Rereading My Childhood: The Baby-Sitters Club

#16: Jessi's Secret Language

I wish I knew about linguistics when I was eighteen. Maybe I knew about linguistics when I was eighteen, I wouldn't have entered university as a Computer Science Major, instead of an English major. It took me a college dropout and ten years later to learn about the perfect major for me — linguistics. There is a degree where you just play with grammar and learn languages? Those are the two things I sit around and do all day.

It seems that Jessi Ramsey and I share a common interest — language. Unlike some other people, we put the onus of understanding on ourselves. Do you want to understand someone from a different country? You should learn their language. Some people think the other person should learn English, therefore putting the onus of understanding on the other person. What a ridiculous way to think. You want to know, you do the work.

In the latest book, Jessi is given an opportunity to expand her understanding in what is, so far, one of my favorite BSC books. Let's get to it.

The first thing Jessi tells me in her first entry into the BSC canon is that she's very good at languages. That's a great skill to have. I do believe that learning a new language is more about effort than innate skill. However, Jessi claims that after a single week in Mexico, she was "practically . . . bilingual." I don't want to be a jerk, but I kind of doubt that, unless she understood the intricacies of the subjunctive case, in which case, she would be a WEIRDO. Ask your friends in Spanish 211 about that one, kids.

Jessi is so good with language that she's been able to equate ballet with language. Language is expression and ballet is expression through body movements. It's an excellent comparison that really opened my eyes, so thank you for that. If I were trying to communicate with dance, I would sound like a certain president, which is like an illiterate gorilla who stares directly into the sun.

We get a little bit about Jessi's family life, including her younger sister Becca and her baby brother Squirt. In their basement, her parents built a dance studio for Jessi to practice, which she does every morning. She wakes up before her alarm at five in the morning and gets up immediately to practice. We may share a love of language, but waking up to do physical activity at sunrise is not something we share. I'm usually going to sleep at five in the morning and when I wake up, I check my phone and pull my covers above my head before I even think about waking up.

Then she hits us with this passage.

My family is black. I know it sounds funny to announce it like that. If we were white, I wouldn't have to, because you would probably assume we were white. But when you're a minority, things are different.

Take that, reader, with your preconceived notions on race! I hate you tell you, Jessi, that white is still the default race and it is bullshit. If someone doesn't expressly say that a character is a different race, it's assumed they're white. Just look at when a character that has never been plainly stated as a white person is cast with a black actor. A bunch of man babies get all pissy. Jessi spills the tea right here.

She goes on to lament that in her old neighborhood in New Jersey, black and white families mixed. In Stoneybrook, black families are an anomaly. She talks about how she can't tell if the people of Stoneybrook don't like black people (are racist) or are wary of them because they've never encountered other black people (are racist). Either way, not a great look, Stoneybrook. I guess it's not as idyllic as we're lead to believe.

Anyway, Jessi is trying out for a role in the ballet Coppelia, which is about some doll maker and a dude who wants to marry a doll (there is some light doll cosplay) and is a real thing.

At the BSC meeting, we get to meet all the girls, including long explanations about Claudia's wild clothing that the other mothers wouldn't let them wear. I still have no idea why palm tree earrings are so frowned upon by the generation that streaked, dropped acid, and had sex in front of Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock. If someone could explain that one to me, I'd appreciate it.