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textualdevianceBut forcing me to learn how to speak properly is KILLING MY CULTURE, MAN.
I fucking hate that. It usually comes from the same people who like to pretend that being a violent, misogynistic gangbanger is some sort of legitimate subculture.
For the record, I support bilingual education for immigrants. There's no sense in shortchanging a child's learning in other fields just to bang English into their heads. It's entirely possible to teach someone to speak English at the same time they're learning math and science in Spanish, Russian, Tagalog or whatever. And whatever someone wants to speak at home is fine with me. I also don't have a problem with immigrants or tourists speaking in their native language in public. No one is entitled to eavesdrop on someone else's conversation.
However, those things are not the same as someone who deliberately misuses English when their family has been in an English-speaking country for six generations. Accents? Regional or subcultural colloquialisms? Whatever. But bad grammar and spelling ARE NOT A CULTURAL THING. They are a symptom of several problems: poverty, poor education or a cultural lack of respect for education.
I understand that the school system is part of a larger "The Man" morass that a lot of oppressed subcultures fear and mistrust, but it's not going to do them any good to encourage that fear and mistrust. Legitimizing crappy language skills by slapping a Culturally Protected label on them is only fucking over people who really don't need to be fucked over any further.
This isn't about assimilation--there are plenty of legitimate cultural and subcultural distinctions. Improper use of the language is not one of them.
Ugh. This sort of cultural relativism is why I could never go into anthropology. And why I'm working my ass off to correct the problem of "all opinions are equal" in the media. Education, empiricism and expertise have to count for something, or we are well and truly fucked as a species.
I fucking hate that. It usually comes from the same people who like to pretend that being a violent, misogynistic gangbanger is some sort of legitimate subculture.
For the record, I support bilingual education for immigrants. There's no sense in shortchanging a child's learning in other fields just to bang English into their heads. It's entirely possible to teach someone to speak English at the same time they're learning math and science in Spanish, Russian, Tagalog or whatever. And whatever someone wants to speak at home is fine with me. I also don't have a problem with immigrants or tourists speaking in their native language in public. No one is entitled to eavesdrop on someone else's conversation.
However, those things are not the same as someone who deliberately misuses English when their family has been in an English-speaking country for six generations. Accents? Regional or subcultural colloquialisms? Whatever. But bad grammar and spelling ARE NOT A CULTURAL THING. They are a symptom of several problems: poverty, poor education or a cultural lack of respect for education.
I understand that the school system is part of a larger "The Man" morass that a lot of oppressed subcultures fear and mistrust, but it's not going to do them any good to encourage that fear and mistrust. Legitimizing crappy language skills by slapping a Culturally Protected label on them is only fucking over people who really don't need to be fucked over any further.
This isn't about assimilation--there are plenty of legitimate cultural and subcultural distinctions. Improper use of the language is not one of them.
Ugh. This sort of cultural relativism is why I could never go into anthropology. And why I'm working my ass off to correct the problem of "all opinions are equal" in the media. Education, empiricism and expertise have to count for something, or we are well and truly fucked as a species.
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(frozen) no subject
(frozen) no subject
The fact that white kids who fuck up grammar don't get a cultural pass when black kids do is evidence enough that this is just something someone dreamed up to keep people from having to actually pay attention in school. I'm sure I could argue that my halfwit relatives who think "I done got me" is a legitimate English phrase have some sort of valid cultural reasons for thinking that way. I also hope people would laugh their asses off if I tried to argue that.
I'm a bleeding heart enough that I often need transfusions. But I'm not going to support something that's purely essentialist cultural theory when the practical effects of it is to keep screwing over a community that doesn't need that screwing over.
"Standard" languages, though they may be constructs, are still very real, and will be for the forseeable future. They are the currency of every economy and formal social situation. Without a thorough understanding of that currency, people get left behind. The practical effects of embracing Ebonics (or the euphemistic acronym of AAVE) are to keep people from succeeding.
Kids whose culture already invites them to disregard education aren't going to understand the point of linguistic cultural theory. All they know is that they now have an excuse to blow off paying attention in class. Sorry, teacher. You can't tell me to speak correctly because it's MY CULTURE to speak like this.
