Rand Paul’s trip to Howard University yesterday is being covered like a junket to another country, but I don’t think this is quite as persuasive as Rand thinks it is:
When asked by a former Obama intern how he felt about voter ID laws, Paul said he didn’t think it was a burden for people to show a driver’s license to maintain the integrity of the polls, but didn’t approve of 100-page literacy tests Democrats forced blacks to take during reconstruction to suppress their vote.
For more on the vacuous”Democrats were the real racists” line see Steve Benen, but of course the real question is “what have you done for African Americans lately”. The answer to that is “suppressed votes”. And, typically, a noble lie:
A student told asked him to clarify his comments about the 1964 Civil Rights Act during his 2010 campaign in which he seemed to imply he wasn’t supportive of the act. “I have never questioned the Civil Rights Act,” he said, but he questioned if the law’s application now requiring restaurants to ban smoking and provide standardized menus with food calorie counts.
Going back through the old reports, the bottom line is that Rand questioned the civil rights act on the Maddow show, “clarified” his position all week through spokesman, and finally came out for it in 2010, a mere 46 years after it was passed.
Do you think Rand Paul would consider someone who was soft on abortion or guns, and couldn’t even make up his mind on them until 2010, a strong ally? Expecting African Americans to do what he wouldn’t do is just one more instance of how unserious Paul, or any other Republican, is about “outreach”.
BGinCHI
As usual the media can’t find a way to think critically about what people like Rand Paul and others in the GOP are doing. If they did they would realize that no one should give a fuck about how they “feel.”
They would look at policy, at actions that have consequences, and then make judgments.
When Rand Paul proposes a piece of legislation that recognizes and helps the struggles of minorities or the poor or children then there might be something to talk about.
Until then?
It’s just bullshit no thinking person should fall for.
Missouri Buckeye
As the NPR newsreader said, this was “also” aimed at “Moderate White Americans”.
It seemed blatant to me that Paul using arguments that had no chance of converting a African-American audience, but would make him seem “reasonable” to those “Moderate White Americans” Paul needs to give him hope for 2016. But I’m cynical that way.
Forum Transmitted Disease
So…he went to Howard and while not lying his ass off about everything, implied Democrats are the real racists for stuff that happened a hundred and fifty years ago.
Anyone shocked?
Mudge
I guess Rand is so used to dealing with the rubes that he assumes everyone can be conned. I found it interesting that he went to Howard (in DC with the full press corps around) rather than Kentucky State, the historically black college that would have actual voters listening. I am sad that no one asked him about DC statehood, since so many African Americans are disenfranchised there.
Litlebritdifrnt
Somewhat on topic in this thread. This Guardian piece about introducing anonymous resumes to foil the silent discrimination that goes on.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/work-blog/2013/apr/11/can-anonymous-cvs-help-beat-job-discrimination?CMP=twt_gu
Which of course I have been railing about for years, because when parents give their children “unique” (aka unpronounceable and stupid) names they end up hobbling them for life when it comes to even getting called in for an interview. Their resume is the first one that is thrown in the trash.
From the piece
a commenter
@Missouri Buckeye:
Yeah, this is about all there is to say about it. It’s not outreach, it’s camouflage.
(North Korea-quality camoflage, but that’s good enough to fool the media and low-information whites).
Schlemizel
If the wetbacks and coloreds were not so damn touchy everything would be fine!
I think MB has it exactly right – this is not about winning friends amongst the lower species, its about letting the haystacks think that they are not racist while voting for the people that will keep the coloreds in their place.
kindness
So….Rand’s Dad is Crazy Uncle Liberty. What are we going to call Rand (besides asshole)?
Amir Khalid
I’m starting to suspect that somewhere in the Republican party there is a politician’s manual, titled “How To Talk To The Coloured Peoples”. And that it hasn’t been updated in a while.
BGinCHI
@kindness: How about Asshole Jr.?
eric
@Amir Khalid: Chapter One: Talking to Northern Coloreds; Chapter Two: Talking to Southern Coloreds; Chapter Three: Interview Questions to Ask Potential Slaves.
schrodinger's cat
@Litlebritdifrnt: So should Obama have gone by Barry? And should we all Anglicize our names, what about last names, just change them as well?
Certified Mutant Enemy
@kindness:
Crazy Cousin Liberty?
SatanicPanic
Rand is also playing to the idiots in our media who think it’s a brave thing to tell minorities all the ways that they suck.
Lee
How would he feel about that?
Mike in NC
@Amir Khalid: Like Mitt Romney appearing before the NAACP to get some sound bites for his campaign.
Ben Franklin
So. the Rand doesn’t like the government interfering in restaurant bizness or protecting people from themselves. He must be happy with our President on GMO. People should be free to eat what their betters prepare for them.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57576835/critics-slam-obama-for-protecting-monsanto/
Cassidy
@SatanicPanic: That’s all it is. It seems at this point, one of the blocks to check to get Republican Primary street cred is to go to an African-American College and say something offensive.
Amir Khalid
@schrodinger’s cat:
Emil Caleb? Hmm. Nope, I’m not feeling it. I think I’d rather be a Fifi Trixibelle.
MikeJ
@Amir Khalid:
Found it.
Litlebritdifrnt
@schrodinger’s cat:
He did for a while, that’s why the birthers say he can’t be POTUS remember. :) I am not saying people should change their names, and perhaps the anonymous resume is the way to go, all I am saying (and I am not alone, I think Bill Cosby opined on it too), is that by trying to come up with an “exotic” or “unique” name for your child you had better think of how it will affect said child’s future.
I make a point of going through the graduation announcements in our local paper every year and picking out the most egregious examples, you would not believe what some parents choose to saddle their kids with. Last year there was both a “Mustapha” and a “Simba” simple math tells you both kids were born the year The Lion King came out. I would have thought that common sense would tell you not to name your child after a Disney character.
c u n d gulag
Republicans, when you talk about “outreach,” may I respectfully suggest that you not have a whip in one hand, and a noose in the other?
“Blah” folks might thing you want to crack ‘out’ that whip, and ‘reach’ for their necks to put the noose around.
Then, you might finally start getting somewhere!
As for the kid’s name, how about we call him “Crazy Uncle Liberies” “TEH STOOOOPID Son?”
Villago Delenda Est
Well, both Pauls are racist sacks of shit whose heads would look MUCH better on pikes than their shoulders, so there’s that right there.
Cassidy
@Ben Franklin: You are becoming a parody of a purity troll. But of course, always Obama’s fault. Little things like no funding, furloughs and layoffs to thousands of employees, etc. are no big thing compared to making sure an ideological stand is taken on food labeling. Here’s a juicebox. Go pat yourself on the back.
Zifnab
What really killed me with Rand Paul’s “cognitive dissonance” tour was his insistence that college students at Howard U. were going to be gulled by a lecture on African American history.
“Well, hey! Did you know that Black people used to favor the Republican Party nearly universally? And that Democrats were once the party that officially supported segregation? And that the NAACP was originally formed by black elected politicians who were members of the Republican Party? DID YOU EVEN KNOW?!”
Yes, Rand. Folks attending a college that prides itself on a focus towards African American history, literature, and politics were totally unaware of African American history, literature, and politics.
My god, the White Man’s Burden of leading those stupid negroes around by the hand must be damn near crushing you. Have you tried talking more loudly and in very small words? Because I bet if you just engage in a little more condescension, you’ll really manage a break through.
schrodinger's cat
@Litlebritdifrnt: I take your point, I know someone who named their child Brazen.
ETA: But sometimes is not just the first name that sets you apart it is also the last name. So to get a job I have to erase all traces of my heritage? That’s depressing.
Ben Franklin
@Cassidy:
Hey, I’m just trying to balance the equation. If Obama can go on the road for gunz, ostensibly because so many are dying, what would be the harm in making a couple of speeches for a more dangerous product.
But you’re right. He’s not the only one to blame.
Chris
@Zifnab:
One wonders if the Rand Paul’s of the world ever pause and ask; “WELL, GEE! What could POSSIBLY have made them change their minds?”
marshall
The rich thing about all of this (and don’t think for one second that this was lost on his audience) is that all of those racists became republicans, and today dominate the republican party.
Suffern ACE
@Mudge: The press might not have followed him to kentucky. However, Howard/Shaw is a neighborhood a dozen or so blocks from where they all work that they probably hadn’t been to very often. So they probably think it’s pathbreaking.
Next week, they’ll be showing him at Gallaudet University, explaining to the kids there that the Americans with Disability Act is for suckers.
Amir Khalid
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Mind you, Mustapha is a good traditional name in the Muslim world. I also recall that some decades back there was a fashion for Arabic names among African-American families, including some that weren’t Muslim themselves. Simba, though, I don’t know about.
ETA: I don’t remember a character named Mustapha in The Lion King. The character voiced by James Earl Jones was King Mufasa.
SatanicPanic
@Cassidy: For Republicans it’s up there with kissing babies and stuffing your face with enormous corndogs.
Cassidy
@Ben Franklin: Apples and oranges. The CR was pretty important and the bullshit packed in it was wrong and the people who put it in there need to be held accountable. Blaming the POTUS for signing something to keep Federal employees employed is dumb.
El Cid
‘Did any of y’all know that a long time ago, millions of Africans immigrated to this country aboard English and other ships, and often it wasn’t even of their choice?’
Missouri Buckeye
@Chris: It’s because the Democrat Party gives those underserving poors free money so they can buy Cadillacs and cell phones.
Next question.
Ben Franklin
@Cassidy:
What is Obama’s position on GMO, in a vacuum? Haven’t heard anything since 2008.
schrodinger's cat
@Amir Khalid: I used to know a Mustapha when I was in high school. I had a huge crush on him, while he didn’t even know that I existed. Sigh!
TCG
@Litlebritdifrnt: I’m African-American and I have never understood the “ghetto” names. And unfortunately, that’s how they are viewed. I know people who go by their middle names because their first names have been problematic. I knew a woman who’s granddaughter was named Clitoria.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Amir Khalid: I know that, and with the anti-Islamic sentiment in some areas of the country (see the idiot in NC here)
http://www.loonwatch.com/2013/04/north-carolina-state-rep-michele-presnell-compares-islamic-prayer-to-terrorism/
it would probably get your resume thrown in the trash too.
