “white famous” (RIP to that show, I watched it) in the past few years. Now she’s got hit singles and a huge diamond engagement ring and Taylor Swift is sending her flowers and sh-t. It’s fun. Cardi covers the latest issue of Cosmopolitan, just to show you how mainstream she really is now. And she talks about her stripper past, her engagement and more. You can see the cover package here, and here are some highlights:
On refusing to change—for anyone: “Everybody got different beliefs and different religions and were raised differently, yet you also supposed to be careful you don’t offend somebody. Everybody gets bothered about everything. Everybody got a f**king opinion about you. If I change myself, then I’m going to lose myself, and I won’t be who makes me happy.”
On her decision to stay with fiancé, Offset, after allegations of cheating: “It’s like everybody is coming down my neck like, ‘Why are you not leaving him? You have low self-esteem.’ I don’t have low self-esteem… I know I look good. I know I’m rich, I know I’m talented. I know I could get any man I want—any basketball player, football player. But I want to work out my sh*t with my man, and I don’t got to explain why. I’m not your property. This is my life…. I’m going to take my time, and I’m going to decide on my decision… It’s not right, what he f**king did—but people don’t know what I did, ’cause I ain’t no angel.”
On her past pole dancing days and respecting strippers: “People say, ‘Why do you always got to say that you used to be a stripper? We get it.’ Because y’all don’t respect me because of it, and y’all going to respect these strippers from now on… Just because somebody was a stripper don’t mean they don’t have no brain.”
There’s SO MUCH to unpack!! Regarding strippers… I like that she talks about it. Channing Tatum gets to talk about how he was a stripper. He even got to make two movies about it! So why can’t Cardi talk about it? Is it because female strippers are treated differently by virtue-signaling women? Cardi made money and she owns those experiences. Let her talk about it! As for what she says about staying with Offset… I can see her point…? “I want to work out my sh*t with my man, and I don’t got to explain why. I’m not your property.” Fair enough?
Also: there are a million rumors swirling around that Cardi B is pregnant and somewhat far along. Like, already well into her second trimester?
Photos courtesy of Kai Z Feng for Cosmopolitan.
That sentence right there “..don’t mean they don’t have no brain” might mean you don’t have a brain though.
Honestly, I don’t know who this woman is but I had to click on this article just because of that sentence. Wow.
Access impacts grammar, and those habits are formed before we’re even aware of them. And truly, all they are is habits. My child had perfect grammar before he even knew what the word meant because that was all he knew.
I’ve been working through some thinking exercises about “why” people do things they do when they aren’t “right” and I’m reaching the conclusion that so much of what we judge people on is a social construct. (I’m not really talking about assault or rape, although I think there are some applications there.) Yes, I know I sound pretentious, and it doesn’t mean those things don’t have value-they indicate social hierarchy, exposure, adaptability. However, when and if someone transcends their social strata quickly, we might see less structured approaches to the rules about grammar, for example.
There’s no such thing as proper and improper grammar. You don’t need to go to school to learn your native language– you are fluent in it by dint of it being your native language. She’s speaking a dialectical variant of standard American English and linguistically speaking, it is perfectly proper. Compare to the kind of sentence you might hear from a non-native speaker, such as “I enjoy to dance.”
Interesting how Cardi B’s expression sounds “uneducated” while “I enjoy to dance” sounds like a genuine mistake. That’s because Cardi B didn’t make a mistake at all. She’s speaking a dialect that has been coded as uneducated and poor by the standard language speakers.
I was going to chime in as well, but I see we have some sociolinguistic experts already weighing in. I love you guys!
I’ve noticed that double negatives are a fairly common speech pattern for some people who’s first language is not English. I have always assumed they are using a grammar rule from their native language that does not exist in English.
Like Miss Jupitero says, I love you guys. No need to jump in when y’all gots it. Ha ha.
Just to clarify, there’s grammar that is dictated by American education standards as “correct.” That doesn’t mean Cardi B is dumb, or wrong, and I certainly have a great deal of respect for her if that wasn’t clear. Just meant that grammar is dictated by habits and environment, not by intelligence.
PPP you’re an idiot. There is such a thing as improper English. That’s why they teach it in school. If you can’t speak properly, your intelligence is judged- rightfully.
Lol. I have to admit that badly worded sentence was click bait for me.
+1
That’s grammar, not intelligence.
Yep
Yes. Intelligent people can be uneducated. And vice versa.
<3
but education and intellegence aren’t the same thing. you can speak the king’s english and still be a complete moron. she’s billingual. she’s hustled opportunities to become a millionarie at 25 and she seems to understand marketing and PR better than every marketing person i’ve ever met with MBA’s so – i think her brain is probably fine.
Thank you too Lizzie and Nicole (below).
How is she bilingual?
@Jana Spanish is her first language.
You may not think this, but linguistic discrimination is rooted in racism. Cardi is a product of her environment and the slang and sentence structures found within, saying that she sounds like she doesn’t have a brain is both condescending and rude.
Preach!!
THANK YOU, thank you thank you for pointing this out.
Well said.
Yes!
I took a class on the history of the English language and another on linguistics, and my professors always stressed that Ebonics is a dialect. It doesn’t reflect intelligence any more than a “hillbilly” accent – another accent that people associate with low intelligence.
THIS!
this x100000
I have a friend who was a stripper: shrewed, fiercely independent and self-reliant, an excellent read of people, someone just about everyone comes to for advice… She didn’t get the best education so her grammar may also not be perfect but she’s possibly one of the most naturally intuitive people I know. While I’m very particular about grammar myself, I’m not naive enough to think it’s a reliable metric of intelligence.
Slang is a perfectly valid variation of language. Like a dialect. People aren’t stupid or uneducated because they speak in a dialect and they aren’t stupid or uneducated because they use slang. I’ve met extremely dumb people whose grammar and elocution are great. Maybe you need to read up on that?
As for the stripper comment and Channing Tatum, I think that’s because we think of male strippers working in a fun environment and female ones working in clubs that look like the ones on Netflix. As in, it’s the place where money laundering and drug trafficking occurs. There’s always some Russian who owns it as a front for his arms dealing or whatever. We associate that with gross dudes at best and crime at worst.
I disagree on the perceived difference between male and female strippers. It has less to do with “fun” and more with 1) scarcity but also 2) an association most people have that a stripper = a prostitute (not saying whether or not this is true, but simply the association). Which while I don’t think it’s true, I do actually think that a lot of female strippers are exploited.
