The White House on Tuesday condemned ādeath to Americaā chants that surfaced online from a recent rally in Dearborn, Mich., protesting Israelās war in Gaza.
Press secretaryĀ Karine Jean-PierreĀ replied, āyesā when asked ifĀ President BidenĀ condemns the comments in the chants, which were captured on video by some attendees.
āPeaceful protests are something that the president has also been very clear that, its important to give folks space to peacefully protest. But any type of violent rhetoric, we are going to denounce,ā she said.
Dearborn mayor Abdullah Hammoud (D) has also denounced the chants, sharing inĀ a statement on XĀ that āDearborn is a city of proud Americans.ā
Not this again. This is based on the original Persian, which is a mistranslated figure of speech. In Persian language it means down with America, itās not talking about actual deaths. In Persian, they even say death to potatoes.
One constructs a message for the recipient.
If you say ādeath to Americaā, to Americans, in America, knowing full fucking well that it will be interpreted as ādeath to Americaā, then I hate to break it to you, you ARE saying ādeath to Americaā.
Only if done in the recipientās language.
When Bush said there should be a crusade against terrorism, itās not his fault if the Arabic speaking media used the word for the historic Crusades.
And as for the chanting in Dearborn, it was one nut job chanting and everyone from the mayor to president Biden condemned it.
No. If I know full well how my message will be received, itās irrelevant. Language is a construct for communication, it isnāt intrinsically the transference of ideas. If I blabber or gesticulate anything knowing that it will be received to mean X, then I have knowingly and intentionally communicated X.
It ABSOLUTELY was the fault of his administration: when youāre communicating to a global audience, which he was doing, you pay a TON of people to avoid making exactly this kind of error.
And while I agree that ignorance when individuals make this mistake is understandable, as soon as itās been pointed outā¦ If you keep doing it, itās no longer a mistake, itās intentional.
Thatās fair. Iām not implying it isnāt.
All Iām saying itās childish to say something that you know will be interpreted. Itād be like me saying the argument was āretardedā, and then if saying āAs someone who is bilingual, I was using the french wordā.