Serch on Da Road - Myspace Blog

Serch once again pontificating on deep shit - hey, at least an Orlando timeshare vacation got his mind off of Paris Hilton.

Greetings:

As always I hope this blog finds you in good health and spirits. As I write this I am coming home from vacation in Orlando. My family and I have own a conversion van that allows us to go on long road trips. I love the road. From the rest areas to the welcome signs that introduce the new states you travel through. It has been a great summer of travel for us as we have visited my sister in Montreal, which is a great city if you have not been, Niagara Falls, again a great place to visit, and our time-share in Orlando. I don't know why this subject hit me as I sit shotgun as my beautiful wife hits the road but it was something I thought we should discuss.

We all know that Ebonics is a part of hip-hop culture, that has become a part of American culture. Many of hip-hop culture's slang is now commonplace for, well, let's just say the not-so-hip-hop part of the world. Phrases like "Bling" is now more used by Jewish American Princess then the Hot Boys that originated it, "Phat" is used by a lot of public school teachers to describe a good report or essay, to name a couple. I am sure if I really wanted to rack my brain for others I could, but lets just stop there for a minute, unless later on you want to respond with some others and that would be fine. I want to focus on one particular phrase that has taken the form from hood to ignorance. It is "Da".

Back in the day "Da" was hot. We used it to describe a borough "Da Bronx", there even was a cute joke attached to it (Question: What is the only Borough in New York that starts with a "D"), to describe an..Da Bomb), and any other phrasing that needed the assistance of a "the", just in hip hop its "Da". Hip Hop groups used it to describe themselves, like Da Band from Making the Band, and later "da" started to pop up intercepting the "TH' in "that" (Which became 'dat'), "Them ('dem') and "they ('dey). But it was "Da" that had the most play around the way. It was cool. It was hot sounding. It meant you were up on game. Then came the Ebonics police. They took the form of older African Americans as well as grammar police like writers, critics, and in some cases, racists. They decreed that "Da" now longer had the coolness it once had. It now stood for something no longer innocent and playful. In the last few years, "da" now stood for ignorance. If people used "Da" in a phrase it was mistaken for "Duh". It stood for being a dummy move. A notion that "Da" was no longer cool, but fool. It was not longer hot. It was used to mock hip-hop culture and those who prided themselves as member of this vast culture. TV shows like Saturday Night Live and Mad TV would use to term "Da" to mock those of us that used it in its proper context. They would clown those who let "Da' be used in our communication as a play on our intelligence. They would make those awkward gestures, and arm folds that they still feel represents us and say silly things that those watching these show would find humorous. "DA COPS ARE GONNA BUST US". Or "Yo, Da Girlies (Like we still say that) are clocking us". They would wear clothes that hip-hop culture has not put on in 10 years and act like we were ignorant. This goes on constantly.

I liked "Da". I had no problem with it. It never did anything to me and those that used were fine in my book. Now it makes me sick. Every time I see a group use it now, CNN, MSNBC, and news outlets have programmed me as well as parody shows to despise it. I have to be honest; it makes me look at people that use it now kind of cock-eyed. I have a friend who works at a record label who signed a group recently that used "Da" to describe themselves and he made them legally change it to The so they would not be preconceived as ignorant. I guess we all have to grow up. We all have to move on.

I don't believe that we need to get rid of "Da" but either redefine it as a place of intelligence, like when we are talking about subject matter that carries importance like "Da war on Terrorism" or "Da civil rights movement". Or would that just give "da haters" of cultural Ebonics more ammunition to say that we are a culture of uneducated clowns? I don't know the answer but either we bury "da" the way we did "Def", "Slammin", "Dookie", among others, or we give it some credence.

"Da" can no longer be used against us, unless we are really Duh in the first place

See you soon
Serch