But that’s an aspect of the “fun”. Female strippers, to many people, do it because they’re uneducated, like easy money, are stupid, etc. etc. People either judge them for doing it in spite of having other options or they pity them for having barely any other options. They have very little to no power to most people. I have no idea how much of that is true. But how many images of male strippers can we even refer to? They put on shows, not necessarily in seedy clubs with “back rooms” but more like Magic Mike. The idea of prostitution being part of stripping to most people also comes from TV and film.
The media does not portray female strippers as having fun.
I wouldn’t at all say that it comes just from TV. Strip clubs aren’t some foreign entity that are only in a few cities. I don’t know anyone that actually thinks strip clubs are run by accented Russian mobsters – they’re run by your local skeezy guy, and it’s a place where the waitresses go up on amateur nights to get some extra tips and lap dances in the back rooms are a-plenty.
And have you been in a strip club? I’ve never seen a female stripper “having fun”. It’s very transactional.
A successful neighbor in our neighborhood, friend of my brother-in-law, is living with a stripper, younger than him, with a child. He gets off on the fact that she was once a stripper, but has tried to set her up in his business now. Mostly she and her child are now supported by him, though. I think he thinks his friends are envious. He was married to a psychologist before that.
I did have a co-worker, absolutely stunning (not a stripper herself), who lived with a wealthy man who owns well-known strip clubs in my city, higher-end than some of the rundown ones. I also had another friend who, for a couple of years, dated a guy who owned a limousine service that had ties to strip clubs. Both women told me most of the women’s lives were sad or predictable. Some of the dancers were addicted to cocaine or other drugs, using it to numb themselves. Others were beautiful but just trying to find a sugar daddy, not a lot of confidence past their beauty. Their body was their currency. A small minority of them were settled and saving money. Both of these women told me it is a very seedy world. And there are dancers who do shall we say extra services when offered big money.
I’ve been to one and lasted 30 minutes. That’s what I mean. I’m not saying they should be portrayed as having fun.
I don’t know what percentage of the population frequents strip clubs (and I don’t live in the US) but you’re trying to convince me what the reality is when that’s not at all what I was talking about. And that apparently most people are aware of what strip clubs really look like. I’m sure many do. But many really do not.
I think it’s mainly because society doesn’t attach the same things to male sexual modesty that it attaches to female sexual modesty. Add that to victim-blaming and the way both sexes are taught they’re entitled to disrespect ‘loose women’, and you have a recipe for disaster.
Regarding the Channing Tatum comment: male strippers aren’t subject to the “same” objectification as women are. Yes, they are clearly being objectified and probably some women would sleep with them, but that same pressure isn’t there and women act differently than men in strip clubs for sure. When I did it, we all knew that every man in there would sleep with you in a heart beat if they could . No question. Even the ones in there with their enlightened girlfriends or wives would come back or slip you their numbers and wanted sex from you and would do it if they could get away with it. Women don’t have those expectations, they really are there to be fun and silly with their friends in my opinion. It did change how I see men and no way would I date a man who goes to strip clubs, even if it is hypocritical of me, because I know how those men are.
mh I thought that is AAVE? (I don’t know though, I’m not even a native English speaker)
Congratulations, you were privileged enough to receive an education that was seemingly encouraged at home and in your social group as well as in school. Well done. Your circumstance makes you significantly better than anyone who did not have access to the same opportunities. Not just better educationally, but as a person, you are just amazing. The way you swoop in and correct someone else’s grammar with complete disregard for their socio-economic background? Well, my word, I can’t speak for anyone else here but I was just gosh darn impressed. I thought to myself ‘Who is this intellectual power house that has the cajones to say what no one else would? Curse anonymous internet avatars for I have truly found a mother figure I can look up to! Don’t leave me, internet mother genius! Please!’ Then I wept for a little bit. You sure showed Cardi B! F*ck her and her lack of access to education.
Access to education was there. The value system required to utilize fully the education system possibly was not there. And that’s sad.
how do you know the access was there for her? it’s still not available for thousands of kids today
She was raised in the South Bronx, which has the worst school district in NYC.
@Skoochy
Oh, please get over yourself.
You have no idea who Card B is or what her life is and was like.
Maybe her parents or grandparents, aunts or uncles, cousins or a friend were well spoken, informed or educated. They could have had a very bookish household or not at all.
This is a gossip site and unless someone is mean, there is no need to be so over the top.
@Ashby, gossip by it’s definition is mean so I’ll keep frolicking on other people’s feelings if I find it entertaining. Thanks for the input though, boo! It was kinda incoherent but as long as you feel like you contributed, go you!
THIS! 👍🏽
Took the words right out of my mouth.
There is no right way of communicating.
She’s speaking her truth, in her way.
It’s a perfectly proper sentence in Black American Vernacular (she isn’t speaking in dialect but the influence is here), where double negatives have re-emerged because they’re common to most languages. All you’re doing is demonstrating your ignorance of descriptive linguistics, your classism, and your racism.
Thanks for explaining it so clearly. Double negatives are also very common in my language.
Only uneducated people would criticize her vocabulary- try taking an anthropology class. I’ll agree her choice of wording isn’t exactly Oxford, because, she isn’t from England. Also, some parts of America are so economoically depressed that the only way to earn a living is from either drug selling or the sex industry. While stripping can be humiliating and a gate way to the physical/emotional dangers of full-blown prostitution, it can buy a way out of said parts of America where there is little to no options of financial independence.
@TwoPac, the Oxford example is especially pertinent because classism in England often manifests itself based on how people speak. Posh Southern home counties accents, Received Pronounciation (RP) vs. Northern working class accents (Yorkshire, Burmingham, Manchester)–there’s a deep divide that’s present there as well and a lot of people have spoken about it.
Just because she doesn’t articulate like you doesn’t mean she has less than what you have upstairs.
Wow, that is probably the judgiest thing I’ve seen all day. You don’t know who she is, but just came to knock on the way she speaks. Snob.
I love Cardi B. I do not care for her music, but I 100% agree with just about everything she says. Nope, just because someone strips does not mean that person is ignorant or unintelligent or unaware of what’s going on. Life throws shit at you, and I’m not going to judge; I know I was lucky to have come out of the vagina I came out of into the (basically) comfortable life I have led. Nope, it’s not my business whether she sticks with her man who cheated on her, and why should she care at all what I think? Nope, I don’t care how she says what she says, I just want to hear more.
