(Aug. 25) -- It's a new week and thus, people need something fresh to get angry over.
Enter the latest flap over news that the Drug Enforcement Agency is looking for experts in Ebonics -- a controversial term used to describe slang referred to as "black English" -- to help with its investigations.
Cue the jeers and jokes, which quickly made their way across the Web. Admittedly, on the surface this story sounds as if the idea came from a discarded storyboard from the writers' room for "The Wire."
But while I personally have always found the term "Ebonics" to be somewhat obnoxious and an obvious PR failure, the reaction seems misplaced.
This isn't about recognizing slang as a foreign language the same way we do Spanish. It's not about being politically correct, or about ethnic profiling. This is simply about catching crooks.
Comprende?
While critics feign anger, the DEA is also looking for linguists in eight other languages -- including Spanish, Vietnamese, Korean, Farsi and Jamaican patois. You'd think people would be more supportive of catching homegrown criminals.
After all, one doesn't necessarily have to speak in a foreign tongue to confuse government workers who lead private lives not even the least bit similar to the criminals they chase after. In fact, I can talk to my mother and confuse the heck out of her with select slang, and my 'tween niece can offer me similar bafflement when she starts talking about life in middle school.
Why are we pretending that slang isn't sometimes hard to make out? Since when has America not been a melting pot of twangs that sometimes requires a translator?
Are we that hypersensitive? To those that are, I invite you to, one, get a grip, and two, start being more honest with yourself.
Slang and regional dialects play integral parts in narcotics and weapons operations. Both are ever-evolving, and to put the best foot forward in an investigation, shouldn't law enforcement have people working who actually understand what's being said?
Perhaps the term "Ebonics" isn't the best way to characterize "street language," but when you have to operate outside the community that shares certain colloquialisms, you're at a huge disadvantage.
Maybe this move will ultimately prove inefficient. As one DEA agent suggested to AOL News, his peers have done "fine" working cases without "Ebonics experts."
But as of right now, the DEA feels these sorts of linguists can play better roles in their investigations. They have a right to explore that option.
Enter the latest flap over news that the Drug Enforcement Agency is looking for experts in Ebonics -- a controversial term used to describe slang referred to as "black English" -- to help with its investigations.
Cue the jeers and jokes, which quickly made their way across the Web. Admittedly, on the surface this story sounds as if the idea came from a discarded storyboard from the writers' room for "The Wire."
But while I personally have always found the term "Ebonics" to be somewhat obnoxious and an obvious PR failure, the reaction seems misplaced.
This isn't about recognizing slang as a foreign language the same way we do Spanish. It's not about being politically correct, or about ethnic profiling. This is simply about catching crooks.
Comprende?
While critics feign anger, the DEA is also looking for linguists in eight other languages -- including Spanish, Vietnamese, Korean, Farsi and Jamaican patois. You'd think people would be more supportive of catching homegrown criminals.
After all, one doesn't necessarily have to speak in a foreign tongue to confuse government workers who lead private lives not even the least bit similar to the criminals they chase after. In fact, I can talk to my mother and confuse the heck out of her with select slang, and my 'tween niece can offer me similar bafflement when she starts talking about life in middle school.
Why are we pretending that slang isn't sometimes hard to make out? Since when has America not been a melting pot of twangs that sometimes requires a translator?
Are we that hypersensitive? To those that are, I invite you to, one, get a grip, and two, start being more honest with yourself.
Slang and regional dialects play integral parts in narcotics and weapons operations. Both are ever-evolving, and to put the best foot forward in an investigation, shouldn't law enforcement have people working who actually understand what's being said?
Perhaps the term "Ebonics" isn't the best way to characterize "street language," but when you have to operate outside the community that shares certain colloquialisms, you're at a huge disadvantage.
Maybe this move will ultimately prove inefficient. As one DEA agent suggested to AOL News, his peers have done "fine" working cases without "Ebonics experts."
But as of right now, the DEA feels these sorts of linguists can play better roles in their investigations. They have a right to explore that option.