I don’t know when this trend of just making names up started, by that I mean just throwing a bunch of letters together separated by two or three apostrophes and thinking its cool.
ETA – I spelled it wrong. :)
marshall
@Mudge:
Someone did.
Read the entire article. Rand Paul does not come off sounding like a straight-shooter, at least to me.
Zifnab
@Chris: I’m honestly left to think they’ve bought their own bullshit lies. “Democrats tricked those stupid black people into voting for them back in the 60s and 70s, because black people are just so easily duped. I bet we could dupe them right back, and build an unconquerable alliance of rich old whites, gullible whites, and gullible minorities, if we could just find the magic words that Dems used to trick black people into voting for them.”
So now they’re running around spouting baloney rhetoric and insisting “Plantations! Abe Lincoln! MLK was a Republican! Democrats have failed you!” in their loudest voices. Because that’s how LBJ tricked everyone into voting Democrat for the last 60 years, right? Right?
Cassidy
@Ben Franklin: And it pertains to this conversation how? How acute does your ODS have to be that in a post about Rand Paul going to an African American college to let all them darkies know who the real racists and be maliciously offensive so that the various Breitbrats, Malkins and Erickson’s can simultaneously cum all over their laptops, you still manage to bring up something Obama has done “wrong” about a completely unrelated topic?
SatanicPanic
@Ben Franklin: Who cares? GMO dangers were and continue to be highly overstated. I can agree that our system of farming isn’t the best, but this FRANKENFOODS! hysteria is embarassing.
catclub
@schrodinger’s cat: ” I know someone who named their child Brazen.”
Son of Elizabeth Hussy?
Ben Franklin
@Cassidy:
And it pertains to this conversation how?
Well my first comment shows the relationship. But don’t let me interrupt your festival.
Patricia Kayden
@Missouri Buckeye: Well, it certainly wasn’t aimed at Black voters. How many would vote for Paul in 2016 if he’s the Repub Presidential candidate? Please.
Gin & Tonic
@schrodinger’s cat: I had a good friend, years ago, who had a very complex and almost completely unpronounceable (to English-speakers) surname. He moved to California for family reasons, and started looking for work for which he was experienced and qualified. Never even got a callback. After months of frustration, he legally changed his surname to a simple 4-letter sequence from the middle of his original surname, and landed a job within a month.
MattF
The scary bit is that Paul may be completely serious. There’s an unproved existence theorem in there somewhere– “Can Rand Paul really believe the things he says he does and still exist as a material object?”
Amir Khalid
@TCG:
There’s that sexist double standard again. Nobody would look askance at a man named Johnson.
raven
The girls around the corner named their little one “Arrow”.
marshall
@Suffern ACE:
The people I know who actually live in DC get up there a lot. If, for example, you go to the 9:30 Club (a DC institution), you are at the southern edge of the Howard dorms. True, for the tourists from the Suburbs, it’s a little off the beaten track.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ben Franklin: Ah yes, the old “speaking of bipeds, how about this unrelated thing” gambit. Sneaky.
Yutsano
@Cassidy: The troll has succeeded. Off the rails the thread went. Sigh.
EconWatcher
@Gin & Tonic:
My wife is an immigrant and would rather have kept her Russian last name, but she ultimately decided to take my boring whitebread last name because life is just a whole lot easier.
That said, she and other immigrants will tell you that Americans are very welcoming to immigrants of all kinds when compared to Euros. There really is no comparison.
Cassidy
@Ben Franklin: No it doesn’t. At least be honest.
Comrade Dread
@Gin & Tonic: I’ve read about studies where that was exactly the case. They took the same resume and on one, they put a common name like Christopher while on the other copy, they put on a more ‘black’ name like Dre’shawn.
Suffice to say, Christopher got far more call backs about an interview.
raven
@Amir Khalid: You can call me Ray or you can call me Jay but ya doesn’t have to call me. . .
Ben Franklin
@Omnes Omnibus:
Gee I’m sorry I spoiled the koffee klatch. Mebbe there’s some re-runs of American Idol you can switch to.
SatanicPanic
@Yutsano: I promise not to feed it anything else.
schrodinger's cat
@catclub: Daughter actually.
raven
@SatanicPanic: I could post some more pictures?
Cassidy
@SatanicPanic: Yeah. Firebaggers with ODS are bad enough, but I don’t have much use for liars.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Amir Khalid: Not quite equivalent. Imagine a man whose name is Penilsar.
marshall
On names – Texas Gov. “Big Jim” Hogg named his daughter Ima.
Yes, Ima Hogg. She did OK, once oil was discovered on her land.
Yutsano
@SatanicPanic: Good call. Getting an honest argument out of that one is like getting a Republican to vote for sensible laws. Not gonna happen in our lifetimes.
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): Hey a name change did wonders for Piyush Jindal. He could even pretend to be a Republican!
raven
I knew a young lady named Kama Nhist!
Cassidy
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): Should have named her Delores.
Eric U.
I think the thing about the Dems being the real racist party only goes over with Republicans. Anyone that knows any history realizes that there was a 10 year stretch under Reagan where any holdout southern racist Dems switched parties.
Patricia Kayden
@Litlebritdifrnt: Although I agree with the gist of your argument, what is a “unique” name? You describe them as “unpronounceable or stupid”, but who defines what is unpronounceable or what is stupid? The African gentleman featured in the article has a name that may be difficult to pronounce for some people but not for others.
I think the bottom line is that racists are going to act out their racism whenever they can. I’ve heard of Black applicants with “White sounding” names, who turn up at interviews only to be nonselected after employers discovered they are Black. Ditto Black applicants who sound “White” on the phone but are then nonselected after the employers meet them.
My point is that someone’s name being unique is not the issue. The issue is racism. If someone is qualified for a job, give them the job even if their name is “Shanequa Mustafa”. I’ve heard some “White” names which I found odd. But not odd enough to discriminate.
gelfling545
@Litlebritdifrnt: Mustafa is a name not terribly uncommon among speakers of Arabic predating the Lion King by many years.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ben Franklin: Bullshit.
@Yutsano: The goalpost moving or the non sequitur responses?
Cassidy
@Patricia Kayden: I can’t stand “nevaeh”. I apologize in advance to anyone here who has named your kid that.
@Eric U.: It’s counting coup, man. They walk into a traditional African American college or conference, say some deliberately offensive shit, and all the pundits pull their pud at how brave he/she is for being “honest”.
Ben Franklin
@Cassidy:
Rand’s impossibly tortured defense of his notion of Civil rights was quoted here by MM.
A student told asked him to clarify his comments about the 1964 Civil Rights Act during his 2010 campaign in which he seemed to imply he wasn’t supportive of the act. “I have never questioned the Civil Rights Act,” he said, but he questioned if the law’s application now requiring restaurants to ban smoking and provide standardized menus with food calorie counts.
When someone claims to hold certain beliefs it’s good to vett them, amirite.
But you think we should have a double-standard for some politicos.
Now, just who is being dishonest here?
Yutsano
@Omnes Omnibus: Yes to both. Seems to be his modus operandi. Of course I’m thinking Ben is nothing more than a Republican ratfucker, but YMMV.
Ben Franklin
@Omnes Omnibus:
Nice segue, counselor.
I am not a kook
@Litlebritdifrnt: You are really being obnoxiously Anglo-privileged here.
In your mind, only Anglo names are good enough. What about Jose? Or Jesus? Pierre? Gerhard? Sandeep?
Or people with names like these who never amounted to anything: Xiaobo, Barack, Martti, Muhammad, Wangari, Shirin, Dae-jung, Carlos, Yasser, Shimon, Yitzhak, Rigoberta etc.
Ben Franklin
@Yutsano:
HAR!
I’m a republican? Projectionist !
Chyron HR
@Ben Franklin:
Stand With Rand, you crazy diamond.
Cassidy
Just a thought, I don’t think hitting Littlebrit with pedantry is going to go anywhere. It’s poretty obvious from hanging out here for a while that she’s not a bigot or some sort of privileged individual. So, let’s not eat our own, maybe?
I don’t give a shit how traditional and honorable the name, in our modern American society if you’re name “Mustapha”, it’s going toimmediately be associated with the Lion King. You can be a 2nd Generation Arab from a proud family and our dumbass fellow citizens are going to assume your parents named you after a cartoon lion and think “them dumb ferriners, naming their kid after a Disney movie, hyuck, hyuck”.
There is no right answer, but the name you give your kid is going to affect how they are treated in life. It sucks and I wish it were different, but I don’t get to name my kid PacMan Link Samus Cassidy.
Chyron HR
@Ben Franklin:
See, it’s funny because BF’s life revolves around how much he hates Democrats in general and President Obama specifically, which is nothing like a Republican because shut up that’s why.
Mary G
I’m sorry, I just cannot take this guy seriously. He is a “board-certified” ophthalmologist because he formed his own board and certified himself. A board of one. Please.
He is the Republican employee of the month, but I doubt it will last since he seems to have no brain or common sense. And his hair is completely improbable, also too.
Cassidy
@Yutsano: It’s sad that no matter what, the circular loop of his mind always goes back and has to hunt for ways to turnt he conversation into blaming Obama.
Bobby Thomson
@Amir Khalid: I think they’re thinking of Big Eddie Mustapha from The Enforcer.
raven
@Cassidy: Another in a long line of good reasons not to have kids.
Ben Franklin
@Cassidy:
always goes back and has to hunt for ways to turnt he conversation into blaming Obama.
I do wish it were more difficult.
Hill Dweller
OT: Begich and Pryor joined the Republican filibuster of background check legislation. Thankfully, it didn’t stop the legislation from advancing.
I blame Obama.
Frankensteinbeck
Note that in his Kentucky senate race, in his acceptance speech when he won the nomination Rand declared that he would never go moderate and would always tell the Tea Party truth. The next morning, in his first televised speech for the general campaign, he declared that he was a moderate. That little episode may be useful in judging his ongoing actions.
raven
@Bobby Thomson: Or Yaphet Koto from Blue Collar.
Yutsano
@Mary G:
I think he shops at the same weasel mullet store as Donald Trump. One good gust of wind would tell us for sure.
@Cassidy: It’s our fault you know. After all, we’re not discussing the subjects Ben approves for discussion and therefore we are all totes unserious.
I am not a kook
@Cassidy: Everybody has their blind spots.
An honest question: in the modern world, is anglo-normative more or less OK than, say, heteronormative?