This thread thank you. I like Cardi (not her music so much) and I’ve liked a lot of what she’s said the last year. She’s doing her and I’m okay with that, and she sounds perfectly fine to me.
Kellybean, you have some things to consider. Hmm.
KellyBean, your privilege is showing. Her grammar isn’t a reflection of her intelligence. That you think it is is reflective of yours not hers.
“I can’t get no satisfaction…” a group of white dudes writes a song using double negatives, and they are world famous, brilliant artistes. Cardi B uses double negatives, and she is uneducated. Got it.
word! agreed 100% guess some people’s racism is showing on here…
I’m a translator and deal with languages in detail all the time. PPP is exactly right. Humans create languages as part of our definition. All human languages have grammar. She’s speaking an English dialect that just isn’t the academic dialect. I’m sure she speaks very consistently. She has correct grammar for that dialect. She certainly has a brain, and an intelligent one at that. She is quite articulate.
Too many school teachers don’t know enough about language or are just too prejudiced to realize that there is nothing absolute about the academic dialect. It is one among many. They should consider their task as making their students bilingual, since there are many advantages to knowing the academic dialect. But the dialect they speak at home is not wrong, just different.
Another complication is that languages continually are changing in response to changing needs. Some people get really upset about this and go around trying to stop the natural changes by ridiculing them instead of marveling at the flexibility of language and its evolution. School grammar books, like dictionaries, are out of date on the day they are published.
Why is this whole thread making me think of Arrival?
Double negatives are not used in Standard British and American Englishes, but are common in certain English dialects such as Scots and AAVE.
IKR? And there was not nothing no one could do about it.
A lot to say here:
Cardi B and Tiffany Haddish remind me just a bit of each other: been doing their shit for years and just blew up, smarter, funnier, and more self aware than anyone wants to give them credit for being, etc.
Staying or not staying with her man is none of our business, and she’s right, we’re not in their relationship. Bey stayed. Women make that choice all the time, and sometimes families come out intact on the other side. 🤷🏻♀️
I do love that she isn’t super tiny-she’s built and sexy and curvy and it’s awesome.
I love Bodak Yellow.
I saw Cardi B in concert with Romeo Santos. I actually enjoy her in small doses.
She looks great in these photos. She has an amazing figure.
Agreed. It seems like the pendulum always swings from one extreme to another in how women are expected to handle cheating (compared to how men are expected to handle it.) Beyoncé is a huge famous example of that- she got trashed for it way more than Colin Firth did.
Hillary Clinton, too. She went through what she called faith-based counseling with her husband (Hillary is serious about her religion, just not in your face about it). She gets trashed a lot for staying with Bill. She should cite Cardi B when anybody smears her for it….
It doesn’t mean you have no brain but it doesn’t mean you have one either. Cardi B is currently pregnant to Offset who already has THREE BABY MAMAS and is ALLEGEDLY incredibly abusive to her. I think she’s making terrible (self destructive) decisions and I’m not really interested in hearing people glorify them.
26 year old self made millionaire celebrity business woman who made it ON HER OWN, a literal nobody from nowhere who is now absolutely killing it through grit, gumption and talent. Yes, HORRIBLE decision making going on here. Just stop it. Stop judging because she doesn’t look, sound or act the way you expect her to. This girl is amazing to me and I don’t give a eff about her double negatives and street talk.
There are plenty of ways to display intelligence and I don’t see any. Yes, she’s made money from nothing. So did Iggy Azealea. And making money in today’s society is barely associated with intelligence either so it’s all unimpressive to me. She’s not making good decisions in her personal life, she’s not displaying hard won skills, in fact she’s immediately gotten pregnant and is derailing the career she so desperately claimed she wanted. She hasn’t even released an album.
She doesn’t seem particularly intelligent in the way she speaks (and I don’t mean her accent btw; I mean her content).
.
Are you implying that intelligence and staying in an abusive relationship are somehow connected? That’s murky water right there.
Emotional intelligence. I wish I had developed it when I was young. I tried to salvage emotionally abusive situations that I would have been better off leaving. Dating a man who has a poor history of forming bonds is bad judgment. She has agency here and is making a conscious decision, I hope it works out for the best.
@Frizzy and Frazzled, emotional intelligence generally requires a very strong sense of empathy. It is that very empathy that is used against an individual in an emotionally abusive situation, someone who can see an argument from all sides will question ‘am I wrong?’ if they hear someone tell them they’re wrong. Gaslighting and making one question themselves and what they know to be true is one of the starting points of an abusive relationship. So ironically, those that are more emotionally intelligent than others are far more likely to find themselves being abused in some capacity. Abusers are incredibly deviant, they use a person’s intelligence to bamboozle them to the point where they can’t see the woods for the trees and totally immerse them in an abusive situation.
Intelligent women get stuck in a cycle of domestic violence every day. From all races and economic circumstances. Education and intelligence do not prevent it from happening.
He is a horrible man, and it is pretty much common knowledge, but I remember once what Mary J Blige said about her rough upbringing. She was angry and insecure and very vulnerable. Mary was defensive with a chip on her shoulder and ready to fight. She hadn’t been loved enough since she was born and had to learn to love herself. It took her time and a load of hard personal work to get to a better place. Women in those emotional spaces are like red meat to the wrong kind of man.
So instead of judging her lets hope she evolves and surrounds herself with better people. An a-hole male has been the downfall of many women. Prisons are full of them who got there because of a man. Her career can keep going, and building or this relationship can take her down. I hope it is the former.
One thing though. It is HER life, and she has to choose her path.
I love her. She’s very clear about who she is, and she’s such a sweetheart too boot! I’m glad she’s real about the issues in her relationship. Saying she’s not an angel either. Very relatable. I’m a fan!
I love her honesty. It is her relationship, people can have more serious problems then cheating and we don’t put such heavy judgement. She is owning herself. I like it.
I adore Cardi B, but that one sentence did NOT help to support her point…AT ALL…
…I like her.
Me, too. This chick is real, and I don’t care about her grammar or diction.
Cardi B is a deadset LEGEND, I love her so hard…I don’t care for her music but I LIVE for her interviews and Facebook feed, chica is hella funny!
