Khyeriah
Blog Entry #1: A Little About Me and My Interests
Hi, my name is Khyeriah, I'm 19 years old and I would describe myself as a curious ambivert. I chose to study Languages here at Dawson to be able to communicate with people from cultures outside my own in the places I would like to travel. I also play on the Division 2 Women's Basketball team here at Dawson. After I graduate, I plan on taking a gap year to work and possibly travel before going off to university in Toronto.
I feel this collage is a reflection of me and the different parts of my personality. Although I am mixed-race, I identify as Black because it is the culture I was and continue to be exposed to as I grow up. I take great pride in my Blackness because our culture just keeps growing. We are huge trendsetters and creatives, and as Beyoncé said in the 2019 documentary Homecoming, we have “so much damn swag.” Having an interest in reading and writing, I aspire to become an editor and writer to share Black stories from Black authors of all backgrounds and identities as well as present my own positive narratives. I also enjoy music, movies and TV, fashion, self-care, cooking, and travelling.
Blog Entry#2: Throwing Around Topic Ideas
While brainstorming ideas for my final project, I wanted to explore different aspects of language and culture. Writing down the ideas that came to me whenever they popped into my thoughts helped me narrow down my options. The topics I am thinking of writing about essentially revolve around honouring my Black cultural background. Throughout history, Black language and culture have constantly been the subject of negative judgement despite being the creators of many trends in history whether it be fashion, music, slang and mannerisms or any other cultural product. These creations only become fashionable and considered innovative when white people started to wear and share them, thus clearly displaying the existing double standards when it comes to race relations. Initially, I wanted to explore the broader subject of the influence of African American Vernacular English and Black Culture on Western society, but upon changing up the words in my database search I found different topics. My first topic of interest is discussing how the use of Ebonics in Black literature should be considered proper and respectable. My second idea would be to explore the history of African American Vernacular English and how it came to exist. Lastly, I am interested in finding out how Black culture and language influenced the film industry throughout the 90s and 2000s.
Blog Entry #3:Topic Selection
For my research paper, I have decided to explore the creation and history of African American Vernacular English (AAVE, Black English, or Ebonics) and how it should be recognized as a proper form of the English language, more specifically Black literature. Due to the fact that a substantial population of Black people both in the United States and Canada speak this variety of English, there should be no reason for it to be considered improper or unscholarly in speech as well as writing.
Wideman, John. “DEFINING THE BLACK VOICE IN FICTION.” African American Review, vol. 50, no. 4, [Indiana State University, African American Review, The Johns Hopkins University Press, African American Review (St. Louis University)], 2017, pp. 559–62, http://www.jstor.org/stable/26446091.
In this article, John Wideman discusses how Negro dialect (AAVE) in the late eighteenth and early nineteeth century United States was never considered literary language in Black literature. The author shows how AAVE came to be and how its oral writing by enslaved Africans was only considered for chronological reasons, but never analysed in a literary context. Wideman will show how AAVE should be considered literary because it reflects the reality of a community that speaks this historically powerful variety of English.
Peer Reactions
Peers have commented that my topic is very good and important, but that I should find as many scholarly sources as possible and narrow down the specifics of the topics I will tackle in my body paragraphs. In my research, I will be sure to find sufficient sources to back up my arguments.
Blog Entry #4: The Status of Ebonics in Society
Although AAVE is a vernacular dialect, the historically unaccredited counterpart of standard dialects of English, Ebonics are a staple of African American culture and should be recognized as a standard dialect because it is still widely used in the United States as well as Canada. Not only is it used by peoples of the African diaspora, it is internationally renowned and used in speech as well as written communication in Western popular culture. Many make the mistake of confusing Ebonics with slang as well. With this in mind, it is difficult to believe that there are so few published works written using Ebonics, and even more so that some scholars negate the use of Ebonics as a written tradition:”But many other people, black and white, regard it as a sign of limited education or sophistication, as a legacy of slavery or an impediment to socioeconomic mobility.” (Rickford LSA) . This can be seen as yet another attempt at stifling the Black voice in its most authentic form because the language styles, whether in fiction or any other literary genre, reflect a real population and their linguistics, culture and history (McClaren 98). The use of Ebonics has been criticized for such a long period of time to the point where Afro-descendants tend to code-switch to be taken seriously in various social environments such as the workplace. In the phase of language acquisition, Afro-descendant children should be allowed to hear, read and speak Ebonics and not be shamed for it.
