Ramadan

This post is from last week, not this week, but it’s still timely and, I think, attention-worthy. It is republished from http://hindelhag.wordpress.com/.

Ramadan is known as the ninth month of the Islamic calendar and when The Holy Quran was first revealed by Allah to The Prophet Muhammed. During this month, followers of the Islamic religion fast from sunrise to sunset everyday for the entire month. Little do many people outside of the religion know, Ramadan is not just an experience in which we Muslims abstain from food for the benefit of good karma, but it is a time to purify our souls, direct our full and undivided attention to God, and a time to practice self restraint from impurities. Ramadan is one of the five pillars of Islam, making it obligatory on every sane person with the exception of the ill, the old, women who are menstruating, pregnant, or breastfeeding and those in journey. The challenge of refraining from all foods including water throughout a long 18 hour day is certainly severely exhausting, but with a positive mindset and a reminder of why one may be fasting, the month of Ramadan should ease through like it was filled with days of full feast. Like previously stated, Ramadan does not only take place for the purpose of fasting, but as a chance for Muslims to get rid of all sins and habits that may have taken place in the past year and allow muslims to gain forgiveness as they draw closer to God.

As a student at Georgia State University and a resident of the on-campus dorms known as Piedmont North, I find myself asking the question of why the dinning halls (that I am fully obligated to pay for in the course of the two months that I am here) do not take notice of Ramadan and give Muslim students the opportunity to eat when the sun sets. For the past days, it has been a difficult task finding places near by that are open after business hours, to grab dinner and enjoy after 18 hours of fasting. The inconsideracy of the dinning hall makes absolutely no sense to me. It is quiet puzzling that despite Georgia State’s diversity, not much attention is directed towards the numerous amount of the Muslim student body. Would it really be necessary for a protest to take place in order for Georgia State’s campus dining halls to take notice of this issue and take action?

“You Said You Wanted A…What?”

This piece is reposted from http://dhall47.wordpress.com/

Growing up in a mixed race family has many challenges.  Like many interracial couples, my white, all-American father met my Korean mother while he was in the military.  She spoke minimal English at best and knew nothing about the American lifestyle.  Considering that I never learned how to speak or understand Korean and had a predominantly white upbringing, I understood remarkably little about her.  This would be the cause of the turmoil I faced throughout most of my life.

From an early age, I had to translate her terribly broken English to everyone she spoke to.  Whenever we pulled into a drive-thru restaurant, my mom would place the order and I would wait for the employee’s inevitable confusion.  “I’m sorry, could you repeat that?” “Ma’am, I can’t understand you.” “You said you wanted a…what?” Back and forth until both parties started to get frustrated.  Finally, embarrassed, I would lean over my mother and shout out the order.  Never the one to be phased, my mother would go on as if nothing ever happened.  I, on the other hand, would press my palms to my face and hide.

As I got a bit older, I realized that it wasn’t the end of the world to have to translate for my mother.  The end of the world was actually the fact that I had to excuse her boorish manners or lack thereof.  My mom was a prime example of the post Korean War attitude: hurry, hurry, hurry.  She never had time to wait to hold doors open for other people.  There wasn’t enough time in a day to remember to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’? And who had the time to slowly and quietly chew their food?  Smack. Smack. Smack.  With each wet smack, my spine would crawl.  Fortunately for her, I, overflowing with good manners, was always right behind her to make up for her brutish ways.

In the end, however, I learned that the hardest thing about being my mother’s daughter is the language barrier between us. Our inability to properly communicate with each other lead to much discord.  We fought constantly; very few conversations ended civilly.  Neither one of us knew how to stop because neither one of us knew what the other person was actually saying.  The confusion lead to anger and that anger lead to resentment.  After I moved out, we rarely spoke.  Fortunately, the desire to bridge the gap that lay between us grew as I slowly matured.  I reached out to her, and she readily accepted the olive branch.  We continue to work on rebuilding our relationship today, ironing out the kinks left behind by the language barrier.

Ebonics as a Language

This piece is reposted from http://mompointc.wordpress.com/ 

Ebonics should not be classified as a language. It comes down to a hypocritical and contradiction of what blacks fought for initially. Blacks fought to be equal with whites, but every opportunity they acquire they try to differentiate themselves and label themselves their own people. Is “Ebonics” a matter of African Americans having their own language as a way of making an identity for themselves or a way of separating themselves from a society their already a part of?

Those in favor of Ebonics as a language argue that, blacks should have their own language because they have their own culture. Ebonics is considered a “black language” so in all actuality blacks are shutting people who aren’t black away from the whole culture. Ebonics is nothing but a form a dialect. The way a person from up North talk is different from someone from the South but we don’t identify them as different form of the English language. They’re simply dialect. It all comes from the same place, same country, which makes it the same language, one language, English. Ebonics is nothing but an informal way of speaking English.

African Americans also try to steer themselves away from other people referring to them as black. They didn’t want their language to be called “Black English” so they came up with the word, Ebonics which comes from the words ebony and phonics. The word ebony is just another form of black. They’re “sugar coating” the word black but the meaning of a word doesn’t change.

Most common goals for people include getting good grades, getting a good job or even meeting famous people. Speaking Ebonics will not help you do any of these. You cannot make an A on a paper if it isn’t written in Standard English. If you’re in an interview, you speak Standard English not Ebonics. If one had the opportunity to meet the president, would they speak in Ebonics? Dr. Robert L. Williams is the man who coined the term Ebonics, yet during his interview with George Yancy about it, he spoke nothing but Standard English.

There are many different languages in the world. If I go to Spain, it would be best I learn some Spanish. If I go to Germany, I should have some knowledge of German. If someone from France was to come to America, would it be necessary for them to know English and Ebonics?