i'm sorry, but that pbs special was the shit. even tho gates is a diehard academe, and his peer-in-thought west are two stodgalicious boho black men, he asked some very pertinent questions as a black american in africa. i think he was very sincere in his reasoning/questioning of the various practices, yet he didnt speak in a condescending manner.

now as far as he and west and others using such a large and expanded vocab, i think that serves a couple of purposes and has its pros and cons. as was stated earlier...this usage is necessary in many instances where the overriding factor is attempting to get across to folks in power positions. it's shortsided in attempting to reach the majority of 'common' black folk, the laymen and women that have blue collar jobs and such. thing is, they'd probably never read anyway. to me, these dudes are like industry-types, and their publications are like "the american journal of podiatric masseuse chocalatiers" or some shit. they are only truly meant for a certain demographic, so they can afford to use complex and elusive terminonology.

then again, an argument could then be stated for the authors mentioned in solarus' first reply. but, and this is a big BUT...those ppl can be just as hard to read. gates and west are masters of the language, because they had to be in their socieites and at harvard. for this, they make it easily understood to those trained in ingesting such material. the others have excellent ideas, probably much more compelling and fact-laden than either of the aforementioned. however, they miss me when sentence structure is all fucked up, ideas travel to and fro, etc. but, that's just me. sorry for the rant.

"get partisan!" -me11/27

http://www.geocities.com/originalbluepeanut/