Annotated Bibliography
McLaren, Joseph. “African Diaspora Vernacular Traditions and the Dilemma of Identity.” Research in African Literature, vol. 40, no. 1, Spring 2009, pp. 97-111. EBSCOhost, https://dc153.dawsoncollege.qc.ca:2325/10.2979/RAL.2009.40.1.97.
In this article, McLaren explains what Ebonics consist of in both linguistic and sociolinguistic frameworks. McLaren also shows how Ebonics have developed singularly from Standard English both in the United States as well as the Caribbean, with West African linguistic influences that contribute to its historical and cultural values. This article also displays how the oral tradition of Ebonics is translated into cultural, especially in the Jamaican practice of dub poetry and the Trinidadian rapso, which arethe lyrical cousins of Black American poetry using Ebonics. Through many more examples, McLaren will show how Ebonics should be recognized and valued as a worthy form of both written and oral expressions and question the motives behind the scrutiny of Ebonics in society, especially Amercan. I will use this article to display how continuing to discredit written Ebonics can be seen as a further attempt at censoring Afro-descendents and their authentic voices.
Rickford, John R.. “What is Ebonics (African American English)?” Linguistic Society of America. https://www.linguisticsociety.org/content/what-ebonics-african-american-english . Consulted 2/25/2022.
In this article, John R. Rickford provides a brief overview of Ebonics, what it consists of , its linguistic properties with examples, the sides of debate about its status and origin. I will use this brief article to supplement my explanation of the rich linguistic and cultural markers of Ebonics.
Blog Entry #5: Recognizing Ebonics as a Respectable form of Discourse
Individuals of the African diaspora are taught early in childhood that the use of Ebonics is not proper in formal contexts. The first formal environment one is exposed to is in school, therefore education is the first wrung of the disenfranchisement of African Americans speaking Ebonics. Although centuries-worth of enslavement and discrimination has caused much of the African American community to be of lower to middle class income households, this is not the reason why young African Americans sometimes find low academic success: “Cultural difference theorists reject the idea that low-income students have a deficit. Instead they believe that ethnic groups such as African Americans have rich diverse cultures which consists of values, perspectives, and languages that are different form the mainstream culture which schools subscribe to.” (Newell 83). Furthermore, statistics taken in 1998 report that 80 percent of Black Americans speak Ebonics (Chinn & Gollnick 1998) and in 2021 46.8 million people in the United States report a Black identity (Tamir 2021). These reports show that quite a significant population speaks this dialect in the modern-day United States and it should not only be recognized as a respectable form of discourse, but also accepted in general society. Standard English and Ebonics are two different languages in Western society that do not share the same cultural values, products, customs, and social behaviors. This is why Ebonics needs an official status as a language in society.
Annotated Bibliography
Tamir, Christine. The Growing Diversity of Black America. Pew Research Center, 2021. Pew Research Center, https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2021/03/25/the- growing-diversity-of-black-america/
This article by Christine Tamir is an overview and exploration of Black identity in the United States of America. The article shows statistics on the population of Americans that identify as Black, which for my research is very important. I will use these statistics to display how Ebonics spoken by such a large population should be valued as a language.
Newell, Kavatus R.. Respecting Black English as a Style of Discourse. 2000. https://dc153.dawsoncollege.qc.ca:2556/fulltext/ED456643.pdf
In this article, Newell discusses how in the department of education there is no appreciation of Ebonics as a civil and respectable form of spoken or written discourse. Newell will display how the continued linguistic discrimination of Ebonics in society disenfranchised the Afro-descendant community.
Tentative Thesis Statement and Topic Sentences
Thesis Statement: Ebonics has and continues to distinguish itself from Standard English through both linguistic and social points of view, therefore a move to officially acknowledge it as a language and not a dialect or vernacular of English is necessary.