Hill Dweller
Rand, like his pappy, is both a misogynist and racist.
TooManyJens
The names I hate are the ones where the parents randomly change the spelling just to be dyfferynnt. Which plenty of white people do, BTW.
Ridnik Chrome
@EconWatcher:
An close friend of mine who has lived in Switzerland for the past 15 years has not married his Swiss girlfriend because, he explained to me, if he did their two children would be required by law to take his Spanish last name and would be much more likely to be discriminated against than if they have their mother’s French last name.
Morzer
@Missouri Buckeye:
We saw this same movie when Romney visited the NAACP, as I recall.
raven
@Hill Dweller: And a shit-eatin dog fucker.
Morzer
@Frankensteinbeck:
“False moderation in the defense of extremism is no vice”.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Hill Dweller: He’s pro-Rich White Man. Whatever it takes.
Turgidson
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
“How can you idiots think the GOP is the racist party? Democrats who have been dead for a century were WAY WORSE than us!”
They keep thinking a patronizing history lesson is all it’ll take to bring minorities into the tent. Haa haa.
Hill Dweller
@Morzer:
I’m sure both had the same motivation, but Rand’s visit didn’t go well. The Howard audience, which Rand thought would be ignorant, openly laughed at his stupidity and lying.
Omnes Omnibus
@raven:
Does this mean that he eats shit and fucks dogs or that he fucks shit-eating dogs?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@TooManyJens: Like Jenifer, only one n.
Citizen_X
@Amir Khalid:
Hey! Don’t drag my cat into this!
Linda
@Missouri Buckeye:
alsopretty much entirely at white moderates.Fixed it for NPR. Black people aren’t fooled by this, but the same white moderates who are sure that slavery wasn’t any part of the real issue in the Civil War will cling to this like a reed in a hurricane.
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: Eats shit and fucks dogs if I recall. The first time I heard it was in reference to some lifer NCO asshole.
Amir Khalid
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Or better yet, the surname Pen1ston.
@I am not a kook:
I’m not sensing any Anglo privilege from litlebritdfirnt. (Wow, that’s a tricky nym to spell.) She’s just pointing out a prejudice against “foreign” sounding names, as part of
an often unspoken prejudice against people of non-Anglo/non-white originracism.Citizen_X
Regarding the name thing: I can conclude that, based on a small sample (one), everyone with a given name of “Rand” is a douchebag.
Morzer
@Hill Dweller:
But that’s part of the con – Mini-Paul wants a hostile reception so he can say to the teabaggers that blacks are the real racists/captives of the Democratic plantation/brainwashing etc etc. Just as Romney wanted to be booed so he could show serious white people the abuse of their leader by ungrateful blacks.
Certified Mutant Enemy
@Citizen_X:
Did Ron name his son after Ayn?
Amir Khalid
@mistermix:
I have a comment in moderation, for inadvertent use of a taboo character string. Can you carry out a jailbreak for me? Thanks.
Redshift
@Hill Dweller:
Remember, though, Romney required them to let him plant supporters in the audience so he could claim there were people who liked what he was saying. Romney may have out of touch and lacking in humanity, but he was smarter than Baby Doc Paul.
SatanicPanic
@Cassidy: I hesitate to join this conversation because I gave my son a non-traditional name that seems to be pretty well received so far. But I suspect that non-traditional names aren’t really the biggest barrier to getting jobs (or advancing once people get jobs) that minorities actually encounter. That seems like a missing the forest for the trees thing to me.
Redshift
@Turgidson:
At least he didn’t try to tell them what a great deal slavery was, so he’s ahead of some in the GOP.
Suffern ACE
Wendy didn’t exist before Peter Pan and Madison wasn’t a girl’s name before Splash, so those folks worried about Mustapha (which was already a name) and especially Simba needn’t worry too much. In 10 years, we won’t remembmer where they came from.
Missouri Buckeye
@Patricia Kayden: That’s what I was trying to say. It seemed obvious to me that this whole exercise was really aimed at “Moderate White” voters. But NPR seemed oblivious to this fact.
Redshift
@Certified Mutant Enemy:
Ron named him Randal. Baby Doc named himself after Ayn Rand.
Amir Khalid
@Certified Mutant Enemy:
His full name is Randal Howard Paul.
Todd
@Bobby Thomson:
It always bugged me that Big Eddie worried about what Harry was going to do to him over the stolen hotel ashtrays and lamps. Then I remembered – he’s black. They’d turn it into a felony.
Mnemosyne
@I am not a kook:
Actually, AFAICT, those names generally don’t hurt anyone at the resume stage. It’s the ones that are easily identifiable as specifically African-American that get people’s resumes discarded. I can’t remember who it was, but I remember seeing a black comedian talking about it. From memory, it was something like, I named my son Christopher and I know you all think that’s a boring name, but when he goes to get a job, he’s at least going to get an interview.
I’m actually curious to see how it ends up playing out in the future, because at least one of my (white) nieces has a first name that is used across races but is more commonly associated with African-Americans (let’s say it’s Desiree, but it’s not). She hasn’t had any trouble so far, possibly because the name is cross-racial.
Lex
I believe the technical term for what Paul did is “whitesplaining.”
Cassidy
@Yutsano: DRONES! GMO!
@I am not a kook: Honest answer? I have to go look up what that means. One sec………………………………………………………………………………………………………okay, so I really still can’t find a definition, so I’m assuming “anglo-normative” means white sounding names and “heteronormative” means more ethnicity? That’s a shitty question (not to be asked, but just no good answer). I think in our modern society, people with a strong sense of ethnic background should be able to name their children with pride whatever they want to. Unfortunately, in our post-racial society /sarcasm, having an ethnic name tends to set you apart and for the purposes of getting your foot in the door to a career, that can be a detriment. It’s six of one, half dozen of the other.
Schlemizel
@El Cid:
Ya mean they got to come here for free! Damn, my family had to pay their own damn way to get to America. Crumby moochers, the lot of ’em.
I hear tell they also got free food, cloths and housing here. No wonder they are addicted to welfare, damn Dimocrats!
Sasha
By Rand Paul’s logic, since the NRA was founded by Union soldiers from what are recognized as blue states, the NRA should naturally gravitate to the Democratic Party.
Redshift
@Missouri Buckeye: I dunno, I’ve seen a lot of fake Republican “outreach” that was really just trying to reassure white suburbanites who don’t want to believe they’re supporting a racist party, and this didn’t have that feel to me. I think Rand is too much a true believer to be any good at that.
If the takeaway from your event is denying you opposed the Civil Rights Act and Democrats are the real racists because of Jim Crow and Lincoln!, that seems like the opposite of such reassurance. The way the “reassurance” tactic works is that the only news you make is that you went and talked to “them.” Pissing “them” off reassures the racists, not the moderates.
Amir Khalid
(Reposting comment in moderation jail)
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Or better yet, the surname Pen1ston.
@I am not a kook:
I’m not sensing any Anglo privilege from litlebritdfirnt. (Wow, that’s a tricky nym to spell.) She’s just pointing out a prejudice against “foreign” sounding names, as part of
an often unspoken prejudice against people of non-Anglo/non-white originracism.Omnes Omnibus
@Sasha:
I think I located the problem….
Cassidy
@SatanicPanic: I hope your right and , personally, I don’t take issue with non-traditional names and tend to think they’re neat. Speaking for my people, white southerners, when my more bigoted regional bretheren go through their funny black caricatures, inevitably the names “Shanequa”, “Moshanequa-something, something”, and “Teyronius” and other such nonsense is thrown out. it’s stupid and petty and I end up getting into arguments about it, but that’s how these people think. And down here, they’re the ones looking at resumes.
Schlemizel
@TooManyJens:
My wife works in an elementary school and the whole thing has gotten out of hand. its almost like there is a contest to see who can create the most obscure phonetic spelling of a word and slap it on some poor unsuspecting baby!
Mnemosyne
@Amir Khalid:
Except that it’s not “foreign” sounding names. It’s very specifically black-sounding names.
Your resume has a better chance of getting through the initial screening if your first name is Jose than if your first name is Jevon.
Morbo
@Mnemosyne: Which names are unpronounceable happen to be fairly subjective.
Sly
Edroso summarizes it better than anyone else thus far:
Turgidson
In order to tie the name discussion into the Rand discussion, I’ll just come right out and say it:
If I was reviewing resumes or CVs, I would have a lot of trouble not being prejudiced against someone named “Rand”. Or “Ayn” for that matter. But even more so their parents, of course.
Mnemosyne
@Morbo:
Again, it’s not that people think they’re unpronounceable. It’s that the names are ethnically African-American.
I have an unpronounceable ethnic (Italian) first name. It has been mispronounced at every significant event in my entire life except my wedding, and that was only because I drilled the minister in how to pronounce it ahead of time.
But no one has ever thrown my resume away, because my unpronounceable name is the right (white) kind.
Plantsmantx
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Did Max Kpakio’s parents “give” him his surname?
Yeah, I know you’re talking about the U.S. but those “stupid” names you’re talking about also include names like Curtis, Darryl, and a whole slew of Biblical names. Do you recommend that black parents not give their children those sorts of names, either?
Paul in KY
@kindness: Senator Aqua Buddha works for me. I can come up with something more scatalogical, if you wish.
Hill Dweller
@Morzer:
But the Howard audience weren’t hostile. They were informed, asked smart questions, and ultimately laughed at Rand’s bullshit.
Omnes Omnibus
@I am not a kook: Well, I plan on giving my children very Anglo names, and I am sure that Hugo, Flora, and Dido will have no problems.
ETA: Also too, my Puritan WASP forebears slapped some weird-ass Biblical names on their kids back in the day.
Paul in KY
@TCG: When they named her that, did they know that ‘clitori$’ was a word, and already used for a body part?
Amir Khalid
This video seems appropriate here.
Paul in KY
@Amir Khalid: Good one, Amir. Ha, ha!
Paul in KY
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): Or Penisworth.
MikeJ
@Plantsmantx:
I would stay away from Nimrod and Jethro.
Mnemosyne
@Plantsmantx:
As I said above, my (white) niece has one of those kinds of multiracial names, so I’m kind of curious to see how it plays out. In my office, we used to have two men named Curtis, one white and one black. I’ve started seeing quite a few young AA men named Donald (like Donald Faison and Donald Glover), so some names are definitely crossing the boundary and aren’t firmly tied to a specific ethnicity.
