[conspire] Colson's Swim

[Deirdre Saoirse Moen]

On Mon, Jun 8, 2020, at 12:21 PM, Rick Moen wrote:
> Agreed.  For example, it's been asserted that 'thug' has, in this last
> decade, come to be used by _many_ (depending on context) as a proxy for
> a racial slur (in American English).  This seems improbable to us
> language pedants who know it's directly from Hindi and referred for many
> centuries to violent gangs of robbers and murderers -- and by extension
> to anyone carrying out violent destruction anywhere, not just in India.

I have to admit that, due to the grating of "U" used in lieu of "you", it took me way too long to realize the double meaning of Angie Thomas's incredibly clever book title:

The
Hate
U
Give

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hate_U_Give

The book is excellent, but I really warmed more to the film: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hate_U_Give_(film)

tl;dr/w: Honor student Starr goes to a very white prep school but comes from a very black neighborhood, and is in the car with a childhood friend when they are pulled over by cops. Now Starr is educated on how to behave when pulled over by cops, but Khalil is not. He is shot and killed by cops.

The bulk of the story is really about how Starr has to cope with the media, school, and family pressures of wanting to please everyone, but also wanting to live up to conflicting expectations. It's about code switching. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code-switching 

The movie is the introduction to the concept and the book is more in depth.

Deirdre