Languages of a new America

During my recent visit to the US, I became aware of the prevalence of the expression ‘You’re in America. Speak American’! used by some racially motivated Americans and directed towards some hapless individual who happened to be their target.

Fortunately, with the abundance of smartphones with their smart cameras, hundreds of incidences have captured such outbursts usually by white middle-aged Americans against people of colour.

In the city of San Clemente in California where I recently spent some time, I got engaged in a conversation with an American at a doughnut shop one early morning and the subject of this expression came up. Ernie, a retired white professional who managed some properties around the city, and I were soon discoursing on the merits of such an expression.

As Ernie saw it, there was nothing wrong with expressing such feelings and putting them into words. ‘These people come to America and therefore must adapt and that includes learning and speaking in ‘American’. That is the way things are done here.’ Silently I wondered if American was a new language or did it simply mean English.

Spanish roots

In a city with a Spanish name, on a street called Avenida Del Mar and in a doughnut shop named Rosales, I asked Ernie whether it was ironic that with all these Spanish names around, and with an abundance of people of Mexican background whose language is primarily Spanish, why should one be forced to speak another language if it is not intruding on anyone else.

Besides, wasn’t California at one point part of the Mexican empire? Los Angeles, San Francisco, Buena Vista are certainly not American names, I countered. Why not just let these people be?

Ernie went on to tell me that until 1998, the state was offering bilingual education, both in English and Spanish, but then new laws came through several propositions that eliminated all teaching except in English, making it almost illegal to teach in any other language.

“We want these people to adapt to our culture and our language or move on back to where they came from,” he added. Realising that I was not making inroads and with other more exciting things on my agenda for the day, I bade him farewell and left.

Another expression that I became aware of was the use of the name ‘Karen’ to describe an angry white woman who felt privileged and above other people of different races or colours.

The news and social media are full of such sour, complacent, and entitled middle-aged white women from the middle class who often trespass social boundaries and attack either verbally or in some cases even physically their targets for whatever reason.

The roots of such intrusion into someone else’s space are usually racists, but they would not admit it. It often begins with a Karen admonishing her target with verbal threats and then calling 911 and demanding the cops come over and arrest the person for no discernible reason other than he or she rubbed her the wrong way.

Harsh rhetoric

In talking with several Americans on this phenomenon, almost all agreed that while latent racial animosity had long existed among many whites, it was the former US President Donald Trump who opened the spigot and provided them with the ticket to express such outbursts publicly.

Rhetoric from that time only helped release the pent-up negativity among these Karens and Kens (the male version of a Karen) and directed towards their hapless recipients.

Another expression that seemed to be making the rounds was ‘Let’s go Brandon.’ Now the roots of this are interesting as it occurred during a car race in 2021 in the state of Alabama.

The crowds were chanting ‘*expletive* Joe Biden’, and above the raucous noise of the frenzied crowd that warm Alabama afternoon, one of the TV commentators mistakenly heard it as a chant for one of the drivers in the race named Brandon Brown, and interpreted it as ‘Let’s go Brandon’ on live television.

As the event was undoubtedly watched by many followers in the South, it was soon picked up by others, and the chant of ‘Let’s go Brandon’ went viral and resonated in college sports events across the South, from Tennessee to Florida and throughout Texas.

The expression, a mischievously disguised way of telling Biden off took root among white conservatives across the nation with some adding bumper stickers onto their vehicles or flags on their front lawns with the same words.

The slogan has become well known and was used by Republican politicians and critics of Biden. There are reports that placards were also held up at rallies where Biden was addressing the crowd.

According to The Independent, “The anti-Biden war cry ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ is no longer a conservative media phenomenon, it’s infiltrating mainstream popular culture.”

Now I can understand free speech but isn’t this taking it a bit too far. But such are the new languages of America.

Tariq A. Al Maeena is a Saudi sociopolitical commentator. He lives in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Twitter: @talmaeena