As far as I can tell, it’s the “outlandish” (aka African-based) ones that really draw the bad attention, like LaKeisha.
I tend to follow these things because, as I said, I have an unpronounceable ethnic name myself, so I’m always curious to see what the trends are.
ETA: Also, too, since the problem seemed to be Mr. Kpakio’s last name, I’m guessing there was a whole lot of specifically anti-immigrant feeling mixed in with the racism. We in the US are a lot more accustomed to people having strange last names than they are in England.
Gin & Tonic
@Omnes Omnibus: “Hugo Omnibus” does have a nice ring to it.
Paul in KY
@I am not a kook: Some of those in your examples never had their resumes evaluated in the USA by Chauncy McRacistdick.
Xantar
I once went to high school with a guy named Michael Hunt.
I’ll give you a second for that one.
Also, the Old Spice guy is Isaiah Mustafa. He’s ok in my book.
Paul in KY
@Mary G: I think 2 or 3 of his relatives are on the board as well. Just saying…
Raven
@Cassidy: How about Knowshon Moreno?
SatanicPanic
@Cassidy: my view is probably skewed because I live in Southern CA. There is I guess an important distinction between non-traditional and “black-sounding”.
I don’t know why someone would give their child a name if they know it might harm them. It seems like it’s probably a combination of thinking it sounds cool and thinking “my parents were stuck here, I’M stuck here, my kids probably will be too” and trying to salvage some pride from that. And if it’s the latter, then it feels kind of like piling on to get upset about their name choices.
Omnes Omnibus
@Gin & Tonic: Rupert. That is another one.
ETA: Or Crispin.
Kineslaw
When I was hiring people for a security company, I didn’t care whether the name was “ethnic” (70% of our employees were African-American) as long as I could get to the pronunciation from the spelling and the spelling wasn’t off. Mohammad – no problem. Last name Nguyen, lots of those around here, anyone should know how to pronounce it.
Jenifer, Stefany, Mikell (a white classmate of mine) meant your parents were probably ignorant and if you were sitting in the waiting room you would get an interview, but if you had dropped off your application I wouldn’t call you in for an interview.
African-American employees made up the majority of our employees, but a fairly low percentage had difficult to figure out how to pronounce names.
GregB
Say Bob Loblaw five times fast.
Raven
@SatanicPanic: “My name is Sue, how do you do”!
patroclus
It was a Howard law student named Richard Boynton that tried to take an interstate bus from D.C. to his home in Alabama in 1958 when he was denied food service in Richmond who then brought an administrative action before the ICC and, when denied, brought a federal case that ultimately resulted in the 1960 Boynton v. Virginia case, which set the stage for de-segregation of public accommodations (as lated codified in the Civil Rights Act of 1964). His case, of course, was based on the Motor Carrier Act of 1935, which was enacted by Democrats in the FDR era to prohibit undue discrimination in interstate commerce.
This, plus the fact that there is no discrimination in Social Security, the SEC protects all investors, including African-Americans, the FDIC protects all depositors, including African Americans, the labor laws protect all workers, including African Americans, the Fed accreted monetary policies to benefit the economy, including African Americans, the CCC and NYA and WPA and PWA employed all Americans, including African Americans, the war-time FEPC prohibited discriminatory hiring practices etc… all worked to change African American attitudes towards Democrats generally. The only 20th Century black Congressman at the time, a Republican named DePriest from Chicago, was defeated by Arthur Mitchell, the first African American Democratic Congressman. This change continued in all major Northern urban centers and the black Congressmen subsequently elected were all Democrats.
Howard students know this stuff. Rand Paul ignored all of it – and I mean ALL of it. Rand Paul needs to actively promote and enact legislation that would benefit African Americans if he wants their political support. D.C. statehood would be a good first step. Until he does that, this is all bullshit.
Paul in KY
@TooManyJens: I dont thynk it hylps those white kids who get those nymes.
You get that ‘trailer trash’ vybe, IMO.
Litlebritdifrnt
@I am not a kook:
Did you read the article I linked to? I suspect you didn’t because I was expressing my agreement with the article.
I suppose this guy is also expressing Anglo privilege
Link
http://www.blackpast.org/?q=2004-bill-cosby-pound-cake-speech
jwalden91lx
Boy, The Onion sure is getting good.
Paul in KY
@Omnes Omnibus: I think pretty much all dogs eat shit at some point or another.
Paul in KY
@SatanicPanic: Can you give us a hint on how ‘non traditional’?
Amir Khalid
@Kineslaw:
So, were you judging job candidates on their parents’ spelling?
Mnemosyne
@Kineslaw:
I once read a really interesting essay by a woman from Appalachia whose mother had named her Kathaleene. She didn’t find this out until she was an adult and got her birth certificate because all of her teachers had “corrected” her name to Kathleen. She ended up going back to the original spelling out of, yes, ethnic pride.
schrodinger's cat
@Omnes Omnibus: How about Nigel or Simon?
marshall
Oh, and obligatory XKCD reference : http://xkcd.com/327/
Trollhattan
O/T, FLOTUS, going off-script yesterday, in Chicago.
Prescription: in case of Rand Paul, take FLOTUS twice daily, until symptoms disappear.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodinger’s cat: Meh. In the end, I am sticking with Hugo or Crispin for a boy and Flora or Dido for a girl. They’ll be fine on the playground, right?
schrodinger's cat
@Omnes Omnibus: Is Crispin a name of a boy, sounds like a biscuit to be had with tea.
GregB
I went to school with a Herbie Derby, Rod Koch, and my pal’s dad was Harry Johnson.
Violet
@Litlebritdifrnt: One of my relatives gave her daughter a name that is a shortening/nickname for a longer name–like naming someone Billy instead of William. Now she’s got to go through life with this shorter, cutesy name as her actual given name. She’s still young girl so the name fits, but as she gets older I think it could be a handicap. Especially if she goes into a professional field, it could mean she’s taken less seriously than she should be. Not quite sure what her parents were thinking.
Trollhattan
@Omnes Omnibus:
I lobbied for naming our forthcoming daughter Slappy Shaniqua, but was rudely denied. Today she struggles with the limitations imbued by her boring name, daily.
Mandalay
@Patricia Kayden:
This.
In the end it doesn’t really matter whether the potential employer threw the resume in the trash because of a name that “sounded black”.
Because when a black person turns up to an interview with an employer with that kind of mindset they will never get the job anyway.
It’s not the name that’s the problem, it’s racism.
Litlebritdifrnt
These are what I mean, just a random sample from last years graduation notices
Briedna (F)
Turiya (F)
Ledouashon (F)
Raanaa (F)
Monkeia (F)
La’eeqa (F)
Mechalyne (F)
Shakelsey (F)
Soraiya (F)
Aarace (M)
Cheari (F)
Tynekwa (F)
Tinizha (F)
That was just one section that in my little collection I call “children who will go to their graves never knowing how to correctly pronounce their own names”. Parents hobble their kids when they pull shit like this.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodinger’s cat: An example.
St. Crispin was the patron saint of cobblers.
Violet
@SatanicPanic:
You mean like Gwyneth Paltrow naming her kid Apple? That’s non-traditional, but not stereotypically “black-sounding”.
Trollhattan
@GregB:
I was rendered speechless a good five minutes after learning that one of my MIL’s former husband’s name was Harry Lantz. I’d known only the last name for the previous fifteen years.
Yeah, I’m that immature.
quannlace
‘Bad Haircut.’
Seriously, his barber should be arrested
Kineslaw
I was judging people on the type of household I assumed they came from, sure, because our clients did as well. Our employees represented us at different buildings around the metro area. Was I willing to put forth to a property manager that the best, most trustworthy person, I could come up with for the job was named Stefany? Usually not.
We had to get from 400 applications a week to 2-5 hires. Many things were part of the winnowing process, including names.
SatanicPanic
@Paul in KY: he’s named after a physical part of the natural landscape. In CA it’s not shockingly odd, but people from other parts of the country have insinuated that I’m some sort of hippie.
@Raven: now that was a poorly thought out name
Amir Khalid
@GregB:
By any chance, did you ever date a Clara Belkau?
Litlebritdifrnt
@Schlemizel:
Case in point yet another sample from last year.
Jaci (F)
Baillie (F)
Kynesha (F)
Myranda (F)
Alysa(F)
Alyssa (F)
Alyssia (F)
Allesia (F)
Mikal (M)
Khortney (F)
Alixandrya (F)
Jefrey (M)
Tayler (F)
Cydney (F)
Kailey (F)
Miquel (M)
Kemberlee (F)
Jeseca (F)
Jazmyne (F)
Yvadne (F)
Bryana (F)
Exavier (M)
Erann (F)
Trae (M)
Chrishina (F)
Kailey (F)
Janiece (F)
Cariah (F)
Sharayne (F)
Trollhattan
@quannlace:
Barber? More like carpet-installer. Who, yes, was clearly the low bidder.
jh
@Mnemosyne:
As an African-American with a weird unprounounceable name (it’s Arabic in origin), sitting in a cubicle farm within a few yards of at least three other black people with similarly ethnic names most usually associated with African-Americans, I can honestly say that this whole damned thing is stupid.
It’s one of those gotcha’s that some African-Americans see as evidence of the permanence of white racism and priviledge.
Some of us choose to modify our behavior to better conform with the expectations of largers society, some of us don’t.
I’m happy my parents chose to give me a name that meant something to them and our family, rather than one meant to placate the caprices of racist assholes.
At the end of the day, it says a lot that I’m a degreed professional working in my field of expertise, as are most of my peers with ‘unprounounceable’ names. I will admit that this is probably due the fact that here in the DC area, there is the largest concentration of educated black professionals on the planet – there is just no getting around the overwhelming number of qualified black applicants for most jobs. I doubt I’d have had such success in flyover country.
I also happen to be an alum of Howard University. Those kids made me proud yesterday. It was reminiscent of the stance my generation took when the administration tried to foist Lee Atwater onto our board of trustees.
Similarly, Ken Mehlman came to our school during the Bush years and issued a mealy mouthed apology for the Southern Strategy.
So it appears, these fools seem to be on a bi-annual “go try and talk sense into the nigras” plan.