Topic Sentence 1: Most commonly, languages have an oral tradition before establishing a writing system, thus the need for the use of written Ebonics to be recognized as a respectable form of discourse in Black literature. (linguistic values)
Topic Sentence 2: Despite many iconic and diverse cultural products, stemming from Ebonics in various Afro-descendant territories, Ebonics continue to be overlooked as a proper language. (sociolinguistics)
Topic Sentence 3: Discrediting Ebonics as a dialect of English displays another attempt at censoring the Black voice in its most authentic form. (disenfranchisement)
Tentative Academic Title
Distinguishing Ebonics: Reclaiming Afro-Descendant History and Language in the United States
Blog Entry #6: Reflections on my writing thus far
So far, my stance on the status of Ebonics has been a bit scattered, debating whether I should argue Ebonics be recognized as a dialect of English or more so a language completely separate from English that is deeply rooted in its African origins. I have concluded that Ebonics should be recognized as a proper language after reading through my posts and that steps should be taken to break the negative connotations attached to this language. Although Ebonics is essentially established in speech and has no agreed-upon writing system to speak of, some research has shown that there are many works written in Ebonics such as poetry and novels. Even the oral tradition of Ebonics is quite rich in its historical bonds to the enslavement of Africans, this population using their common struggles to create their own communication code: “Sermons have been preached, prayers have been prayed, and great orators have appealed to the masses using this distinctive dialect. Mothers, while nursing their children, would speak and sing in this genre.” (Edgerson 42). In this situation, it is important to understand that even if English is a part of Ebonics, it is also the language of the Afro-descendant’s centuries-long oppressor, so merely observing Ebonics as a vernacular or dialect of English is another act of oppression and disenfranchisement of African-Americans. Furthermore, the negative connotations surrounding Ebonics deemed as a sign of low education, ignorance as well as vulgarity, also persecute Afro-descendants. Even from a linguistic perspective, experts report that Ebonics could not be a dialect of English because they do not share similarities in their grammar systems: “Throughout the diaspora, the documented evidence is that, while there has been an extensive borrowing or adoption of English and other European words, the grammar of the language of Niger-Congo African descendants follows the grammar rules of the Niger-Congo African languages” (Smith and Crozier 111). With this in mind, my future writing will ardently reflect this argument, and from this point on I will refer to this as the language of Ebonics rather than African American Vernacular English.
Annotated Bibliography
Edgerson, David. “The Discourse of Ebonics: Issues and Challenges.” Online Submission, vol. 23, no. 2, Jan. 2006, p. 2006. ERIC,https://dc153.dawsoncollege.qc.ca:2312/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,url,uid&db=eric&AN=ED491982&site=eds-live&scope=site
In this article, David Edgerson discusses the issues and controversy surrounding the status of Ebonics as a language rather than an improper counterpart of English. Edgerson brings up how the bloody history of African Americans has come to create Ebonics through many art forms, written as well as spoken and that associating it with the English language, the language of the colonizing oppressor, is a further act of disenfranchisement. Edgerson will also shed light on the future of this language and the debate surrounding it, asserting that the recognition and appreciation of Ebonics as a language is of the utmost importance when it comes to repairing the damage of racial inequality in the United States as well as establishing ethnocentricity in the nation. I will be using this article to display how the history of Afro-descendants and the cultural products stemming from the communication code this population created make Ebonics a language from a sociolinguistic perspective.
Smith, Ernie, and Karen Crozier. “Ebonics Is Not Black English.” Western Journal of Black Studies, vol. 22, no. 2, Summer 1998, p. 109. EBSCOhost, https://dc153.dawsoncollege.qc.ca:2070/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,url,uid&db=a9h&AN=1782468&site=eds-live&scope=site.
In this article, Smith and Crozier investigate the many ways in which Ebonics linguistically distinguishes itself as a language completely separate from English, effectively dismantling the idea that it is the Black English form. Through the use of many linguistic rules and studies, the authors will conclude that the language used by African Americans cannot be classified as Black English. I will be using this article to display the linguistic properties that make Ebonics a language in itself as well as to show how even if English is part of Ebonics, it does not make Ebonics.
