OTHER QUESTIONS COME TO MIND
So now I hear you asking: does this mean that not only this phrase but all the other obscenities become okay? I will not say “yes” or “no” to this question right away for there may be some phrases so awfully gross nobody, but I mean nobody, wishes to hear or legitimize them!
However, if we were to say “no”–that not all swear words are okay–then one has to ask the inevitable question: who chooses the vocabulary for this new Ebonics? What criteria s to be used for accepting one Black word from the street while rejecting another?
There are many other difficult linguistic choices to consider here as well. For example, do all Ebonic words have to be of English origin or can they have their start in other languages as well?
Will Ebonics have its own vocabulary and its own grammatical set of rules?
Is Ebonics an anti-English tongue come alive in the flesh, is it already a full-blown dialect, or is it going to be invented on the fly, piece by piece?
Is Ebonics going to be a dialect based on understandable data, history, and experience or is it going to be a secretive, sometimes invisible, constantly changing collections of odd words and phrases with a distinctive sort of pronunciation, a pyramid-base of mistakes upon which nothing but more foolish errors are allowed to be added?
Is it going to be a recognizable language or merely a collection of cast-off syntactical ineptitudes and dead-end foolish errors dressed up for a masquerade?
Is it to acknowledge and reflect African linguistic influence? Is it going to add African words as opportunity allows? If so, it is passing strange to hear how the proponents of Ebonics argue: people need to recognize “this home-and-street language” because they have proof it already exists. On the other hand, they have yet to invent nearly everything this language requires to demonstrate its true linguistic vitality if it is to get off the ground! Or will Ebonics content itself as a dialect perpetually half-full based on a foundation of error-enriched English spoken at its worst rather than its best?
Talk about reverse linguistic evolution!
Ebonics will insult tens of millions of Black people who are intelligent enough to have learned English well. They have already learned how to read, speak, and write it well: great Black literature and scholarship is one of the glories of America. What shall happen to their careers and reputations, their achievements and self-esteem, since Ebonics says to them in effect that they must be stupid half-ass renegades? Indeed, the emergence of Ebonics will insult everyone who speaks regular English with ease, grace, and pride! No matter: Ebonics is on its way!
EBONICS AND THE BUREAUCRACY
Think of the logistical and bureaucratic entanglements!
Since many Ebonic-speaking students may experience problems in school which are derived in part from their speaking another dialect on the street and at home, some administrative corrective action will be required. Actually, just about all of them should be entitled to a revision of their transcripts to show they have mastered two languages, not one.
Remember, their distant African linguistic past proved that they could not learn to say “the” and so they could be speaking a dialect with no “the” and therefore they should not be penalized for not knowing this word’s sound (translated loosely as “derefore dey should not be penalized . . .”)
Strangely enough, millions of Black people failed to be impressed by this reasoning about their own lack of linguistic ability and went on to master English. Imagine their response if a teacher at the end of the school year had said: “You’ve been speaking English all year long which is the wrong tongue for you! You will have to repeat this grade again next year!” That teacher would be mobbed and “adjusted” on the spot, I tell you!
HOW MANY INSULTS? LET ME COUNT THE WAYS
(THE ELOQUENCE OF DR. KING: ALL IN NAUGHT?)
I suppose all of Dr. King’s speeches will have to be rewritten someday to take out all the “the’s” and replace them with all the “duhs”. I personally won’t see it as an improvement but then I belong to that old group of independent freedom-loving white Americans who were once much appreciated by the Black people in the darkest hours of their hardest struggles—but alas, no more. Now, the rest of the time, we can be dismissed with a contemptuous “whitey” or “honkey” or “devil” or other racist epithet…especially should one of us dare disagree with one of the new Great Black Ideas of which we’ve seen so many gems these last few years.
To me, Ebonics is a grievous insult to the sacrifices made by the people of this country–of all colors–to create a land wherein people of many different backgrounds can live together in peace. It is said that he who troubleth the peace of his own house, shall inherit the wind. I rather think this Biblical passage has some considerable relevance here. If America is likened to a house, then Ebonics is a danger within that house. Writers from Biblical times down to modern times have seen it this way: “A house divided against itself cannot stand”, as Lincoln reminded us. Slavery was the danger and Lincoln helped destroy it, forever.