What they fail to realize is that black voters largely hold American conservatives responsible for Jim Crow, Segregation, Reaganism and every other pernicious policy that has had undue negative affect on black Americans.
Their brand is unappealing because we have seen the outcomes of their shitty policies up close and in 3-D for several generations now.
Latinos, women and gay folk are also in the crosshairs for these these retrograde assholes and they know it.
Thus the desperate, feeble attempts at rebranding while trying to placate the concerns of racism held by moderate white folk.
It’s not going to work.
Ever.
Omnes Omnibus
@SatanicPanic:
Run, Forest, run!
Plantsmantx
@Mnemosyne:
No, it’s not just the African or African sounding names that have drawn the “bad attention”. Rejecting resumes because of the “black” names on them predates people with those African/African sounding names being old enough to apply for jobs, and even predates their birth. I (Darryl) know this.
Anyway, in the context of this thread, it’s not even a side issue.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Omnes Omnibus:
My bosses cousins called their kids Forest, Rivers and Brook.
They weren’t DFHs however but very dedicated hunters and outdoors people.
SatanicPanic
@Violet: Yes. I’m not saying one is better, I’m just saying they will get different reactions.
raven
@SatanicPanic: Yea but he can tote the rock!
schrodinger's cat
@quannlace: Or his wig maker?
Violet
@Mandalay: Racism is the problem and it happens at all sorts of points in the interview process. Plenty of employers may not even be aware they are screening out candidates based on how the names “sound”. But they do. (I’m sure many are aware they do it.) So getting past that first hurdle of getting the interview is important, and many things, including your name, can hold you back.
There are employers who, if they see you and you’re non-white, or female, may never offer you the job. But some will, so getting the interview is important. You can’t predict what will keep you from getting that interview, but a strange sounding name can for many reasons, maybe just because the interviewer or his or her assistant can’t figure out how to pronounce your name and don’t want to botch it and risk embarrassing themselves when you walk in the door.
raven
Ha, the live coverage of the Master’s just pick up Tiger saying “how the fuck did I do that”!
jh
@Litlebritdifrnt:
I’m pretty sure they know how to pronounce their names. Humour aside, it’s pretty condescending to assert that they don’t or won’t.
Moreover, I’m less concerned with the kids names than I am with the other challenges they will likely face.
If someone named “Buffy” can be a vampire slayer or be a mainstay in WASP, blueblood society, ‘Tyquan Washington’ should be able to get a decent education, a good paying job and allowed to live his life with with dignity and respect.
It starts with us.
Trollhattan
Don’t know about all the rest of y’all but I’ll stop making fun of the Palin spawn and their funtastic names only after they disappear from public view. Should you exibit similar decision-making WRT naming your spawn, don’t be shocked at playground pushback–it’s how kids roll.
Best hippie baby naming I’ve encountered was a college roomate’s niece: Puff Sunpath. Lucky her, growing up in the ’80s with that.
raven
@Violet: And then there is the Rooney Rule.
SatanicPanic
@Omnes Omnibus: Curse you Omnes for making me lol while I’m supposed to be working.
But no, he was born after that stupid movie so there was no chance I would name him that.
jh
Track Palin
Tagg Romney
Moon Unit Zappa
All unusual names.
I wonder why certain people are a little more hesitant to throw these people away?
What could be different?
JPL
@raven: Was it a good shot or a bad shot? I’m assuming bad.
Morzer
@Hill Dweller:
But the point is that they laughed – rather than gratefully agreeing and opening their minds to the eternal teabagger ‘truths’ offered by Senator Incoherent Hypocrite-Weasel. That’s all he needs – something that, as you said yourself, ‘didn’t go well’.
Kineslaw
@Mandalay:
In the case of my employer it was classism. African-Americans probably made up 75% of our applicants and 60% of our hires.
Generally speaking, unique names or odd spellings of common names happens less often in middle class households. It starts to happen again as you climb the income ladder, ex) Ivanka Trump.
Mnemosyne
@jh:
@Plantsmantx:
Please note that I said NOWHERE that it was not a problem, or that it was not based in racism. I was pointing out that the names people fixate on are the ones that are stereotypically black, not stereotypically anything-but-white.
And if people named Darryl are being targeted for resume-dumping, they’re throwing away a whole lot of resumes from white dudes, which only points out how stupid it is for them to be scrutinizing the names on resumes to figure out if the resume is from someone of the “right” race.
raven
@JPL: Nice approach to the green but the ball just stopped dead when it hit.
eta You ready to head for the root cellar? The 60% chance is looking 100% right now.
Randy P
I’m reminded of a French movie called “Entre les Murs” (meaning “Between the Walls” but the US title was “The Class” for some reason). It’s about a middle-school teacher in a poor immigrant neighborhood in Paris. At one point one of the kids asks him “How come you always ue such weird names like Jacques or Pierre or (other common French names)?” When he asks for suggestions, all the kids start chiming in with ethnic names that, as far as they know, are the only kind of names actual people have.
The obvious point being that what constitutes a “regular” name is fluid. Not everyone in the US thinks Italian names are OK either.
BTW I’m with those who figure the point was to get footage for Fox News to show how mean the Howard audience was. And laughing and mocking counts as mean. All our wingnut relatives will be telling us tomorrow that weasel-hair “won” that encounter.
Mike G
Shorter Rand Paul:
“Vote Republican, because we used to support civil rights fifty years ago.”
Yutsano
I kan haz new thread naow plz? Kthxbai!
Mandalay
@Violet:
How could you screen someone out based on their name, yet “not even be aware” of that? Are you suggesting subconscious racism?
I guess I’m just not understanding your point.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Violet:
Or burst out laughing, several years ago one of our local graduates was called “Latrine”.
BethanyAnne
@TooManyJens: I still haven’t figured out how to pronounce “Heather” backwards.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Litlebritdifrnt:
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Jesus. We live in a pretty stupid/racist/xenophobic society. I don’t think this is a fact that anyone is not aware of. Why the fuck would you saddle your kid with a name like that?
Violet
@jh: I’d be happy to get rid of all the Palins and Romneys, but that’s just me.
Kids of celebrities, especially musicians and actors, are a whole different category for me. They want to name their kid Moon Unit or Apple or whatever Nic Cage named his kid (after Superman, I think), then that’s just part of being an artist. Still feel bad for the kid, although that money might shelter them a bit.
Mnemosyne
@jh:
I bet if you changed your first name to River or Rainbow, your resume would stop being discarded. Totally by co-inkydink, of course, and not because those are the kinds of ethnic names that white upper-class hippies give their kids.
raven
@Forum Transmitted Disease: To say FUCK YOU to the man.
Jebediah
@SatanicPanic:
Chaparral?
Arroyo?
Canyon?
Hipsterdouche?
raven
@Mnemosyne: Barbara Hershey was Barbara Seagull for a while.
jh
@Mnemosyne:
Yeah sorry, I was agreeing with you.
I have Asian born friends who have Anglicized their names for the same reasons.
My African friends in Europe do as well.
Post-racial my ass.
Certified Mutant Enemy
@Omnes Omnibus:
And St. Hubbins is the Patron Saint of Quality Footwear.
some guy
caught Senator Aqua Buddha being interviewed on the NPR during lunch, and the red flag, the one that ALWAYS goes uncorrected by the media, is when he refers to his opponents in the “Democrat Party.”
always a tell with these assholes.
Mnemosyne
@Kineslaw:
IIRC, Ivanka is a perfectly cromulent name in Czechoslovakia, which is where her mother is from. It would be like deciding that Mariska Hargitay’s name is spelled “wrong” when it’s actually the common spelling transliterated from Hungarian.
ETA: When I was talking about having an ethnic European name, it’s kinda like one of these — unfamiliar to most Americans but pretty common in Italy.
catclub
@Trollhattan: “limitations imbued by her boring name, daily. ”
Well, if your last name is howler, I think there could still be a problem. Also dozen.
raven
@some guy: I’d like to see the party re-branded to De Mau Mau!
Gin & Tonic
@jh: I was a big Frank Zappa fan throughout his whole career, and I remember the names “Dweezil” and “Moon Unit” coming in for all sorts of mocking, for a very long time. But it’s probably easier to deal with that when you’re rich and famous.
Trollhattan
@jh:
With Zappa, the pushback got so bad he’d preemptively tell talk show hosts he didn’t want to discuss his kid’s names. The Palins–who the hell knows what goes on in their heads?
Violet
@Mandalay: Yes, that’s what I’m suggesting. The person screening the resume might think that person “isn’t right for the job”, but they aren’t aware of exactly what about the resume makes that person not right for the job. Change the name to a more Anglo-sounding name and suddenly the person is worth an interview. The person screening resumes may not be conscious they do that kind of thing, it’s so ingrained. They just do it.
JPL
@raven: Probably just the closet but I did charge my cell phone in case we lose power.
At this point I’m just hoping that it will wash away some of the pollen.
Trollhattan
@catclub:
Got me, fair and square. :-P
BethanyAnne
@I am not a kook: as long as its not Saxxonormative. Angles are fine!
raven
@JPL: No shit, it is nasty, as always.
Gin & Tonic
@Mnemosyne: You don’t have to “transliterate” from Hungarian, which uses the Latin alphabet.
/pedant
ruemara
Sorry, I can’t accept that anyone, ghetto or otherwise, would name their daughter Clitoria. However, I am concerned at the idea that people who’ve never even visited Brooklyn, are calling their children Brooklyn.
SatanicPanic
@Jebediah: I like the sound of Arroyo. Might have to use that if I have more.
Trollhattan
@some guy:
He’s EXACTLY WHO WE THINK HE IS and yet the village keeps recrafting him into some kind of free-thinking boy wonder. This is not going to end well.
Mandalay
Pure win from Grace Slick:
On 25 January 1971, Grace Slick gave birth to a girl at French Hospital in San Francisco. (The father was Jefferson Airplane bandmate Paul Kantner.) As she related in her autobiography, Slick quickly made a joke about her infant daughter’s name at the expense of a hospital nurse:
Morzer
@Mnemosyne:
Ivanka is essentially Joanna/Joanne in Slavic terms. Ironically, it’s anything but exotic in its own context.
Mnemosyne
@jh:
Just wanted to make sure it was totally clear since you never know how you’re coming across on message boards.
