DW2b

“In one of the few groundbreaking works on women’s representations on Web pages, Hawisher and Sullivan (1999) found that many women put aside traditional rhetorical modes of politeness, apologetic modesty, and deference for a sassy, in-your-face, self-assertive attitude…” (Knadler 236).
I found this statement in E-Racing difference in E-Space: Black female subjectivity and the Web-based portfolio by Steven Knadler to be very true. Many women posting online are comfortable enough to show sass and self-assertive attitude while appropriating African American Vernacular English. Politeness, modesty, or deference is often disregarded online because polite, modest, and deferent comments don’t generate a response by other bloggers. On a blog on bet.com about the New York Post cartoon incident, Sharonda wrote : “I DONT WANT NO APOLOGY I WANT MONEY AINT NOTHIN GONNA BE RITE TILL OBAMA GETS US PAID WE THE ONES THAT BILT THIS COUNTRY AN WE RUNNIN IT NOW. OBAMA ALL DAY”. Here, Sharonda gets other bloggers fired up as she preaches her opinion of the potential New York Post boycott. Her bold post draws the attention of other bloggers and causes feedback to her post. This feedback is either in agreement or disagreement to her general opinion, but contain no remark or judgment to her sass or AAVE rhetoric. In this post, AAVE is strong with multiple negations, tonal semantics, and zero copula. The use of all capital letters also seems to be common among women wishing to show strong feeling on a subject. On a blog about the Rihanna/Chris Brown dispute, many posts from females spoke out in defense of Rihanna, claiming that she is clearly the victim. Lovergirl feels is appropriate to objects and wants her feelings to be known in her post: “…YOU DO HAVE TO LOOK AT THE WOMEN SIDE. IM A WOMEN MYSELF AND I KNOW THAT I WOULD NOT LET A MAN BEAT ME…SHE NEED TO SHOW SOME PHOTOS OR SOMETHIN…” Like Sharonda, Lovergirl was so bold with her blog postings partly because she was comfortable online to do so. As in the Knadler reading, LaChia was able to find “the ideal community [online] where she no longer has to explain or apologize for her ‘Blackness’ and where others understand her as she understands herself.” (236). Similarly, Sharonda and Lovergirl found a community on controversial bet.com blogs where they won’t be judged. Other bloggers may agree or disagree with what they have said but their morality, character, or intelligence isn’t questioned based on the way they express attitude, write, and type. Women can feel free to voice their opinions in a way that they wish because blogs (especially those where AAVE is actively appropriated) are relatively free of judgment.