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Black English and Our Children an opinion, by Anthony Cody The recent controversy over Ebonics challenged me to rethink many issues related to education and my students of African descent. After participating in some intense online discussion of the issue, I wrote the following, in which I respond to many of the arguments I heard against the recognition of Black English by teachers in Oakland. 1. "Black English is nothing but slang and profanity. It is gutter, garbage, lowlife language." I disagree. Here is an area where the Huxtables and the Limbaughs of our country are of the same opinion. Black English is disreputable. Though currently a largely urban phenomenon, it is associated with "country" folk, since it has its roots in the African American experience in the American South. Black English is a pattern of speech with its own deep grammatical structures, not merely a different vocabulary. From the point of view of most linguists, there is nothing inherently superior about one set of grammatical rules over another. The point of language is communication, after all, and the grammar of Black English is perfectly serviceable. Black English is despised because of who it is who speaks it; African Americans, and poor ones at that. 2. "Ebonics violates an implied social contract." The Oakland School Board's proposal to legitimize Black English violates what many see as a social contract, the terms of which are, either assume the cultural characteristics of the dominant culture, or remain economically and socially segregated. According to this view, the District has thrown in the towel, on the part of society, saying, "OK, you win. Talk how you like." Some feel this is a misrepresentation of society's intent, in that it implies employers will accept Black English, when they won't. Others oppose it on principle, arguing that we need, as a nation, a common culture to bind us together. Many working class and poor African Americans do indeed reject the assimilationist premise suggested above, and are not willing to place the blame for their economic status on their speech patterns. Rather, they see a society with a legacy of slavery and racial inequalities, with discrimination persisting to this day, and are unwilling to concede that everything would be fixed if they only acted and spoke like those in the dominant culture. 3. "This is America, the melting pot. Previous waves of immigrants have learned English and become assimilated. Blacks should too." I disagree. This argument compares African Americans to other immigrants, and points out the difference in the level of assimilation. Blacks seem to cling stubbornly to their culture and language, to a degree that prevents them from assimilating. This argument fails because the comparison to other immigrants is not valid or useful. Some immigrants arrived as a result of their own initiative, not in the holds of slave ships. Some immigrants, albeit hampered temporarily by hostility to foreigners or language differences, were accepted into our culture after a few generations without overt discrimination. Other immigrants were not marked by a history of racism, and a dominant culture's need to justify their low status. Most other immigrants did not have to wait until the 1960's for the right to vote, in many areas. Most other immigrants have not faced a dominant culture overtly hostile to their culture and language pattern. Lastly, immigrants of European descent are not marked by physical characteristics which distinguish them from the dominant culture. 4. "African Americans also perceive themselves as victims, which allows them to place the blame for their plight on others. They should get over this. We have a meritocracy, after all." Faulting African Americans for perceiving themselves as hapless, helpless victims is, in my opinion, only useful in a limited way. It is important that African Americans not accept a passive role, not see themselves as helpless in the face of a powerful white majority. However, this argument implies, though it rarely states, that we have something approaching a meritocracy. The voters of California sent precisely this message recently with the repeal of affirmative action. "Stop whining about discrimination. It is a thing of the past." As the recent Texaco tapes illustrated clearly, corporate racism is alive and well in boardrooms of America. There are indeed many people who would thwart the aspirations of African Americans, even well-spoken, polite ones. The students of Oakland are keenly aware of this, and do not buy the idea that racism and discrimination are dead. 5. "Recognizing and legitimizing other cultures leads to 'Balkanization.' " Here, our nation is being compared to a region of Europe, historically composed of a variety of states, united in modern times by force, but now coming apart at the seams, as historically distinct groups vie for control of their common territory. This challenges us to look at the roots of our nation's disunity. This argument asserts that the distinct cultures are responsible for any disunity. If everyone gave up their culture and assumed the common culture, everything would be fine. So what is the basis of our disunity? Is it African Americans clinging to their culture and speech? Why would they do this, if they could access all the goodies being offered in the social contract? In reality, the basis for our disunity is the legacy of racism and slavery, and its ongoing manifestations. We keep wanting it to be over. We want to have dealt with it, to put it in our collective past. We thought we had done so more than a century ago, when we said "enough" to Reconstruction. We thought we had done "enough" with the separate but equal decision of Plessy vs Ferguson in 1896. We thought we had done "enough" when we passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and implemented affirmative action in 1969. This issue hurts because it is a reminder that the long march to deal with the effects of racism is not over. Cultures are bridges, not chasms. African American culture, in all its depth and beauty, is a bridge to the dominant culture. It is not the obstacle. For our students to understand the accomplishments, the traditions which have shaped them and their speech is to find a source of identity, a source of strength. Once this culture is understood and embraced by the students, they are able to relate on an equal basis to the mainstream culture. They can do so shoulder to shoulder, not as poor step-children. This is the basis of mutual respect, and mutual respect is the basis of principled unity. 6. "How will our children ever learn Standard English if we respect Black English?" This argument says, if we legitimize Black English in the classroom, we will send a message of approval to these children. This does them a disservice, because outside of our classrooms they will encounter a world not ready to accept their language. Our goal must be to eradicate Black English. To do less is to consign these kids to a lifetime of isolation. This argument doesn't wash for several reasons. First of all, the stated goal of the Ebonics program is to improve student skills in Standard English. Use of an approach contrasting Black English to Standard English has been shown to be highly effective at raising student scores in Standard English. It is not as though we have not been trying to eradicate Black English in the classroom for the past forty years! We have -- and we have lousy results, in general. This argument also underestimates the intelligence of these kids. They are perfectly capable of understanding the need to "switch codes" to fit in with a dominant culture. Thus they can understand the need to learn Standard English to achieve success in the mainstream. They are as yet unconvinced that this offer is bona fide, and they are not sure that teachers are their allies in this journey. codypren@ousd.k12.ca.us