Blog Entry #7: The Impact of Ebonics on American Poplar Culture
Throughout the history of the United States dating back to African enslavement, the language of Ebonics used to generate various cultural products has and continues to take American popular culture by storm. Music and the Ebonics-laced lyrics produced by Afro-descendants to this day emphasize the set of moral, political, spiritual and cultural values that belong to the widespread African American community. Although rap and R&B are staples in the Black community, popular genres in history tell the story of what it means to be Black in America: “Much can be learned about the history of African Americans through the music of spirituals, blues, gospel, jazz, and hip-hop. In the music are emotional stories of the hardship, hope, and determination of a people who have been downtrodden and oppressed” (Hamlet 28). The ways in which singers and rappers go about presenting the plight of African Americans through popular culture armed with the language that carried them out of slavery and Jim Crow, to name important periods of history, speaks volumes about how Ebonics is the language of pioneers and warriors. These vocal artists also display the inherent African American values that go against those of American society using the linguistic technique of semantic inversion, where a term’s initial definition comes to mean the opposite:
“In hip-hop culture, it is spelled phat and refers to a person or thing that is excellent and desirable, reflecting the traditional cultural value that human body weight is a good thing and implicitly rejecting the Eurocentric thought which teaches that being skinny is more valued than being fat.” (Hamlet 28)
This goes to show that Ebonics as a language reflects the extensive culture behind the Afro-descendant community in the United States. Furthermore, music produced by African Americans using this language is so deeply ingrained in American popular culture that it is impossible to deny its existence, even more so its complete separation from Standard English.
Annotated Bibliography
Hamlet, Janice D. “Word! The African American Oral Tradition and Its Rhetorical Impact on American Popular Culture.” Black History Bulletin, vol. 74, no. 1, 2011, pp. 27–31, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24759732. Accessed 1 Apr. 2022.
In this article, Janice D. Hamlet shows how spoken Ebonics has come to dominate American popular culture for centuries up until today. Hamlet shows how the cultural values of the African Amercan community transpire through the lyrics of their music and tell the stories of their history, much in the African tribe fashion of Nommo that prizes spoken word. I will use this article to display how Ebonics has made a name for itself in American popular culture.
Blog Entry #8: The Oakland School Board's Resolution on Ebonics
The Oakland school board’s resolution on Ebonics, reached on December eighteenth in 1996, intrinsically legitimizes Ebonics to be an African language and furthermore authorizes its use in the instruction of Standard English where it concerns African American speakers of this language. Additionally, this resolution brought up the possibility of salary raises for bilingual speakers of Ebonics and English. Writings by scholars in response to this resolution debate whether or not Ebonics is a language or a dialect. However, a majority of these scholars agree that disregarding the official status of Ebonics, this resolution is important in the fight for social equality that does not require Afro-descendants in the United States to neglect any part of their cultural background: “The standardization of the specialized languages of text books, the scientific, legal and medical professions, illustrates the benefit of using a common language, without giving up one's identity” (Woodford 2). Although this resolution is a big step toward this social acceptance of Black culture, teachers should not need the resolution to accept the linguistic cultural background of Afro-descendant as opposed to that of any other bilingual student of any other race. Another important case in Ebonics is that of the Ann Arbor Black English case in 1977, where 11 students went to court after being placed in special education classrooms for speaking Ebonics. The court ruling that ensued is that teachers must educate Afro-descendant students with their linguistic background in mind. Throughout the court proceedings, the representative used academic sources to back up their argument:
“Using the published Work and testimony of Professor Geneva Smitherman, then Director of the Center for Black Studies at Wayne State University, the plaintiffs successfully argued that their clients' language patterns were indicative of a legitimate, though different, language tradition, not low scholastic aptitude or intelligence meriting their assignment in "special" classes. ” (Hall 12)
Annotated Bibliography
Woodford, Maize. “The Black Scholar Reader’s Forum: Ebonics.” Black Scholar, vol. 27, no. 1, Spring 1997, p. 2. EBSCOhost, https://dc153.dawsoncollege.qc.ca:2070/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=9707154180&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
Maize Woodford writes this introduction to a series of articles to explain the Oakland school board's 1996 resolution on Ebonics and the controversial debate it sparked in the courts of both public and scholarly opinion. Due to the fact that this event in the history of Ebonics comes up in the majority of my scholarly sources, I am using this article to briefly explain the resolution and the social impact it creates on Ebonics in American society.