And, yes, it sucks when people have to Anglicize their ethnic names. It seems to happen less often than it used to (thanks in part to movie stars who decided to keep their “crazy” ethnic last names like Zellweger or Gyllenhaal), but there are even a lot of white people out there who do a little genealogy research and discover that their original last name was Kohn, not Kerry and the name was changed to conceal a “bad” ethnicity (in that case, being Jewish).
some guy
@raven:
they really think they are being clever by half. it doesn’t piss me off that Republican assholes do it (they are assholes, it’s what they do) but that media figures (especially on Nice Polite Republicans) ignore it. if a Dem started referring to them as “our friends in the Thuglican party” or “our Publican friends” you can be damned sure there would be a correction demanded immediately.
Just One More Canuck
@Omnes Omnibus: A good friend of mine, and one of the smartest people I know is named Rupert. His parents gave him a “normal” middle name, but he liked the fact that it was unique
raven
@ruemara: Yea and Zappa never visited the moon. Whut up wit dat?
jh
@Mnemosyne:
The irony is that at a school like Howard, you’d meet black or biracial kids whose parents were hippies and gave them similar names.
And they’d be sitting in class right next to a Mustahpa El-Shabazz, a Colin, and a James Jefferson Jr.
Litlebritdifrnt
@jh:
When I lived in Hong Kong before the kids there graduated they were given a baby names book and were told to pick one out for themselves to use when dealing with the Gweilos because we were incapable of pronouncing their Chinese names. Must have been a pretty old book because a lot of the names they chose had gone out of popular use years ago, personally I knew three different Fannys :)
Morzer
@Gin & Tonic:
Well, you gets your greater Hungarian alphabets and you gets your lesser Hungarian alphabets….
Hyper-pedantry achieved.
raven
@some guy: Lamestream
raven
And while we’re at it, how do you let your kid wear a brim like this at the Masters???????
Mnemosyne
@Violet:
Yep, that’s what’s so insidious about institutionalized racism — many times, it’s become an unconscious reflex that people don’t even think about. They have associations with “those kinds” of names that they don’t think through, so they decide someone with that kind of name isn’t qualified without looking at the rest of the resume.
That’s why it’s easier to fight against with someone who is openly, consciously making the decision. Overcoming the subconscious associations takes a lot of work that many people never even realize they have to do.
Mandalay
@Violet: Gotcha.
Morzer
@Litlebritdifrnt:
The name-list probably derived from popular names in some of the older translated novels by e.g. Dickens, Dumas etc etc. Give the Chinese time and they’ll catch up with our glorious array of Shane and Wayne and Tracey.
beth
A coworker’s daughter taught a young man who insisted on being called Ja-mez. She did this until the first parent teacher conference when the kid’s mother asked “James, what the heck is wrong with you?”.
raven
@Morzer: Dickens does have some whoppers!
Paul in KY
@Omnes Omnibus: Dido, girl or boy, is too close to di1do, IMO.
Eric U.
@Citizen_X: I worked with a guy named Rand that was one of the nicest people I have ever met. But that could be the exception that proves the rule
@some guy: apparently the NPR pukes have started calling it the “Democrat Party” too. Makes you wonder who they think pays their salary. I am not going to give them any money until they fire some of the closet republican propagandists. The only reason I would listen is to find out who is mispronouncing Democratic
Gin & Tonic
@Morzer: You are familiar with the theory that Hungarians are actually from Mars?
Morzer
@raven:
And that shade of purple is just de trop. People will think the poor boy supports the Vikings.
Jebediah
@SatanicPanic:
And if there is any worry about playground bullshit,it has “Roy” built-in as a nickname.
Paul in KY
@Litlebritdifrnt: I sorta like Turiya (F), Soraiya (F) & Aarace (M)
Last one would be a good elf name (one of the Vanyar) or maybe a Maiar.
Paul in KY
@Violet: Somehow, I don’t think young ‘Apple’ is going to have to suffer the indignity of having a prole ogle her resume.
Morzer
@Gin & Tonic:
Heh.
The remark about the unconcealed beauty of the Hungarians reminds me of the disreputable joke about why Hungarian men love their horses so much.
Mnemosyne
@Litlebritdifrnt:
G has a friend from Taiwan, so I know they still do it there — she has a Chinese name and an American name. It actually doesn’t seem like a terrible solution, since you (legally) keep your ethnic name but have an easy-to-remember name for stupid Anglos to know you by.
@beth:
There’s a whole subplot in one of the Anne of Green Gables books when Anne becomes a teacher and the mother of one of her students insists that Anne call him “St. Clair” because that was what she had wanted to name him, but the student wants to be called “Jake.” The compromise is that, as the teacher, Anne gets to call him St. Clair, but anyone else who does it gets to fight after school. It seems to work out for everyone. ;-)
Mike G
@Litlebritdifrnt:
I lived in the international dorm at college and the Anglicized names of the ethnic-Chinese students were sometimes amusing, being jarringly old-fashioned or flowery — Winston, Fabian, Dixon, Pansy, Orchis, Swan.
JoyfulA
@schrodinger’s cat: I used to be amazed at the names babies were receiving in my very pale, pretty poor hometown, some of them the supposed black-sounding names, others peculiarly spelled, and some, to my knowledge, just unique. I guess my favorite so far (new Births column every week!) is Gunner, which I take to be a simplified spelling variation of the exotic Nordic Gunnar.
Would you want to hire a young man named Gunner?
Paul in KY
@SatanicPanic: Sounds sorta ‘palinesque’ ;-)
I’m sure it is a fine name.
Morzer
@Jebediah:
As indeed the career of Senator Arroyo Blunt of Missouri continues to prove.
MikeJ
@Gin & Tonic:
Moon Unit is best known for recording a song in which she sounds like an idiot. She was given the perfect name for her career that lasted for about 6 weeks in 1982.
Cassidy
@SatanicPanic: I can’t begin to tell you how casually bigoted people here are. Yeah, you read about it and we joke about it, but if I didn’t laugh it’d be fsm-damned depressing.
But everyone is nice to that black family on the street so it’s all cool even when they lower their voice, look around, and start throwing out racial slurs. it still catches me off guard when people do that shit.
Mnemosyne
@Paul in KY:
I once saw a baby name book that swore that the name “Dorcas” was due for a comeback. Yeah, no, I don’t think so.
Also, I had a roommate named Soraiya in college (though I think she spelled it a little differently). She was from Lebanon, so I think it’s an Arabic name. You know, like Barack.
Morzer
@Mike G:
Although none of them quite match Peaches Geldof, in my humble opinion.
Gin & Tonic
@MikeJ: Talent is seldom inherited.
Paul in KY
@jh: Generally, I think ‘Buffy’ would be a nickname in the blueblood set. The given name probably being Constance or Irmawood & her going by ‘Buffy’.
You should never (IMO) give your child the ‘payroll’ name of Buffy.
Morzer
@Mnemosyne:
Too soon for Ermintrude?
Litlebritdifrnt
Oh and for anyone who wants a really good laugh there is this site
http://bigbadbabynames.net/forum/index.php
MikeJ
@Gin & Tonic:
To be fair, it was really her dad’s song with her vocals.
Mandalay
@MikeJ:
That was the point, and that song was awesome.
Paul in KY
@Mnemosyne: ‘Soraiya’ really flows off the tongue. ‘Dorcas’ should never be given to any male child who will be under 6’2″.
ruemara
Moon Unit makes more sense than Brooklyn and I’ve contemplated changing my very sensible name to something vaguely Asian. But then I guess I’ll be rejected for “fit”. Perhaps I should change my profile pics on my resume sites to random white people.
Soraiya may be a version of Soraya, which is a Persian name. It was bothering me because I know I’d read it somewhere and I find it quite beautiful.
Gin & Tonic
@MikeJ: Her musical career has been a lot less distinguished than her father’s.
Randy P
@Mnemosyne: If I saw the name Soraiya I would be expecting to see a Persian girl. I’ve known a couple with that name. What, is that supposed to be one of the “black” names now?
Violet
@Paul in KY: Isn’t Dorcas a female’s name, traditionally? These days it’s getting pretty hard to tell by name if a kid is male or female. Jordan, Blake, Dylan–names like that are used for girls and boys.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Litlebritdifrnt: Mainland does it too. Gertrude, Wilhelmina, Eloise. Met all three in Shanghai, all were in their mid twenties then – they’d be just about 40, now.
Yeah, the names were pretty much standard 19th century. Was one of many, many weird things about China that I love.
GregB
@Amir Khalid:
Nope. No funny dates names. I did use to hang out with a co-worker Misty Cheries.
Paul in KY
@Violet: I think it is a female name. All the more reason then :-)
Mnemosyne
@Paul in KY:
I’m pretty sure Dorcas is a girls’ name. Doesn’t make it any less cruel, though.
@ruemara:
I once saw an article (I think in Weight Watchers magazine) about a group of friends who lost weight together and one black lady’s last name was Yamamoto. I’m pretty sure it was her married name, but it was one of those moments when you’re looking at the photo trying to figure out which one is Asian before it dawns on you.
@Randy P:
Middle Eastern names tend to be popular for African-Americans, so, yeah, a lot of them have become “black” names. I would bet that most Americans who heard of someone whose first name was Malik would assume he was AA, not that he was Middle Eastern.
jh
Such is the case with my name and the lady sitting right behind me.
JoyfulA
@schrodinger’s cat: What about men named Joyce and Shirley?
Trollhattan
@Violet:
Dorcas is from the New Testament (Acts). It was used in my parents’ generation, but I’ve not heard it in decades.
Trollhattan
@JoyfulA:
“That’s ‘Headly!'”
patroclus
I met several female Brits named Dorcas and they all loved it – you guys need to cross the pond more. Over there, Tamsin and Gillian are also popular. In France, Thibault is also popular for boys. We Anglo Americans are VERY culturally biased – I’m glad the hippies and the African Americans are doing their best to change that. It’ll take awhile, but when I look at resumes, I’m going to start calling back interesting-named people just because of that.
Trollhattan
@Mandalay:
Backstory for “Valley Girl” is pretty cute. Going from memory, Frank pulled Moon into the studio and had her do “that voice you and your friends do when you’re making fun of girls from the Valley.” He built the song around Moon’s goofing off and thus, all America learned “Gag me with a spoon.”
Any dad would be proud.
