"Droppin' Those Gs!"

I'm of Italian heritage; I grew up in a neighborhood that was predominantly of Italian heritage and we all had similar households. We had a certain amount of Italian spoken in our homes and I'm sure most of us remember some of the "words" that mean things only to us. My wife is of Jewish heritage, and grew up in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood, and I'm sure she still knows "words" that only have meaning to her and her friends of Jewish heritage.

The movies have given America a look inside their perception of what they believe Italian homes are like. Movies like "The Godfather", "Goodfellas", "Rocky" and "Saturday Night Fever" project a speech pattern that most non-Italians believe is the norm for Italian-Americans. To an extent this may be true, as many young people feel they must "play the role" if they have any Italian blood in their veins. I rarely say "AYYY!", or "WHOAA!", and I have never "Whacked!" anybody (although I have thought about it). I never say "Forgettaboutit!" or call my fellow Italians "Dagos" or "Guineas"! I find this type of language disrespectful and insulting to people who produced DaVinci and Verdi. I believe a command of the English language is a mark of intelligence; I dislike being "talked down to".

Barack Obama made a speech recently to a predominantly black audience for political support, which is fine, yet I believe Mr. Obama was talking down to his audience. During the course of his speech, he began "dropping his Gs" at the end of his words; "complainIN, grumblIN" were two examples of this speech pattern. I, obviously, am not a black man, but I most certainly would have been offended at this blatant attempt to "lower" the caliber of the speech to appear as "one of the crowd". I'm sure Rudy Guilianni never said "AYYY!!" to an Italian-American crowd; it would have been an act of disrespect to those folks. Slang and street talk won't endear any politician to his audience. Mr. Obama's speech wasn't well received by his listeners for both his speech pattern and his content, as he chided his audience about "cryin", saying they should take off their "bedroom slippers" and "puttin in their marchin boots". The black community in America is at an unemployment rate of over 20 per cent, and I don't think casting a shadow over their situation will help Mr. Obama.

Mr. Obama, I believe that Harvard education that we have all heard about would be better served if you didn't purposely butcher the English language to pander to the crowd; it is a disservice to Harvard, and the crowd!