[Xmca-l] Re: keeping eyes open

[Antti Rajala]

David and all,

In my reading, the issue at stake is that over a long time, many people
experience the XMCA list as unwelcoming. Instead of refocusing the issue to
something else, I believe we all have a responsibility to recognize it as a
problem, carefully listen to these voices and be open to a change in the
power dynamics of this list. Zaza, Beth, and others have made a good start
in suggesting concrete principles of where to start.

Antti

On Sat, 28 Nov 2020 at 12:56, David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com> wrote:

> Zaza--
>
> Dude, I don't really speak Russian either, as Nikolai and Anna will tell
> you (we only speak English). In my translation work I spend a lot more time
> on Google Translate than I would like, and that's why I burden the list
> with the queries you mention from time to time.. But I bet you speak Shona,
> or at least understand a little.
>
> So maybe you can help. I'm using this tune from the late great Tuku
> (Oliver Mtukudzi) in a class I am giving on sex education in Korea. I've
> been told that it doesn't really mention AIDS/HIV explicitly, and I get
> that--in fact, that's one of the reasons why I think it's useful for making
> certain parallels between pandemics and also discussing HPV and other
> issues I want to talk about. But I don't quite understand THIS verse--maybe
> you can help me?
>
> Zvinorwadza sei kubhinywa newaugere naye
> (Kana uinahwo utachiwana)
> Zvinorwadza sei kubhinywa neakabvisa pfuma
> (Kana uinahwo utachiwana)
> Achiziva unahwo hutachiwana
> (Kana uinahwo utachiwana)
> Ende uchiziva unahwo hutachiwana
> (Kana uinahwo utachiwana)
>
> So "Kana uinahwo utachiwana" means something like "If you get infected".
> But what is the reference to being raped by your roommate?
>
> On the subject of this thread. Like voter fraud, racism is a very serious
> charge, and the right has successfully made hay out of its seriousness. But
> as with voter fraud they have made even more hay out of rendering the
> charge unproveable, by removing its class content and rendering it a purely
> subjective inclination. This is why, I think (I hope), Arturo and others
> tend to raise this sort of thing in private off-list material that is so
> much at variance with their public writings that it fairly attracts the
> charge of hypocrisy or at least political timidity. After all, if you
> really suspect your interlocutor of racism, it's incumbent on you to keep
> your mouth and not just your eyes open. But you've got to put money where
> your mouth is: you have to provide some evidence (e.g. the paper that
> Harshad circulated on the list not too long ago). There are important
> scientific issues we need to discuss which are actually not unrelated to
> the one that Arturo was reacting to: whether you can accurately judge the
> language proficiency of a person by their race or national origin (as I
> have done in the second paragraph above). Not unrelated. But not identical
> to either, else I would not have written that paragraph.
>
> Here's an example. A dear colleague of mine, who like the vast majority of
> people in this country is not white and wouldn't know deficit linguistics
> from a surplus, has just written a paper on why Korean children tend to
> drop articles (i.e. "a" and "the"). He begins with the Chomskyan premise
> that all nouns must, according to universal human grammars which are
> hardwired at birth, be realized by "determiner phrases". What that means is
> that a noun phrase like "the cat" is not really about a cat--it's about
> "the", and the "the" is modified by "cat" (What kind of "the-ness" do you
> mean? The cat kind!)
>
> But it's THIS, and not Vygotskyan, Hallidayan, or Bernsteinian
> developmentalism, that is deficit linguistics. I won't say it is racist,
> because unfortunately that term has lost its scientific content and become
> nothing but a thought crime. But I will say that people who speak languages
> without articles or languages that emphasize nouns over determiners (e.g.
> Korean, Chinese, Russian) are not born with a birth defect (or "null spell
> out", as the Chomskyans say).
>
> Does Shona have articles or not? Do you know?
>
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sY0JssD8Hzc__;!!Mih3wA!X5yzp-WXUBfTr2IJpCguGrATMFGZIequuNGCFlT-1Fh7rMTkC91NjkTFaAINdzuPaIac7A$ 
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sY0JssD8Hzc__;!!Mih3wA!QePX9kKiZVk8QmwFWMwYJblxjbu3_Pd2XeZXyOV1YZVr6VOrUaRfbuTZlUpgqPtWWiBSSw$>
>
> David Kellogg
> Sangmyung University
>
> New Book with Nikolai Veresov
> L.S. Vygotsky's Pedological Works, Vol. I: The Foundations of Pedology
> Translated with Prefatory Notes and Outlines by David Kellogg and Nikolai
> Veresov
> See free downloadable pdf at:
>
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007*2F978-981-15-0528-7__;JQ!!Mih3wA!X5yzp-WXUBfTr2IJpCguGrATMFGZIequuNGCFlT-1Fh7rMTkC91NjkTFaAINdzvz-6u2oQ$ 
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007*2F978-981-15-0528-7__;JQ!!Mih3wA!QePX9kKiZVk8QmwFWMwYJblxjbu3_Pd2XeZXyOV1YZVr6VOrUaRfbuTZlUpgqPuZA6tlEA$>
>
> Forthcoming in 2020:
> L.S. Vygotsky's Pedological Works, Vol. II: The Problem of Age.
> Translated with Prefatory Notes and Outlines by Nikolai Veresov and David
> Kellogg
>
>
> On Sat, Nov 28, 2020 at 6:02 PM Huw Lloyd <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>>
>>> P.S. To my best understanding (very minimal, no doubt), the subject
>>> matter of Vygotsky's cultural-historical theory is the *development of
>>> human higher psychological functions*. (How that is "left," "right," or
>>> otherwise is beyond me.)
>>>
>>
>> Political propensities can be discerned across some (adult) developmental
>> stages.
>>
>> Huw
>>
>>>
>>
>>
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