Eh. I’ve been following her even before she became legit famous, back when she still had that tooth gap, was just recording her first singles and people were still laughing at her music career because I liked her funny and real personality.
I’m glad she’s willing to work out her relationship but that dude she’s engaged to has so many issues from multiple baby mamas to having someone currently pregnant right now and for being homophobic. Sure he’s an upgrade to her ex boyfriend who’s in prison but damn girl, you deserve someone better.
Not everyone speaks “White people”.
From her Wiki: [Cardi B] “she was raised in the Highbridge neighborhood located in the South Bronx.[7][8][9][10] She spent a lot of time at her grandmother’s home in Washington Heights, which she credits with giving her “such a thick […] accent”.[11] Spanish is her first language and she admits that while she doesn’t speak English well, she understands it perfectly fine.”
FYI: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/colorstruck/201009/whats-so-wrong-sounding-black
There are plenty of people, “educated fools,” who went to great schools and speak well but are actually dumb as rocks. And there are plenty of people who weren’t able to attend those great schools (LizLemon above talks about access) but have a great deal of native intelligence. Please stop being so judgemental about her grammar. The fact that she’s pulled herself up to the level that she’s at now already speaks to her native intelligence and warrants attention and respect.
I like the fact that Cardi owns who she is. However, I also know she needs to expand her horizons quick if she wants to keep the $$ she’s got.
When people talk about your possibly low self esteem and your argument to put them in their place is “I look good and I’m rich “, sorry but that’s not really appealing.
And “I could have any man, any footballer or basket ball player “. Yes, clearly the specimens any woman longs for, they ‘re the absolute catch.
Ironically this is what ruins it for her, not the grammar people are referring to.
This^^^
Yup!! +10000
Caridi is street smart but not book smart. And miss me with that “oh she’s bilingual and from the hood” so somehow that gives her a pass on learning to speak proper English. I grew up in a household with Spanish speaking parents. My aunt, my babysitter, while both parents worked full time, spoke ONLY Spanish. I grew up in the projects. While I can easily code-switch from the “ghetto slang” to “professional speak” like we call it around my way, my English is fine. One of my best friends came from the Dominican Republic at age 4, was left back because of it, grew up in Washington Heights and speaks perfect English. So no, Cardi doesn’t get a pass. Especially at this point in her life. It makes it seem like just because we’re poor and immigrants that somehow makes us too dumb to pick up a language without sounding like a complete moron. Cardi doesn’t just speak with an accent, there is nothing wrong with that. I myself have a slight Puerto Rican accent. She goes beyond that.
I dunno.
It really depends on your willingness to reach outside of your culture I think and many times people from certain backgrounds (ethnic, disadvantaged etc) work on their accent first, or notice that people don’t speak like them on TV and start changing.
Maybe you did not want to be creative within that frame and language is only a way to express yourself and go places. For other people it’s where they strongly identify and are creative. Of course they won’t say it like that because all of this is intensely territorial, intuitive, and visceral.
I hope I am making sense with all of this.
Most of my friends were raised in non-English speaking or immigrant households. We all grew up in poor, disenfranchised neighborhoods in 1980’s NYC. You couldn’t get more grimy or gully than that. While we all revert to our hood slang at certain points when we get together, we all know where to place words in a sentence. Having an accent is not the problem. That’s completely different. I am speaking about completely disregarding sentence structure or intentionally mispronouncing words. Like the difference between knowing to say “don’t mean they don’t have no brain” and “doesn’t mean they don’t have a brain”. Or saying I “liked that” instead of “I likededed that”. Or someone who says “you don’t be knowing what you talking about” when it’s “you don’t know what you’re talking about”. That’s what I mean, spelling, punctuation,I can easily forgive that more than those other examples I just gave. Also I do like Cardi, although she can be problematic, I think she’s fun and I honestly try not to take her too seriously. Just enjoy her music and her persona. While she may not be book smart, as I said above, she’s street smart and she hustles. I don’t begrudge her at all. It’s just a a point of contention to me when people automatically make excuses for someone just because they are poor and foreign. I find it insulting. I know literally hundreds of people who can easily disprove that stereotype that she’s reinforcing and playing into (possibly because she doesn’t know any better).
Yes, I understand that the excuse of the poor background doesn’t cut it for you. or anyone. My parents lost their regional accent/and regional grammar before they moved to the capital because people didn’t speak like their family on TV.
However, what you call a mistake became idiomatic to a certain culture and recognised as such. My son, for a lot of reasons, speaks multi-ethnic UK English which is the way cockney evolved and I have a very academic English and it’s all fine – I’m not talking accent but “mistakes”. Both exist and both have rules, actually as all these kids speak the same. As long as there are rules and a community speaks in a certain way, it is a language or a regionalism. Perhaps if we say that instead of the being poor thing it is more acceptable?
My MIL speaks perfect Portuguese but she always makes the same “mistake” – just the one. I ended up understanding that it sounds better to her or it links her to her disadvantaged background. She is a doctor so it’s really bizarre but I’ve come to accept it. Language is a strong mark of identity I guess.
Interesting points from both of you, and I do find @JeanGray’s comment about lowered expectations (paraphrasing) for poor/immigrant populations to be compelling.
Once Cardi entered white American mainstream, is it something akin to virtue signalling to vociferously defend her dialect/conversation points as a means to identify yourself as a supporter of similar come-up stories from POCs?
I also wonder if code switching is tacitly encouraged in some communities/families and not others. Like, would Cardi lose her credibility as a local girl made good if she were to make an effort to adjust her dialect to more “professional” speak? Would she get labeled as “tryna act white”? Is her particular vernacular and dialect more a marketing tactic than a refusal to adopt the kind of speech patterns us regular office-folk immigrants have to in order to be taken seriously?
In any case, once she called herself the “trap Selena” I was kinda hooked on her.
@Lyka, I guess there is a little of both: being genuine regarding her community, the rap community and probably more at ease, viscerally, with the way she is and talks. I agree with @eto, she probably doesn’t want to code switch. My parents’ family never did whereas my parents lost the “imperfect grammar” of their region and their accent.
“Would she get labeled as “tryna act white”?
This! I had an ex boyfriend tell me I “sounded white” because I speak proper English”. (Mind you, I still have a slight “NY-Rican” accent-lol) It’s infuriating and sad that having a good handle on the English language has been equated to “sounding white” .
