Posted on 06/04/2002 9:16:59 AM PDT by Stand Watch Listen
Remember "ebonics?" In December 1996 a national debate erupted about the Oakland, Calif., school-board decision authorizing teachers to use street slang while teaching children standard English. For the last six years, with the connivance of the mainstream media, most Americans have been able to forget ebonics. Unfortunately, however, this foolishness has continued.
Linguistics professors Walt Wolfram and Erik Thomas defend ebonics as the legitimate dialect of a dynamic minority in their new book, The Development of African-American English. New York state regent Adelaide Sanford recently insisted that her support of ebonics had been "misrepresented" and that ebonics is the language of great black poets of the past, such as James Weldon Johnson. In 2001, the Linguistics Society of America (LSA) reiterated its 1997 statement supporting ebonics. And, in 1998, academics Lisa Delpit and Theresa Perry edited an anthology, The Real Ebonics Debate, in which none of the approximately 30 contributions dared to criticize the newly accepted dialect.
"Experts" tell us that ebonics is three things: 1) an African language that is genetically passed on among blacks; 2) a vocabulary that has grown out of the encounter of African slaves with Irish immigrants; and 3) a wholly new dialect created since the 1960s by young blacks to separate themselves from whites.
You might expect someone to have pointed out that the above definitions are mutually incompatible. But no such luck. Despite having a professional interest in rigorous, scholarly debate, most linguistics professors long ago abandoned any pretenses to objectivity. The most common and correct understanding by blacks and whites alike is that ebonics is broken English and/or street slang. However, any educator so defining ebonics is sure to be shouted down, or worse. As a result, those who know better have remained silent as one well-meaning academic once advised me to do.
Although ebonics supporters such as Keith Gilyard publicly have claimed otherwise, children taught using ebonics readers did worse than their peers who were taught with standard English readers. Consider this from an ebonics reader used by professors John and Angela Rickford:
"This here little Sister name Mae was most definitely untogether. I mean, like she didn't act together. She didn't look together. She was just an untogether Sister.
"Her teacher was always sounding on her 'bout daydreaming in class. I mean, like, just 'bout every day the teacher would be getting on her case. But it didn't seem to bother her none. She just kept on keeping on. Like, I guess daydreaming was her groove. And you know what they say: 'Don't knock your Sister's groove.' But a whole lotta people did knock it. But like I say, she just kept on keeping on.
"One day Mae was taking [sic] to herself in the lunch room. She was having this righteous old conversation with herself. She say, 'I wanna be a princess with long golden hair.' Now can you get ready for that? Long golden hair!
"Well, anyway, Mae say, 'If I can't be a princess I'll settle for some long golden hair. If I could just have me some long golden hair everything would be all right with me. Lord, if I could just have me some long golden hair.'"
Ebonics is a pillar of Afrocentrism. It is a movement which, using intimidation, violence and pseudoscholarship, has dumbed down the education of black children beyond recognition, illegally barred whites from teaching black children and deliberately cut poor, black children off from the mainstream of American life.
Afrocentrists maintain that the pigment melanin makes blacks intellectually, morally and culturally superior to whites. They teach black children that ancient black Egyptians flew gliders, that whites who dispute such fairy tales are racists who seek to deny black greatness and that all black educational failure is due to a racist, white conspiracy.
Afrocentrists such as George Washington University professor Robert Williams, who coined the term "ebonics" in 1973, maintain that it is an act of disrespect for a white teacher to correct a black child. Professor Charles Coleman of the City University of New York's (CUNY's) York College has argued that remedial education is harmful to black students.
Progressive white educators who support Afrocentrists insist that it is wrong to correct students' usage and grammar. Unfortunately, this approach leads teachers to give passing grades on writing-proficiency exams. The CUNY remedial students then are permitted to take college-level classes despite possessing only semiliterate reading abilities.
Many middle-class blacks like to sometimes "go ghetto" and use street slang. But these professionals can speak standard English in many cases, better than I can and can always go home. The poor and working-class blacks to whom Afrocentric educators have refused to teach standard English, however, have nowhere to go.
Nicholas Stix writes frequently on education issues and has been an instructor in the City University of New York.
Some people here have the uncanny and annoying propensity to misconstrue anything. Sometimes I think it's deliberate just to pick a fight. Read what I said and don't impart anything more.