Mnemosyne
@jh:
I wonder how that could change naming as there’s more immigration from the Middle East and those groups gain more social and political power. We’re already in a spot where it’s more acceptable for people with “weird” names to keep them rather than having to Anglicize them, but I wonder how it will affect people’s attitudes when we have more “white” people with Arabic names running around?
I would have to do more research than I’m willing to do at work, but I think the general pattern was that first generation immigrants gave their children “American” first names, and second or third generation immigrants gave their children “ethnic” first names out of family pride. I don’t know if naming trends still fit that pattern, but if they do, there will be an explosion of “white” kids with Middle Eastern first names in about 5-10 years.
Mnemosyne
@patroclus:
Is “dork” a common insult in Britain? If not, that explains why they don’t mind it.
ETA: An American fourth-grader would turn the name into “Dork-Ass” about 10 seconds after hearing it spoken.
cckids
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Or a famous person. My daughter went to 1st grade with a kid named Ronald Regan. Who insisted on being called by his middle name. We also share a president’s last name, when I was pregnant I could not believe the number of people who thought we should name the kid after the pres. Even though I liked the guy, No. Way. Why saddle your kid with that baggage?
Paul in KY
@Mnemosyne: We think alike ;-)
patroclus
@Mnemosyne: No, not when I was most recently there, but like all words “invented” in America, they eventually cross the pond and are gradually accepted by the Brits, who seem to invent no words of their own. Maybe Dorcas will die out because of that, but it’s still popular over there whereas I had never heard it anywhere in the States.
Every name is capable of ridicule by schoolkids.
Ridnik Chrome
@ruemara:
My ambition is to one day have five children (quintuplets, if possible) each of whom will be named after one of the five boroughs. So that way I can say things like, “Brooklyn, stop picking on Staten Island!”, “Put that down, Queens, you don’t know where it’s been!” and “One of these days your face is going to freeze like that, Manhattan!”
cckids
@Turgidson:
They also seem to think that everyone believes that the Republican party that was led by Lincoln = the Republican party led by McConnell, Boehner, etc. No sane person is falling for this.
Violet
@patroclus: When I was a kid, the Catholic neighbors had some friends from their church who had a female in the family named Dorcas. Can’t remember if that was the mom in this family or one of the kids. Just remember the neighbor family mentioning a Dorcas. Maybe it’s more common in Catholic families?
British slang has made its way across to the US with the popularity of the “evil British judge” on all the reality shows, starting with Simon Cowell. Americans can think they know how to use a British slang term, then go to the UK and find they’re insulting people.
Having English family and visiting the UK fairly regularly, I’ve found plenty of words common to British English that I’ve never heard or aren’t common in the US. I think the Brits invent plenty of words.
JoyfulA
@Trollhattan: That Joyce Kilmer was a man was a shocker to teenage me.
cckids
@jh:
Yep. My sister teaches, and has said the names have gotten progressively weirder in spelling/pronunciation over the past 8-10 years. And she’s in a rural district with a very small minority population, almost none of which is African-American. But lower income? Yes. The higher-income people, not so much with the odd names.
cckids
@ruemara:
This always makes me think of the TV show Gargoyles. Wasn’t the dog-gargoyle named Brooklyn?
Amir Khalid
@Ridnik Chrome:
I’m just glad that the English football player who named his son Brooklyn was David Beckham of Manchester United, and not Wayne Bridge of Chelsea.
BethanyAnne
I lived across from a corner store in Berkeley. The old Chinese couple that owned it had a nephew come from China, and set him up at the cash register. After about six months, he changed his name to some standard American name (I think Jonathon). He confessed he did it so he could impress the girls with his new exotic name when he visited home. Wish my memory for names was better so I could properly remember both of his.
Mnemosyne
@patroclus:
Yes, but why make it so easy?
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Morzer: Chinese manufacturers and knock-off makers had some trouble fairly recently with an old color name.
(TinyURL’d in case the bad words filter choked on the URL.)
The first baby name book I ever picked up (at least 30 years ago) had this in the introduction:
A Rose by any other name would still be sweet, but if Rose’s last name were Budd, Bush, or Redd, she will probably dream of marriage more eagerly than her peers.
schrodinger's cat
@cckids: There is a left wing politician in India who named his son Stalin. No really.
YellowJournalism
@Litlebritdifrnt: My eldest is doomed. He has a unique, ethnic-sounding name. My youngest has a very traditional, Anglo-Saxon name (spelled slightly in traditionally, but not enough for people to care), so he’s going to be a CEO.
Ben Franklin
No takers on Obama’s postion on GMO’s since 2008. I guess we leave it at;
Whatever kills quickly; bad. If it takes a while to kill you, s’ok
Where have I heard that, before?.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@cckids: I went to school with a boy whose first and middle names were Mac Arthur.
As a history junkie, I was surprised when we exchanged calling cards at graduation.
schrodinger's cat
@YellowJournalism: Or he could be President someday. Barack Hussein Obama is an inspiration to all of us with “foreign” sounding or “exotic” names.
YellowJournalism
@Litlebritdifrnt: Converstion reminds me of this:
Anyone who can name this movie loved crappy 80’s comedies like I did.
Schlemizel
@GregB:
I went to High School with a kid named Mallard Teal. His dad named each of the kids after ducks! Another was John Hoff who never let anyone call him “Jack” – to his face.
Schlemizel
Theres the story of the kids who run off to get married against the wishes of their folks. A few years later they have their first child, twins!. The parents barge into the room and each demands the right to name a baby. Out of spite the kids decide to let old, drunken, Uncle Otto to name the kids.
The parents are horrified because Otto is a moron as well as habitually drunk
“I name the girl Denise!”
“Well, thats not so bad” they said, “what do you name the boy?”
“Denephew!”
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
Oh, and I’ll show my age here yet again. It took me a moment to register why Darryl would be considered an AA name. My first thought would be “My brother, Darryl, and my other brother, Darryl.”
schrodinger's cat
I just checked up on the Indian Stalin, and found out that he is the Deputy Chief minister of a major state in India.
I think having an unusual name is a two-edged sword. It makes you stand out, from all the Johns and Janes. That can be a good thing or not. It all depends on the situation.
The prophet Nostradumbass
When I see the name Mustapha, what comes to mind is Brave New World.
Chyron HR
@Ben Franklin:
At least you’re honest about it.
jh
@schrodinger’s cat:
To quote my favorite comedian, Patton Oswalt:
YellowJournalism
@Mnemosyne: Favorite parts of that whole “St Clair” side story are the description of the mother’s clothes and an exchange where another boy calls him St Clair and they start fighting.
schrodinger's cat
@jh: Hussein is a common name in the middle-east as common as Dan or Matt or John.
Ash Can
@cckids: The dog was Bronx. The cool-teenager second-in-command was Brooklyn.
jh
@schrodinger’s cat:
Indeed it is.
Of course in this topsy turvy world, our supremely competent CINC would have had his resume tossed by some hayseed middle manager in Kansas because his name was “weird lookin’ ‘n ferrin'” lol.
Good thing he ran for President instead.
YellowJournalism
@schrodinger’s cat: Oh, I know. I was actually sarcastic about the youngest being a CEO. He’s not sadistic or psychopathic enough.
My husband is Sikh, so we went through a big dilemma naming our eldest. We wanted something ethnic-sounding to please the in-laws, and we did want something special. Hubby came up with the name, a mixture of names we liked, and we thought no one would have that name. We checked local name registries (There were some messed-up names! Not ethnic but like naming your child after household items like “Spoon.”). No one had the name. Year my son was born, there were two other boys with it, and it turned out to be Hebrew. I love that my son is half Sikh, half Lutheran, and he has a Hebrew name. (Plus, it can shorten to a more typical name if needed.)
For my youngest, I picked the name as a male shortened version of my grandmother’s middle name. Hubby insisted we spell it differently than the very traditional way just because his brother has such a different name.
Snarla
Soraya is Persian and Thuraya is the Arabic version of the same name. Spell them how you want, they’re only spelled one way in their native language.
Ben Franklin
@Chyron HR:
Well I was hoping y’all could tell me. In the absence of a policy I suggest he’s happy with the Status Quo
Chris
@Zifnab:
Sorry for the late response (holy shit, 300+ posts?) but yes, that sounds plausible to me. That’s the danger of living in such a complete bubble for so long. Even if some of them are aware that they’re running a con, they live on a world that’s so saturated with bullshit of their own making that they no longer have any reference points to guide themselves back to reality even if they wanted to.
BethanyAnne
@Ben Franklin: Meh, start a blog?
Amir Khalid
@schrodinger’s cat:
As it happens, my full real name, with patronymic, is Amir Khalid bin Hussain. No surname. (If I were ever to emigrate to America and needed to make one up, I’d probably drop the “bin” and learn to live with being called Mr Hussain, which is of course my father’s name.)
Ben Franklin
@BethanyAnne:
Stick to Facebook. This isn’t a social network. It’s a political forum.
If you can’t stand the heat, GTFout.
BethanyAnne
//sobs incoherently
mapaghimagsik
I Kind of felt bad for a guy named Mann Ho.
Still, dissing resumes based on names is generally cute racist by half.
Ben Franklin
@BethanyAnne:
Should have been your first witty retort. I can accept that.
Mnemosyne
@Chris:
Every once in a while we all manage to have a long and pleasant conversation without anyone calling anyone else an asshole. That’s usually what’s going on in 300+ comment threads, though.
schrodinger's cat
@Amir Khalid: Tamils in India have the same system. Your name, followed by your name father’s name. Just to confuse matters more, my husband is named after his grandfather. So his name is say AB, and his father’s name is BA. Both A and B are big mouthfuls and the Tamil equivalents on Bartholomew Throckmorton.
BTW I know an Iranian Hussein who spells it Hosein and a Turkish one Hussein who spells it with a y.
Morzer
@Trollhattan:
IIRC Dorcas means “gazelle” in Greek. She is probably better remembered as Tabitha (the Aramaic equivalent).
schrodinger's cat
WP eated my comment because I tried to edit it again.
Amir Khalid
There is a prominent Malaysian, an activist for the disabled, whose name is Ivan Ho. (Common Chinese surname.)
ruemara
@Ridnik Chrome: Win.
@Ben Franklin: You saying that is near apoplectic hypocritical funny.