@JeanGray,
Sorry but I am really finding a resonance with my parents’ history with everything you say so I am replying again. What you describe is the typical reaction of people who feel insecure bc you can navigate all contexts and they probably can’t or won’t. I think that with ethnic minorities it’s a question of negotiating how you place yourself in the community and what you are about. Some people couldn’t care less about grammar and proper talking and for others it’s embarrassing not to.
Slowsnow
Yes, I agree. It’s just a sore subject for me. It’s one thing to be looked down upon and being thought of as “not as smart” by the White power structure because you are a minority of Latino descent and may have an accent, (that’s the racist aspect) but at the same time it’s upsetting to also be looked down upon by your own because you refuse to perpetuate a stereotype of only speaking in “ebonics”. It’s ignorance. I honestly don’s see this happening with South Asian and East Asian kids in America. The stereotype is that immigrants from those countries, are smart and they can speak “proper” English (even though they still do speak in slang and urban terms, even when raised in the same communities as Blacks and Latinos ). No one says they’re trying to act or talk white). But somehow it’s not the same with immigrants from the Caribbean and Latin America. There is a certain mentality that “if you ain’t talking ghetto you wanna be/act white”. It’s a double-edged sword.
What you say is painfully true. I’m in the UK and recently went to NY for the first time. I was really really shocked with the racial and ethnic tension everywhere, especially the subway. I believe that is why clivages are so strong from both sides (those who switch and those who don’t) and I didn’t understand what a lot of people said on this website before I went. I see where you’re coming from I hope.
On a minor scale I experience something similar but less virulent. We’ve lived in different countries and speak different languages. When I go back to Portugal and people hear me mixing languages or using a foreign word that I can’t find in my mother tongue, they side-eye me. Someone even told me that I was betraying my roots for instance. Point is: all my kids speak Portuguese and none of them lived there; none of these people’s kids speak other languages like mine speak theirs and yet I’m criticised. It’s most certainly a sore subject for me!
what if she doesn’t want to code switch?
JeanGray, why does she need a pass? Congrats to you for your accomplishments, though.
People seem to be giving her one for sounding ignorant just because she’s a bilingual Latina from the hood. It’s not an excuse is all I’m saying. All it does is perpetuate a stereotype of the loudmouth, ignorant hood-rat Latina.
The thing with code switching is that people need to talk about why it’s necessary and where our notions of respectability come from. If someone is uneducated, but thoughtful about how the perceive the world, and kind in their interactions with others, does that make them worse than someone who is educated but not thoughtful and unkind?
As for the stereotype of the “loudmouth, ignorant hood-rat Latina”–there are a lot of people who are precisely that who’d ask you what exactly is so wrong with being all of those things and why that means that they’re deserving of less respect on the basis of their education and their background as opposed to their actions or their words. Why do we construe this image as inherently “disrespectful” and put the onus on the people who are like that to “become respectable” rather than interrogate what it is within ourselves that automatically treats them with disrespect?
Education doesn’t warrant respect. Educated people fail to understand the world all the time. People with college degrees often don’t vaccinate their children. Ben Carson is a neurosurgeon and he can’t run the HUD with any competence whatsoever. College educated white women voted for Trump over Clinton. Education isn’t a marker or a signifier of *anything* as far as I’m concerned. This entire administration is proof positive of that.
@A says
All the applause to you! You said everything I wanted to say. There are so many conversations to be had regarding the respectability politics surrounding grammar and dialects.
No, Clinton won college-educated white women. I appreciate your larger point, but do your damn research, or you make us look just as bad as them and their misinformation. Granted, wayyyy too many college educated white women DID vote for Trump, but my point still stands.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2018/01/22/white-women-helped-elect-trump-now-hes-losing-their-support/?utm_term=.a98b4561df15
She has a brand and speaks the language of it. If she busted out with “proper” English, she’d get so much shade. Even Madonna got read for faking that posh accent.
That “don’t mean they don’t have no brain” was click bait for me too. You can be smart and still sound stupid.
Conversely, you can sound smart and be utterly stupid.
I have to reach on back to my Louisiana family member who speaks with a very thick Cajun accent. He should have subtitles above his head in all circumstances. lol
He told the story of someone making fun of a pro athlete from the deep south who just inked a huge contract. He said: What would you rather say? I be rich or I am poor.
That shut that person up pretty quickly.
If she decides she wants to learn, she can, and if she decides EFF that I am me, then I just shrug and say Cool. She doesn’t need to change to fit an inherently biased culture if she doesn’t want to.
I be rich!! 🙂 Seriously, sometimes I think we spend way too much time judging the fuck out of each other when we could be spending much more time enjoying one another. Cardi’s fun, and I admire her hustle which is why I want her to keep (and invest) every dollar she gets. She deserves it.
Yeah I mean she’s harmless and enjoying the fruits of her hard work. Why knock her? We need to lighten up a little and let people just be flawed without it being the end of the world. At least her “flaws” don’t hurt people.
She’s having fun, but like you, I hope she is careful with her money. There are no guarantees that this good fortune is long term.
I don’t think people should be judged the way the football player was…but I do think it is sad that people would rather be rich than educated. The value of an education has fallen so low, and I think it is one of the root causes of a lot of the problems in our society right now. Would Russian trolls have worked so well on a more educated population? Any more, it seems “educated” is used as an insult. See Ted Cruz and his comments on Lisa Simpson.
@Tiffany:)
I believe in education strongly. The value is undeniable no matter what someone chooses to do in life.
But the public school system is grossly unequal, and in some neighborhoods, the kids just give up. If the school quality is based on property taxes, then it is engineered to keep lower income people from having a good shot to climb up the ladder. I know the funding decisions are grossly biased. It takes a support system of some sort and encouragement for those students, and that is not a given.
If I had my way, it wouldn’t be like that.
That is why I don’t judge because there are too many unknown variables that may have discouraged her from that route. I don’t know. Or she may not care. I don’t that either, so I err on the side of giving her a break.
Professional athletes are given lessons to make them more marketable to attract endorsements and maybe a TV spot when they retire. Rappers that speak like Cardi aren’t offered that unless they want to get into acting or they just want to for their own reasons. It isn’t in the label’s interest to encourage them.
@magnoliarose, there is a distinctly racialized undertone attached to the criticism of how people speak. Racialized, and often classist as well, as in your case with your Louisiana relatives.