Willis, Steven. “Ebonics 101.” YouTube. Uploaded by Button Poetrey, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CB8pBiUavtg&t=1s
This piece of slam poetry by Steve Willis speaks of Ebonics as the language of a people as well as its long history. Willis also speaks about what it means to be Black in the United States, using the linguistics of Ebonics to commemorate many historical moments in Black history, such as what may have been the last words of victims of police brutality.
Hall, Perry A. “The Ebonics Debate: Are We Speaking the Same Language?” Black Scholar, vol. 27, no. 2, Summer 1997, p. 12. EBSCOhost, https://dc153.dawsoncollege.qc.ca:2325/10.1080/00064246.1997.11430853.
This article discusses the Ann Arbor Black English case, very similar to the Oakland School Board's resolution on Ebonics. I will be using this article to display similarities in the cases and further show that Ebonics in mainstream society is separate from Standard English.
Blog Entry #9: Teaching and Encouraging Ebonics in the Classroom
In society, people in positions of authority both past and present iterate that Afro-descendants have to speak ‘proper’ or ‘correctly’. Statements such as these discredit and dismiss the language belonging to Afro-descendants, which is Ebonics, as informal and borderline barbaric. The negative connotations attached to the language of Ebonics have and continue to damage the identity of Afro-descendant individuals, especially in the classroom. This social outcasting of Ebonics can only be construed as another layer of racism at work in modern-day American society:
“For instance, while [White Mainstream English]-speaking students come to school already prepared because their linguistic and cultural practices are deemed “academic,” most linguistically and racially diverse students begin at a disadvantage because their language and culture do not reflect the dominant white culture that counts as academic.”(Baker-Bell 10)
Here, Baber-Bell discusses the disadvantage at which Afro-descendant students are put the very first day of their formal education due tu the fact that their cultural and linguistic backgrounds are so divergent from White American culture. Standard English may be the official business language of the United States, but there should also be an encouragement of bilingualism in the classroom: “The example of Martin Luther King makes this point. Dr. King wrote and spoke standard English with consummate skill, but he was also adept at using the dialect of his congregation to great effect” (Perez 2000). Although teaching Ebonics is not necessary to the American education curriculum, using it as well as its history to facilitate the teaching of Standard English is pedagogically beneficial to young Afro-descendant students. Another benefit of using Ebonics to teach standard English is the aspect of exposure that students of other cultural backgrounds are bound to receive. With daily exposure to Ebonics and its rich cultural history, fellow students of Afro-descendants will unconsciously grow to accept this language. Taking this into account, it is plausible to say that recognizing Ebonics as a language and encouraging its use in the classroom to teach Standard English can be seen as a great step in the direction of racial equality and anti-racism in the United States.
Works Cited
Baker-Bell, April. “Dismantling Anti-Black Linguistic Racism in English Language Arts Classrooms: Toward an Anti-Racist Black Language Pedagogy.” Theory Into Practice, vol. 59, no. 1, Winter 2020, pp. 8–21. EBSCOhost, https://dc153.dawsoncollege.qc.ca:2325/10.1080/00405841.2019.1665415.
Perez, Samuel A. “Using Ebonics or Black English as a Bridge to Teaching Standard English.” Contemporary Education, vol. 71, no. 4, June 2000, p. 34. EBSCOhost, https://dc153.dawsoncollege.qc.ca:2070/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=4786967&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
Blog Entry #10: Reaction to Peer Review
From my peer review, I am taking into account that I must write a clear and concise thesis statement in my introduction as well as provide a more transparent summary of my topic and arguments in the coclusion of my paper. I must also list what my arguments are. Further advice that was given to me is to incorporate more academic sources in my citations as well as my works cited. Overall, this feedback was necessary for me to remember the small details that are essential to the writing of a good academic paper.
Research Paper: Distinguishing Ebonics: Reclaiming Afro-Descendant History And Language In The United States
When several communities are imprisoned and displaced by the same oppressor, the only way to find freedom is to come together as one with language. This is the story of Ebonics, a language born from various African dialects and Standard English spoken by Afro-descendants of enslavement from the Caribbean all the way to Canada. Despite its rich and artful history as well as its vast speaker population, Ebonics is dismissed by Western society as merely an improper use of slang in English. However, Ebonics separates itself from Standard English in the core of its linguistic patterns and especially in its cultural origins, therefore a decision to officially acknowledge it as a language is necessary. In this paper, topics that will be discussed to support this argument are the linguistics of Ebonics, the history of Ebonics from a sociolinguistics viewpoint and finally how the lack of an official language status for Ebonics prevents real racial equality in the United States.