America has roots in brave words: in the words of Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, “all men are created equal”, and roots in the words of Washington and Adams, Ben Franklin and Patrick Henry, Tom Paine and Thomas Jefferson. America has deep roots in the thoughts of Abraham Lincoln, a guiding light of our growing democracy, a man counted among the best of English writers.
America has deep roots in Phyllis Wheatley and Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. DuBois and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. among many others. And the roots grew leaves and flowers and we have the words of men like Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy, James Weldon Johnson and Richard Wright–and it is an absolute insult to say English is biased or unknowable or that somehow, once knowing it, Black children are constricted and put at an unfair advantage to other children. Not if they learn to express themselves well!
It is an insult to teachers and schools to say they have had too little success in teaching English to Black children. It is an insult to their parents for it says they were unable to control their children and impress upon them the need for good manners, maximum effort, and discernible achievement in school.
It’s an insult to the neighborhood, the larger community, the nation, and the historical record of amazing contributions made by millions of Black people for the last two or three centuries!
EBONIC ETHICS FOR CHILDREN
Children who refused to do their work and only lived to play sports at recess–Ebonics now takes your mistakes and says you weren’t to blame: you were only speaking your own language! What will Ebonic-proponents say about Black children who used to throw tantrums and screamed and fought and occasionally bullied, beat, kicked, or injured another kid? Who will draw the line?
And when some Black youth occasionally attacked a teacher, I don’t know if these actions will still be considered wrong (as mispronunciation of a word can be considered wrong) or whether such action will be justified by the teacher’s denial of their right to speak Ebonics? Will criminal action and lazy behavior be excused?
Any effort to shape a new dialect, based in part on what are plainly grammatical mistakes within the language from which the new dialect wishes to split, is an effort to build on the quicksand of foolishness. For nearly all children make mistakes–tons of them—both writing and speaking, while growing up. Most of these mistakes can be overcome: the correct form learned, the old mistake thrown away.
Certain mistakes may occur so commonly among students that they seem almost “normal” but they are not: they are still mistakes. As each new generation of schoolchildren continues to repeat them it becomes easier to give in to the temptation and say, finally, that this must be a new dialect, then. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Learning language includes both making and correcting mistakes as one of its core principles. Many children (black and white and every other color) fail at first to learn the right way to speak and write and some do a rather haphazard job of correcting their mistakes. A linguistic background a couple of centuries removed likely has little or nothing to do with it. It is an excuse. Lazy white children make the same mistakes in the same places as lazy Black kids. They both lack inspiration motivation to want to learn and do their best. This deals with the nature of pedagogy, not a historical linguistic phantom.
“Ain’t” is commonly used by kids and adults with a low level (or poor quality) education, whether black or white or any other color. It doesn’t mean there isn’t a correct way to spell a word just because a bunch of people misspell it. So how does a collection of mistakes justify a new dialect?
A mistake is still a mistake. People should think twice before grabbing a bunch of mistakes and saying, look, we can transform these mistakes: here’s a new dialect!
The linguistic “geniuses” of Oakland have stirred up a hornet’s nest. The factional divide will create confusion, chaos, strife, and an unwanted backlash for years to come. You cannot make “a silk purse out a sow’s ear” the proverb tells us, and you cannot make a genuine dialect out of the linguistic contortions derived from some students’ inability or stubborn refusal to speak and write an established and well-respected language like English.
If such a proposal comes before the Oakland School Board or the Oakland City Council to fund Ebonics program as a foreign language, I will urge my representatives to vote no!
Call it what you will, the mistakes of one language can never provide a solid foundation for the grammatical structure of a new language.
To do so is to enshrine negativity and ignorance, prejudice and nonsense in place of the hard work that goes into legitimate linguistic acquisition. Ebonics will inevitably self-destruct if it continues to attempt to build “a dialect” upon Black rejection of correct English forms.