Hearing people talk about how Cardi B should learn to speak better English makes me think of my family–we’re immigrants. We’re lucky enough to have all been educated in English to varying extents in our home country. My father didn’t get as much exposure as my mom because they studied in different school systems. He still struggles with sentence structure and tone and often puts words in the wrong order. He “sounds” like someone who doesn’t know English, but he has an engineering degree and a master’s degree.
English education is not indicative of someone’s intelligence. My grandma doesn’t speak English very well. But she can read and write in English. She is easily the smartest person in our whole family. She puts all of us to shame every single day. Is she unintelligent too because her spoken English isn’t that great? If that’s the case, then I don’t think I want to be smart. I think I’d rather sound like I’m unintelligent than be so beholden to unnecessary ideas about what makes someone *seem* stupid.
I agree with your points, magnoliarose. The I wasn’t judging CardiB on her levels of education. I was trying (in-artfully) to make a point about how being rich is a bigger aspiration to Americans than to be educated. Also, that being educated is associated with elitism and mocked. I understand and mourn the fact that our education system is so drastically imbalanced. Your point about people being discouraged from dreaming about an education is powerful.
My heart also goes out to athletes who are discouraged from focusing on education. They are 1 injury away from losing their careers, and I think financial interests can keep their advisors from truly putting the athlete’s interests first.
I don’t see people who lack an education as a problem, but I do think it is a symptom of a great failure of our country. Equality in education is necessary for equality in all other areas. An educated populace is necessary for democracy to fully function .
@A
Your points make a lot of sense. Acadians were treated like dirt in Lousiana and discriminated against because they spoke French. Students were punished for it in school. Some of my relatives live in areas with the highest concentrations of people like them, so some of the people from the older generation switch back and forth when they talk.
Now the state wants to recapture the culture because it fascinates people and is uniquely Louisiana. But for years and years, it wasn’t that way and not speaking perfect English meant less opportunity and low paying jobs. They were shamed for their language. Their accents are very strong though some of the younger people’s accents are less so, it doesn’t reveal anything about their intelligence or education at all.
My other grandparents are immigrants, but their backgrounds gave them a leg up before they arrived.
@Tiffany:)
I hear you and agree. America does a shoddy job with education, and it is a disservice to the students and our country. So many potentially brilliant minds never get a chance to develop because very few people in power actually care.
The kids see money as the only way to improve their circumstances because the system isn’t interested in them. They hook their dreams on the improbable odds that they will be one of the chosen and lucky whose talents or skills will make them wealthy.
If universities are going rake in massive amounts of money based on their athletics, then they should also guarantee a high-quality education. If they continue to refuse to make it a priority, then they should pay the athletes instead of exploiting them.
I think about all the little girls around the world who are desperate to learn and all the children living in poverty who dream of access to basic education and see how it is thrown away by privileged people; I become frustrated.
I dont think she is dumb or hate on her for being a stripper but i also dont want young woman to view stripping as a career path. It can be a terribly abusive industry that exploits women at every opportunity. Im glad it was an avenue to Cardi to escape a bad situation but i think she is the exception not the rule.
I totally support a woman’s right to chose that job for herself. If she is in a mentally healthy state and it isn’t emotionally destructive to her, more power to her. We all have different skills and some people are super talented at being sexy. Why shouldn’t they be able to make money from their skill set?
I have known strippers who weren’t in such a good place, though, and it really messed with their heads. At first they thought they were exerting power and control, but then they would also feel abused and degraded. One friend went from feeling great about it to feeling kind of broken as a person. She looked at men differently. Not everyone is going to feel that way, though. I would really feel bad for a woman if I knew she felt pressured into doing it or thought that was her only option.
At the end of the day, I tend to agree with Missy Elliot:
“Ain’t no shame, ladies do your thing
Just make sure you ahead of the game”
That is my take too. It can turn bad quickly, and it isn’t ideal for a lot of women, but it is their body and their choices. They aren’t dirty or less than anyone else. No one else has the right to tell a woman what to do with her body or how she should present herself.
We are all aware of the pitfalls and stereotypes so if someone decides to go down that road they know what they are doing. They will learn either way and determine if it is worth it.
@Umyeah, she’s talked about that I think, at some length in various interviews. I don’t think she really idealizes stripping as much as she’s honest about what it took to get to her position from where she was at. But she did talk about how she had to switch clubs because the place she was working at couldn’t afford to protect her from customers whereas the place she went to could.
I lover her. I know she’s said some problematic things before, but she’s right about people’s backgrounds and beliefs, everyone is different. I think people tend to forget that this era of becoming educated and sensitive to subjects and issues that offend different people is a fairly recent societal endeavour.
I’m Dominican too and she reminds me of the people I grew up with. She has a lot of common values from this culture, and not all of that is going to sit well with a lot of people. In general no one can please everybody, and I get why celebrities (specially female celebrities) are pressured to say and act the right way all the time, what they do does influence and affect lot of people–but I genuinely think she tries. For example, I find it awesome that she seems to be an LGBT+ ally –specially with her background, I can say most religious dominican people are not easily open to this.
Anyways, I hope she stays true to herself and doesn’t succumb to the pressures of this sudden fame.
Cardi B may not have a formal education, but she has a lot of street smarts and you can’t buy that shizz.
I agree, Kaiser, that Charming Potato gets to proudly own his stripper past with little to no judgment from others. Cardi does not get the same benefit of the doubt.
It’s the same with the fashion industry. I’m aware of 2 male models who did p0rn when they were barely legal. Pretty sure it was j–koff/solo stuff. Still, they have legit modeling careers. I can’t recall any female fashion model in a similar situation. A woman who was a former stripper or a former p0rn model (whether soft or hardcore) would never be given the same opportunity because they would so judge her past. As if fashion people can take the moral high ground! And I’m not talking about a brief stint as some kind of notorious novelty act. She would never get a real career as a top model. Once again, men get a pass and women are held to a much higher standard. Ugh.
That is absolutely true and I forgot Kaiser’s point which is more than fair.
Nope, she wouldn’t get a pass. Absolutely right. I will only say that women in the industry out-earn men by a lot and have higher visibility so more rides on her reputation. Usually, she starts under the legal age, so it is less likely to happen. Because the goal is to get a campaign to bring in some hefty contracts, it would be a detriment.
Double standards are definitely at play, and it isn’t fair, but our society has set that standard, and at the end of the day, it is about money. Not values or self-righteousness. It is about appealing to as many people as possible.