Linguistically speaking, Ebonics strays from Standard English as well as West African dialects while applying some of these languages’ respective rules, which is the basis of so many languages that stem from colonization and displacement. In the isolated case of Ebonics, centuries’ worth of societal demonization and discrimination of Afro-descendants create negative connotations of this plentiful language where it is currently depreciated as coarse English spoken by the uneducated. Beyond the informal language of slang, Ebonics has its own style, grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary that make it a unique language and can be traced back to its origins: “These distinctive Ebonics pronunciations are all systematic, the result of regular rules and restrictions; they are not random ‘errors’‒ and this is equally true of Ebonics grammar ” (Rickford). Although the debate surrounding the status of Ebonics is ongoing, many linguists such as Rickford raise the many various linguistics components of Ebonics that debunk the idea that it is merely an improper use of Standard English: “As Palmer indicates, in comparative or historical linguistics, languages are not considered to be related merely because they share vocabularies” (Smith and Crozier 110). From a linguistic point of view, another point worth noting is that Ebonics and English have little to no similarities where it concerns grammar, which encompasses phonetics, phonology, morphology, semantics and syntax to create the rules and restrictions that belong to a given language. Although Ebonics borrows from English, this language has diverging phonoglogy and syntax:
“Ebonics has its own unique phonological features. For example, the r, 1, and t sounds may be omitted from medial and/or final positions: "guard" and "car" become "god" and "cah," "tall" and "help" become "taw" and "hep," and "past" and "desk" become "pass" and "des." Sounds may also be similarly pronounced or interchanged: "this," "them," and "those" become "dis," "dem," and "doz." The words "thanks" and "thinks" become "tanks" and "tinks," "ask" becomes "aks," "with" and "mouth" become "wif" and "mouf," "mother" and "breathe" become "muvver" and "breave," and "coming" becomes "comin."” (Perez 2000)
On the one hand, Ebonics may not have any official grammar rules that are in writing, but even so, the differences are blatant and warrant an official status as a language.
Throughout the history of the United States dating back to African enslavement, the language of Ebonics that is used to generate various cultural products has and continues to take American popular culture by storm. Despite Ebonics being the origin of many iconic and trendsetting cultural products in many Afro-descendant territories, this language continues to be overlooked as a proper form of discourse in Western society. From a sociolinguistics viewpoint, Ebonics should be considered a language due to many factors, especially on the basis that it is a creation born from enslaved Africans’ need to communicate amongst each other without their oppressors being the wiser. Furthermore, sociolinguistics ask that a significant population speak a code in order for it to be considered a language and that this code have a writing system. The language styles of Ebonics, whether in fiction or any other literary genre, reflect a real population and their linguistics, culture and history (McClaren 98). Although Ebonics has yet to build a formal writing system, a vast population of Afro-descendants that spreads wider than the United States speaks this language per a 1998 report that 80 percent of Afro-descendant Americans speak Ebonics (Newell 84). Standard English and Ebonics are two different languages in Western society that do not share the same cultural values, products, customs, and social behaviors The development of Ebonics as a proper language with specific structures and patterns is definitely powered by the isolation of Afro-descendants from White Americans due to segregation, meaning Standard English and Ebonics did not have much interaction for a long time (Perez 2000). It is also important to note that the language of Ebonics reflects the history of its speakers, telling the story of a community that bands together to fight against the shackles put onto them by their oppressors. Many important Afro-descendant writers such as August Wilson, Zora Neale Hurston and Paul Laurence Dunbar publish in Ebonics (Rickford), but an essential part of Ebonics is its spoken communication: “Much can be learned about the history of African Americans through the music of spirituals, blues, gospel, jazz, and hip-hop. In the music are emotional stories of the hardship, hope, and determination of a people who have been downtrodden and oppressed” (Hamlet 28). Ebonics is not only a language based in speech, it is a language based in history and deserves to be recognized in order for Western society to eventually reach racial equality.