Gian
@Patricia Kayden:
My father – who didn’t tell me the race of the kids – commanded some soldiers back in the 1960s. Two had kids and he recalls the names simply because they were horrid. Mind you this was the early 1960s.
kids named:
Menthol
Halitosis
he said the Listerine advertising influenced the halitosis one. People have been picking some god-awful names for kids probably since before recorded history.
More to answering your point, I think your point is really made when you note the attempted racial prescreening by name failed, the face to face screening allowed the racism to take over.
picking assimilated names won’t change people’s hearts, but it might get you an interview.
Next up for Rand Paul, a trip to South Africa to complain about the changes in governing that FW de Klerk and Mandela brought.
Trollhattan
@Amir Khalid:
Should you ever emigrate to this land of dirty streets, we hereby bestow you with that most blessed of surnames: Tunch
“Amir Khalid Hussain Tunch” will open doors, my friend.
Ben Franklin
@ruemara:
Yet you don’t dispute. So this is Facebook? Hoocuddanowne?
schrodinger's cat
@Trollhattan:
By sheer gravitational force I presume?
Mnemosyne
@Gian:
My guess? Rednecks. As other people have mentioned, oddball names like that are usually a class marker, either of lower class or (these days) extremely upper class.
Mnemosyne
@Gian:
That’s why I’m kind of wondering if an increase of second-generation Middle Eastern immigrants with Arabic/Muslim names might accidentally open a few doors for African-Americans who have names from that same ethnic tradition since they won’t be so clearly “black”/lower-class anymore, or if instead it ends up closing doors for those immigrants.
Trollhattan
@schrodinger’s cat: Even Mighty Tunch’s Mighty Food [noun for eating vessel that’s considerably larger than a “dish”] comprises its own singularity.
Doors stand no chance.
scav
dear dear, have parts of this really become a long debate about how a few think we should squeeze our children into replicating currently enforced sterotypical norms that drive a few bad, if not illegal behaviors, instead of fixing the behaviors? May go back and read more closely as some interesting details about name conventions snuck in, but sheesh.
drkrick
@MikeJ: I don’t know about the career, but it got her a chance to spend a couple of hours with the father, apparently a very rare occurence.
The family claims that the hospital refused to register her name as Moon Unit, so while they have called her that all her life her official name was something else until she was old enough to have it legally changed.
ruemara
@Ben Franklin: What’s there to dispute? You’re not debating anything, you’re just blathering. It might as well be Facebook. Problem is, it’s not your wall. Solution, treat you like the internet equivalent of that guy with obvious old piss stains all over himself who’s busy ranting about the Moon rabbits coming to eat our brains and force us to wear tutus. Spectacle, not important.
gelfling545
@Cassidy: It’s not as though white southerners don’t have some pretty amazing names as well.
Villago Delenda Est
@Litlebritdifrnt:
A lot of those names look like people trying to name their characters in World of Warcraft and they had to come up with some alternative spelling because the original had been taken.
All names must be unique on each WoW realm.
Ben Franklin
@ruemara:
You’re not debating anything,
Nor are you or any of your paramours. It would be nice to have a debate like what occurs as foreplay, but the style here is of a narcissistic form of jerking off to the platitudes which would be an embarrassment to Facebook entries. But that is a risky venture for those who want to tickle their ears for entertainment only.
Villago Delenda Est
@gelfling545:
For example, Jayuff Sayshuns.
gelfling545
@cckids: My granddaughter who has a lovely first name is continually embarrassed by sharing a last name with a certain insane billionaire casino magnet & tv “personality”. As she says, not even any money to go with it!
BethanyAnne
@Villago Delenda Est: You should look at the names for the various Taint guilds on H-Proudmoore. It like a ToS violation contest. :)
Mnemosyne
@Ben Franklin:
So, wait, I’ve lost track — are you saying that Monsanto is an upper-class or lower-class name to give your baby?
ETA: And is it mostly a Spanish name, or do you think it’s gotten into the general name pool like Irish names have?
lojasmo
@Ben Franklin:
Obama signed a continuing resolution to keep the government running even though there was a AMENDMENT IN IT?
ARGLEBARGLE. Idiot.
Ben Franklin
@Mnemosyne:
Oh, yeah. That name game was the subject of the thread. Carry on…
Ben Franklin
@lojasmo:
Yes, Lojam. Because his policies are so representative of the welfare of his constituency, absent polling directives.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ben Franklin: Where did you get the idea that the purpose of this blog was to discuss your, and only your, various hobbyhorses?
Jebediah
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
Crap. Does that mean I’m old, too?
BethanyAnne
@Omnes Omnibus: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3M68wcB6L0s
Ben Franklin
@Omnes Omnibus:
As opposed to getting a rise out of the masses as to your loquacious wit?
I certainly understand where you’re coming from.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ben Franklin:
No, you don’t.
Mnemosyne
@Ben Franklin:
The subject of the thread was Rand Paul’s visit to Howard University. Is there a guy named Monsanto who asked a question while he was there? Because otherwise I’m not getting the connection between Howard University, African-American names, racist hiring practices, and Monsanto.
lojasmo
@Mandalay:
Ah, but if you pre-screen the “black” sounding names, you won’t have to actually sit in the room with one, treating him/her like a human.
Ben Franklin
@Mnemosyne:
Try to ketchup…
Ben Franklin
@Omnes Omnibus:
No, you don’t.
You do not persuade, and you’re a lawyer?
Mnemosyne
@Ben Franklin:
From Karl’s Disco Wiener Haven?
Ben Franklin
@Mnemosyne:
Is that a product of your production company?
Hollywood is looking up.
Mnemosyne
@Mnemosyne:
You can actually hear the song at this link.
(And, yes, that is Courtney Love in the front row of the audience.)
Mnemosyne
@Ben Franklin:
Dude! Alex Cox! Don’t you know nothin’ about nothin’?
He was Tarantino before Tarantino, but he couldn’t keep it going.
Kyle
@Amir Khalid:
My favorite current politician’s name is the President of Nigeria:
Goodluck Jonathan
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: I love that movie. And Sid and Nancy.
Ben Franklin
@Mnemosyne:
I like film. Here’s one…
http://www.emptywheel.net/2013/04/11/huffpost-live-on-drone-strikes/
Mnemosyne
@Ben Franklin:
I realize you’re trying to do the firebagger equivalent of a Jesus Juke, but I don’t think any of us are going to fall for it today. Maybe tomorrow.
Amir Khalid
@Kyle:
How about Zimbabwe’s first President, Canaan Banana?
jefft452
@Patricia Kayden: “I’ve heard some “White” names which I found odd. But not odd enough to discriminate.”
Rience, Rand, and Mitt
Amir Khalid
I remember there was a TV actress in the 1960s and 70s named Joanne Pflug. She had to explain that her surname was quite real: “Pflug is a name you change from, not to.”
David Koch
@Ben Franklin:
how can GMOs be a “dangerous product” when even the liberal Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren both voted in favor of it.
if people as eminent as Bernie and Warren say it’s okay then it must be okay.
AA+ Bonds
Why the hell is Balloon Juice reblogging a column by Crystal Wright, a right-wing blogger, like it’s how the Guardian “covered” the event?
You might as well point out to the reader that this is a conservative propaganda piece, which is exactly why it says shit like “[f]ew young minorities know the history of the Republican Party ‘chock full of emancipation and black history'” when the room’s response to Paul’s trivia questions was to loudly and exasperatedly correct him because he didn’t even get the name of the senator he was describing right.
Mnemosyne
@AA+ Bonds:
Does that fix help? I guess saying the column covered Paul’s speech “like [it was] a junket to another country” was too subtle.
dcdl
@jh: When my husband and his family came over from Asia immigration didn’t understand them and their names became a hybrid of an ‘American’ name and what they think an Asian name should be. His cousin changed his name to Josh when he became an adult. To do this day I’m still not sure exactly what my husband’s real name is.
When my SIL got hired teaching 4th graders in a high Asian community the parents were in shock seeing a white, blonde haired woman and not an Asian since her last name is Tran.
I have a friend that when her husband’s ancestors immigrated to America from Italy had their last name changed. In fact they still don’t know what their original name is. His ancestor didn’t understand what immigration was asking when they asked for his name. He said he was a man. To this day that is my friend’s last name Amman.
When I had kids, picking out names was hard. I had to think of names that if were shortened weren’t annoying among other aspects. Also, I asked MIL for Asian middle names with the caveat for them to be easy for me to pronounce and spell.
Plantsmantx
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
No, it’s because a lot of black people gave their sons that name in the Fifties and Sixties. I’m known (as opposed to known of) one white Darryl. I’ve lost count of the black Darryls (or Darrells) I’ve known.
dance around in your bones
Alternate names were all the thing in the 60’s. Wavy Gravy and Bonnie Jean had a kid they named Howdy Do-Good Tomahawk Truckstop (he was born at a truckstop). He renamed himself Jordan later on.
I had a friend who named his kid Tanzin (Tibetan for compassion). He renamed himself Tom when he got older.
Way dead thread, nobody will see this.
DavidTC
The nice thing about employees discarding resumes with traditional African-American names is that it is _very_ easy to spot discrimination, and I really wish we’d have more lawsuits over it. It’s a much easier claim to prove than someone getting turned down when they show up for an interview.
That said, while I’m all against discriminating on names at all, I really can’t stand the incredibly annoying misspelled names. Either cutsie ones by upper-class whites like ‘Tiffini’, or just ones where the parents apparently have no idea how to spell something, like the Kathaleene example above.
If you want to give a kid a name from back in a racial heritage, feel free. You want to _make up_ a name, feel free. But if you give a kid a name that is spelled 99.999% of the time some other way, you are forcing that kid to constantly correct the spelling of that _his entire life_. (Which is actually much more annoying than a name no one knows how to spell. It’s much better for others to know they don’t know how to spell it, so they ask.)
Oh, and while we’re at it, please realize that certain names are actually _nicknames_. Female names especially. You want to call them by the nickname, fine, but certain nicknames are infantizing and are great for a baby, and rather suck when they are trying to be seen as adults in 20 years. The name is Elisabeth, not Lizzy or Buffy. Margaret, not Maggie. Benjamin or Ben, not Bennie. (And Cissy and Bubba are not from names at all, but from mispronouncing sister and brother.) This is, as always, something that evolves over time, nicknames often do becomes names, like ‘Rita’ and ‘Joe’, but names that end with an ‘e’ sound seem particularly resistant to that, especially for women.