And also the wealthy women who buy the clothes aren’t always open minded and would balk at wearing something a porn actress has been seen wearing. Many are VERY conservative from conservative countries.
I am not sure it is fixable because the porn industry is seen in such a negative light overall.
You make valid points, magnoliarose.
I would have to roll my eyes at those wealthy and conservative clients clutching their pearls over a female model who did, for example, nude Playboy or Penthouse type photos in her past. I mean, fashion advertising is often very sexually charged. There are ad campaigns with homoerotic images, simulated orgies, simulated gang rape, B&D, S&M, “twincest”, etc. There have been runway shows where you can witness male & female models showing all their bits. Nudity and manufactured controversy are so commonplace in that industry.
I think it highly hypocritical for these conservative fashion consumers to balk at something shilled by a former stripper-turned-model, yet be okay with all the other unsubtle sexual images that fashion churns out regularly.
I agree. The hypocrisy is laughable. Especially since some of the women have pasts that would make a pornstar clutch their pearls and are currently engaged in let us just say less than conservative behaviors. Lol
I really have a soft spot for Cardi B. She is so effortlessly funny. I understand the need to defend being or having been a stripper. I cannot understand or find arguments in me to defend stripping though, neither the “I am rich” or “I could have any basketball player”. Nevertheless, life is way too complex to judge one single person on it instead of trying to understand their story. She is catering to a certain kind of culture with the rich factor and she did strip, which does not make her a silly woman or a demented nymphomaniac, or anything else people might accuse her of.
Double negative…ugh
She was cancelled for me because she drapes herself in fur constantly. Wearing fur shows me you have no brain, or heart.
Preach.
I don’t pay much attention to her antics, but yeah, her use of fur, the inherent cruelty of it, and the pretentious age-old promotion of it as a sign of wealth and glamour – I will judge her harshly. It’s a sad lack of empathy. The same goes for Aretha Franklin.
Exactly – I don’t care how much money you have, or how smart you think you are, if you partake in the violent torture and death of beautiful animals so you can wear their f*cking skin, I have no time for you.
I am anti-fur so on that, I have very strong opinions. I try to avoid spending money to support celebrities who wear fur.
Yeah, so. I am two years away from finishing a PhD in English from a top university. And when I am not rolling my eyes at someone posting a racist, classist comment on a gossip site, when I am not teaching, or writing, or otherwise acting in my capacity as a professional, I speak in Southern American English, and Cardi B’s sentence is precisely what I might say in the moment, were I just chatting.
The point about her not changing? Was possibly missed by a few of the commenters here.
👆 what she said
Who are the certain people that like her?
I’m guessing we will hear about this on Wendy William’s show Monday…as her HOT TOPICS crew seem to touch on the celebs that show up on Celebitchy within a day or two of their mention on here. She’s a huge fan of Cardi B too…
Here’s MY take on this whole linguistic’s thing. If she’s smart enough to earn millions by age 25, she should be smart enough to know when she sounds like a low-educated individual. I don’t care how you explain it away…it still sounds like she’s trash. Take the time to learn the English language…and don’t wonder why people aren’t impressed with you when you’re around educated people.
” I don’t care how you explain it away…it still sounds like she’s trash. Take the time to learn the English language…”
How should she speak in order to prove that she isn’t garbage? I never realized that too much intelligence and education could put one at risk of becoming dependent upon hearing a certain dialect in order to detect another’s humanity. That’s quite a heap of book-learnin’!
@Suzanne, does *sounding* like a lowly educated individual make someone a lowly educated individual? Why put on a pretense if it’s not necessary? What does it serve, except make some people feel better about themselves?
The dialect you speak doesn’t make you trash. What you do makes you trash. And I don’t mean stripping for a living.
If you want examples of real trash, look inside the current White House and Congress.
Jwoolman for the win. Anything connected to the New World enslaved and their descendants is denigrated including speech and naming. Somehow, Ivanka escapes notice (It’s European!) while Taniqua indicates subhumanity.
make it stop
Stripping for money is entertainment. The ONLY thing I have against women doing this for a living is that they do come in contact with some really unsavory people. Same thing with sex workers.
As far as I’m concerned sex work should be legalized, regulated and the women should form a damn union to protect themselves. Men paying to watch women and men pursuing women for sex for a price has been happening time out of mind and will continue as long as we inhabit this earth. The streetwalkers AND the high priced call girls should all be protected and allowed to do their job in safety. As far as strippers not having brains, what a load of bull. A good portion of them strip and pole dance to work their way through COLLEGE.
I promise you that many Hispanics speak with double negatives. It’s something I roll my eyes at every single day. It translates that way in Spanish but it’s totally improper English.
There are native English dialects that use double negatives.
It is also not uncommon for English dialects to be influenced by another language that was an original language for the people who developed it. It is not surprising that the double negative in Spanish survived the trip into English dialects spoken by Hispanic Americans. We see similar transfers for dialects originating from German-speaking or French-speaking or Swedish-speaking etc. immigrants long ago. We can also hear transfers of sounds from the original languages in regional English accents.
The academic English dialect you consider as “proper” English is just another dialect. It is an important one to learn because it provides a common language for understanding each other. But other dialects used by native speakers of English are not wrong, just different. You may be too close to it to feel this way yet, but the diversity of dialects and the influences on them are really quite fascinating.
As soon as someone says “proper” instead of “standard” or “academic” English, I see the ideology of white supremacy or internalized WASP supremacy.
Language is alive and changes. One day the word “dis” is not “proper” & the next year it’s in the dictionary spoken by college professors.
Technically, we Americans don’t even speak the proper English dialect. My mom speaks in double negatives because she thinks in a different language (her native language) and that’s the way it translates for her. My mom is a college graduate and has been a teacher for the last 25 years of her life. My mom is a bad ass, educated, intelligent woman. Double negatives don’t make her improper. Same thing for Cardi.
The interview is fine but I dislike her, and her brand.
I think she’s big now because she’s so different from everyone else that is mainstream, and people feel like she’s a breath of fresh air, but then you sit down and listen to her lyrics, spend some time on her IG, see that disgusting live video of her simulating sex with her bf, on A LIVE VIDEO (yes fully clothed), and you realize she’s just another product making money for someone else. If she’s pregnant well… congrats but I think the industry wont forgive nor will her label and managers.