Discrediting Ebonics by calling it a vernacular dialect of English displays another attempt at censoring the Black voice in its most authentic form. It is important to comprehend that Ebonics encompasses a culture with values and moral codes belonging to the Afro-descendant community. The Afro-descendant community is historically persecuted, so much so that they resort to code-switching in order to be taken seriously in formal environments. This common habit in the Afro-descendant community is entirely because of the negative connotations attributed to the language of Ebonics, portraying the users of this language as uneducated and poor. However, articles refute these negative narratives:
“Cultural difference theorists reject the idea that low-income students have a deficit. Instead they believe that ethnic groups such as African Americans have rich diverse cultures which consist of values, perspectives, and languages that are different from the mainstream culture which schools subscribe to.” (Newell 83)
By recognizing Ebonics as a language, the road towards actual racial equality is able to begin because it means accepting Afro-descendant culture as equally rich and beautiful in its differences to mainstream American culture. However, as previously established, Ebonics borrows from both English and African dialects of the Niger-Congo region that create a fusion of American and African cultures. Furthermore, Ebonics and the Afro-descendant culture in the United States have evolved from a fusion into its own entity separate from both American and African culture. With this in mind, it is plausible to say that the continued dismissal of Ebonics as a language dismisses in turn the Afro-descendant community in America:
“When Black students’ language practices are suppressed in classrooms or they begin to absorb messages that imply that BL is deficient, wrong, and unintelligent, this could cause them to internalize anti-blackness and develop negative attitudes about their linguistic, racial, cultural, and intellectual identities and about themselves (Baker-Bell, 2013, forthcoming)” (Baker-Bell 10).
To prevent yet another instance of discrimination that will cause more fear of assuming one’s identity, it is important to recognize this language as well as provide teaching tools: “The standardization of the specialized languages of textbooks, the scientific, legal and medical professions, illustrates the benefit of using a common language, without giving up one's identity” (Woodford 2). Many individuals of the past like James Baldwin and Maya Angelou leave writing that shows that there is in fact propriety and class in this most deeply rooted form of the Black voice, thus the reason why Ebonics deserves to be a language. Although teaching Ebonics is not necessary to the American education curriculum, using it as well as its history to facilitate the teaching of Standard English is pedagogically beneficial to young Afro-descendant students. Recognizing Ebonics as a language and educating current and future generations of young Americans about this language and its history will undoubtedly bring about racial equality and create an anti-racist society in the United States.
Despite being displaced from their native land and persecuted for centuries merely for the color of their skin, Afro-descendants create Ebonics to gain their freedom. As proven through linguistic, sociolinguistics as well as race relations concepts, this paper has demonstrated how Ebonics cannot be construed as merely a dialect of English. Making Ebonics an official language does not come to the detriment of American culture, it only adds to it. Depriving future generations of Afro-descendants of their rightful language being recognized as such will only continue to put this community at a disadvantage. While prejudice will always remain, viewing Ebonics as a language is a big step in the direction of racial equality where it concerns breaking down stereotypes as well as derogatory narratives of the Afro-descendant community in the United States.
Works Cited
BAKER-BELL, APRIL. “Dismantling Anti-Black Linguistic Racism in English Language Arts Classrooms: Toward an Anti-Racist Black Language Pedagogy.” Theory Into Practice, vol. 59, no. 1, Winter 2020, pp. 8–21. EBSCOhost, https://dc153.dawsoncollege.qc.ca:2325/10.1080/00405841.2019.1665415.
EDGERSON, DAVID. “The Discourse of Ebonics: Issues and Challenges.” Online Submission, vol. 23, no. 2, Jan. 2006, p. 2006. ERIC,https://dc153.dawsoncollege.qc.ca:2312/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,url,uid&db=eric&AN=ED491982&site=eds-live&scope=site
HALL, PERRY A. “The Ebonics Debate: Are We Speaking the Same Language?” Black Scholar, vol. 27, no. 2, Summer 1997, p. 12. EBSCOhost, https://dc153.dawsoncollege.qc.ca:2325/10.1080/00064246.1997.11430853.
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