I still think anyone who thinks the founders spoke with today's southern dialect has been brainwashed by Southern pride. They came from freakin' England.
This here Damn Yankee challenges you and your slack jaw to a BBQ cook off. For money. American money, not confederate dollars. Loser to publicly proclaim the greatness of the winner, and when this Damn Yankee wins, you, the southern hick, will have to wear a tshirt to a NASCAR race or other site of southern entertainment that proclaims in large print...
I Got My Ass Kicked In A BBQ Cook-off By A Damn Yankee
Are you up to the challenge?
I love ebonics. All of the practioners are removing themselves from competition with me for jobs today and with my children in the future.
Maybe they won't be competing with you for jobs, but they will be competing with your dependants for their upkeep via the welfare state.
Ever listen to Senator Robert Byrd give one of his pompous oratories? Listen closely to his enunciation. I think he is the "missing link" between our English speaking forefathers and modern day Southern.
For a minute there I thought I was going to have to correct you. I thought you were going to say southern - ahem - culture.
...show him the 'police beat' section and drill into his head that if his name ever appeared in there it would be an embarassment to himself and especially the family. It instilled in him a fear of having "his name in there" when he was growing up.Here's a poem that has been passed on to our family members.
You got it from your father,
twas the best he had to give.
And right gladly he bestowed it.
It's yours, the while you live.
You may lose the watch he gave you
and another you may claim.
But remember, when you're tempted,
to be careful of his name.
It was fair the day you got it,
and a worthy name to bear.
When he took it from his father,
there was no dishonor there.
Through the years he proudly wore it,
to his father he was true
And that name was clean and spotless
when he passed it on to you.
Oh, there's much that he has given
that he values not at all.
He has watched you break your playthings
in the days when you were small.
You have lost the knife he gave you
and you've scattered many a game.
But you'll never hurt your father
if you're careful with his name.
It is yours to wear forever,
yours to wear the while you life.
Yours, perhaps some distant morning,
another boy to give.
And you'll smile as did your father,
with a smile that all can share.
If a clean name and a good name
you are giving him to wear.
You got it from your father,
It was all he had to give.
So it's yours to use and cherish
For as long you may live.
If you lose the watch he gave you,
It can always be replaced.
But a black mark on you name, Son,
Can never be erased.
It was clean the day you took it.
And a worthy name to bear,
When he got it from his father,
There was no dishonor there.
So make sure you guard it wisely,
After all is said and done,
You'll be glad the name is spotless,
When you give it to your son.
LMFAO!!! Now this here's where the fat hits the fire, bud... Ain't nobody, and I mean NOBODY, wants to eat nothin' ol' Max "cooks" up... I know mah limitations and whatnot and that there's one of 'em. I do cook a mean instant-microwavable-artificial-butter-and-bacon-flavored grits, though I do get confused about how much beer to add sometimes...
And I've been using duct tape to good advantage for some time, so don't call me slackjawed or I'll kick yer a$$.
I'm currently reading the biography John Adams. When you read the many letters written between John and Abigail Adams, you get a good sense of the language of the time. Also, try reading The Federalist and compare it to Thomas Paine's Common Sense to see the Founders' different styles of writing at the time.
The question is: how different was spoken English from written English.
-PJ
Yeah well yer just green-envied 'cause everything's bigger down here. Ain't I right, belles. Bwahaha...
And just where do you think me ma was born?
To combat this problem and keep her clean I put her foot in a garbage bag and then wrap it in duck tape.
I will put my duct tape skills up against yours. How about that.
Though you don't know him, my father is the Duck Tape Master. He owns virtually no tools and live by his motto that "If you can't fix it with duck tape, spray paint and a hammer, you need a new one."
That reminds me of the bit in the movie "Airplane" when a black guy gets sick and no one can understand what his friend is saying, Mrs. Cleaver (from Leave it to Beaver) jumps up and says "I speak jive". LOL
My parole officer say if I miss disappointment, I in trouble!
I gave my girlfriend the crabs, and the hotel everyone.
If I pay my alimony, I'll have no money foreclose.
While I'm sure you are correct in this case, the same is NOT true of "ebonics." It is not beautiful, nor should it be preserved. It's a perversion of standard English, pure laziness on the part of the speaker. Fine when you're just hanging out with friends, but hardly anyway to communicate with the majority of people.
Blacks are just destroying themselves with this idiocy, and they won't listen to anyone else on the matter.
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