But she will survive. Im sure. She’s made for that.
I, for one, cant stand listening to her not because of her bad english – my first language isn’t english either and i live in a portuguese speaking country so I cant fault her – but because she mostly talks crap. Crap. And more crap.
All the best to her though. I hope she succeeds in Life.
I agree with you @Mimz
I don’t care how she speaks, her music is bland and she just is recycling the same tired rap tropes that everyone else does. There is nothing refreshing about her.
I mean Lil Kim and Foxy Brown did it first.
I guess she is something fresh for the younger generations..
She gets a meh and I personally think she’ll fade much like Niki Minaj et all..
I just hope she has some good business and financial planners on her team.
on another note, this thread is very interesting and aside from starter comment, quite respectful and informative!!
I am not a fan of her music either. It lacks that gut punch and flow I love. I could write a thesis about why hip hop appealed to me at a young age and when I hear something that catches my ear and makes me stop I know I like it.
I haven’t had that feeling in a long time. Sigh
@Minz–she’s not speaking “bad English” though. It sounds incorrect, but it’s a particular form of dialect that’s regional and specific to where she’s from (aka New York city/the Bronx). Her music isn’t for everyone, but I think it’s wrong to single her out for “speaking incorrectly” when she isn’t. She’s speaking correctly per her vernacular.
Well put.
I am a black person & believe me when I tell you we have been culture jacked to the highes order. I remember when BILL COSBY called us blacks out for over utilizing slag, I myself remember how I had to talk different around non black folk in the late 80’s, being shamed for blasting hip hop lower than 96th street bcus that MUSIC was frowned upon. Guess what, none of those things make blacks dumb, it made us, US! so now to see how people write and talk dumb on purpose i.e. talkenbout, using double negatives ‘jus cus a person was a stripper mean they done have a brain’ the whole whole mesh thing, ‘mansplaining’ those came from us blending words. My how its taken off, also note one can choose to misspell, jus to get a FEEL from the way words come off the tongue. this is a sign of HIGHER intelligence, not stupidity!
GO CARDI
DONE
Yeah I don’t care for Cardi because of the fur thing but some of the comments here are really gross–racist and classist.
People seem to forget that AAVE DOES have rules–it’s not random–so this insinuation that it’s symptomatic of a lack of education or poverty and not a DELIBERATE, chosen dialect is bullshit. It’s a learned way of speaking–rich in both origin and history–which is both creative and distinctly clever IMO.
This thread is a reminder of our (white people) biases and ignorance regarding AAVE and a lot of non-white dialects, actually.
It’s really really interesting to see white people and media in particular co-opt so much of black slang, while simultaneously turn around and disparage black people for “speaking incorrectly.”
You don’t get to use their slang and then refuse to respect its roots. You can’t use elements of black culture and then disrespect the creators of said culture. The notion that using slang automatically disqualifies anyone from having a valid opinion is baseless, not to mention classist and racist.
I know plenty of intellectuals who say egregious, disgraceful and outright offensive things while speaking in grammatically correct sentences. The idea that they have more validity in stating their outright falsehoods than someone who speaks the truth, even if it’s in the vernacular, is something that we have to work on dismantling. Notions of respectability should always be examined–who do we respect, why do we respect them, and is that the right thing to do?
If she’s smart as she claims to be, let’s hope she’s learning to manage her money. Who knows how long her career will last.
This comment section is fascinating today. I keep coming back to read the latest.
I agree, it’s a fascinating conversation. In general, I may agree or disagree with what’s said, I feel like the commenters here always have a strong, valid point of view and express themselves so eloquently. And graciously.
re: Cardi. I’m down with everything she says and represents except the fur. That’s problematic.
I honestly didn’t even realize it was real fur until this comment section. I’m NEVER ok with that. I’m honestly conditioned to assume fur is fake at this point, which is wrong of me, but dammit. Why aren’t we past this at this point?
I don’t particularly care for her music, but admire her hustle and respect her ability to market herself so successfully. I cannot, however, stand the pitch/tone of her speaking voice – it is so so grating.
Love her. She’s real. Good for her.
I think she’s being a fool when it comes to Offset, but maybe they have an open relationship. Like she said, that’s between them.
That sentence was just slang, vernacular. Just like I, being from the south, often say things like “y’all” and “fixin’ to” and “If you don’t care to” with my Southern accent. I graduated magna cum laude with a BA in English and communications – how people talk is simply how they communicate verbally. She’s giving an interview, not writing a thesis.
I like her in interviews a lot. She’s got a good mix of attitude and graciousness, and she’s funny. But I really can’t with her music – okay, I liked ‘Bodak Yellow’ so I tried listening to some more of her stuff and I could not get into it. But that’s just me.
Double negatives in a sentence *are* a no no. Is that what you meant?
http://ocw.lms.athabascau.ca/mod/book/view.php?id=3927&chapterid=289
I like her. Sure, she’s not perfect. But I think there’s a sincerity to her that is lacking in a lot of other people. She makes no bones about herself, and I respect what she has to say on the subject of her relationship. I think she’s willing and open to questioning a lot of things, and she’s talked about her fame and how she’s afraid for it’s longevity in a way that a lot of others wouldn’t. So I think at least, she’s got the ability to be thoughtful and that’s nice.
I’ve said it before–there is a lot of respectability politics surrounding the way people talk about her. That’s a shame, considering again, she’s rather thoughtful in her approach to many things, and I think people could stand to learn from that. It’s really dismaying to see educated people dismiss her out of hand because she doesn’t speak in the way they think intelligent people should speak, rather than examine the content of her words.
I like her a lot more than I do Amal(whom I also like, but dislike the pygmalioning she’s gotten over the last 4 years). Usually those people whom are educated are likely to be fans of Amal because she fits the cookie cutter idea of a modern woman (more brains than beauty, doesn’t get chastised if she’s both as long as her career field is a respectable one).
I like what she says about relationship. She didn’t try to make it a feminist or empowering decision, instead she just said what it is: her life, her choice.
Let’s see how she uses her brain over time.
Love her!!
I’ve booked marked this thread to remind me NOT to watch my Ps and Qs.
So it’s okay when Beyonce and Jay-Z work out his INSANE infidelity and she makes a song calling out the other woman and allows her sister to attack her husband but it’s not okay when Cardi B decides to work it out with her man Offset? Please. Let the girl be.