Just because something is traditional in an identifiable subculture doesn't mean it's a good thing. It's traditional in the subculture I came from to down a half rack and beat the shit out of your wife and kids. That doesn't mean I should argue that that behavior is valid.
Poor grammar is a cultural thing in that it represents a group who have had little access to (or interest in) education. That should be cause for alarm, not celebration.
(frozen) A Question About Ebonics
I'm not here to flame your journal or anything, I just wanted your honest opinion on this subject. I was browsing the community that we're both in and I saw your comments. While they did put me off as an AAVE speaker, I respect your right to believe in certain theories about language and language acqusition, dialects, etc.
I just wanted to know if you think African languages had any part to play in Ebonics. For example, there were many creolized versions of West African languages that some say contribute to certain grammatical aspects of AAVE. Is this just something that you believe is an unproven theory? Also, what do you think about "switching". Those of us who speak AAVE usually have conversation in AAVE, then switch back to SE when there are non-AAVE speakers around. You state that you don't think embracing it is a healthy step, but what if these AAVE speaking youngsters are taught that Ebonics isn't bad WHILE learning SE at the same time. So they can still have the dialect they are comfortable with while being completely fluent in SE as well? Do you think that would be an even more positive step?
Once again, I really would like to hear your opinion, because I usually don't see many people still stating that embracing Ebonics is embracing "bad english" and such.
So, if you would reply, that would be cool. If not, then that's fine as well.
Thanks.
(frozen) Re: A Question About Ebonics
There are plenty of language quirks that are cultural--accents, regional and cultural colloquialisms, slang--but a failure of the basics of grammar and spelling has nothing to do with that. It isn't ancestry that causes a person to put apostrophes where they don't belong.
My people--the Irish and Italians--came to this country 100-150 years ago. My great grandfather spoke nothing but Italian when he came here. My grandmother had an odd accent--Italian combined with the Scandinavian inflection common to where she grew up in Wisconsin. On my father's side, the folks speak with Oklahoma and Texas accents, with a slight hint of Irish diction. My mother grew up in Southern California, and has an interesting mix of her mother's Italian/Scandinavian diction with a slight SoCal tinge.
But this describes how they speak, not what they know about language itself, and as far as that's concerned, most of my family ranges from functionally illiterate to inept, at best. The few of us who do have a grasp on proper grammar were fortunate to have access to good schools and encouragement to learn.
I'm not going to make an excuse for my family's lack of grammar skills by blaming their ancestral heritage. They've been here for several generations, now. Whatever language quirks they had due to having spoken a different language (or different form of the language) originally are erased by time.
Instead, what has caused my family's poor grasp on language is lack of access to (and in some cases a cultural disregard for) good education. Part of this is because both Irish and Italians were discriminated against when they first came to this country. They were bare-bones working class, making a living as best they could. It took several generations of hard work to get to the point where my generation--and it is only my generation--could actually manage to get to college. Most everyone else was lucky to graduate from high school, and many didn't even do that.
The same is generally true for your ancestors. Once freed, they had to start with nothing and work their way up, and that meant a lack of access to education. Add in racism and segregation, and it's no wonder that language skills had a hard time developing.
This isn't a cultural issue, in other words, but a class issue. Poverty and discrimination block access to good education, and lack of good education results in poor language skills.
If poor grammar really is a racial thing, then black folks who have lived middle to upper class lives for the past century or so would still be using it and poor white folks would have a solid grasp on standard grammar. Clearly, this is not the case.
Embracing the vernacular--regardless of the race of people using it--as a valid form of formal communication only sets back progress in improving education for the poor. I see nothing wrong with cataloging subcultural slang and accents, but it must be understood that those things are separate from formal standardized language.
Neither Ebonics nor the vernacular used by poor white folks are foreign languages used by recent immigrants. We don't need to teach classes in those languages the way we teach classes in Spanish to new immigrants from Mexico. They are, rather, evidence of a serious problem with education among the poor. I think it's vitally important to recognize it as a that, or we risk creating another generation of kids who can't get good jobs because they sound uneducated, thus perpetuating the poverty cycle.
(frozen) Hello!
The fact that white kids who fuck up grammar don't get a cultural pass when black kids do is evidence enough that this is just something someone dreamed up to keep people from having to actually pay attention in school. I'm sure I could argue that my halfwit relatives who think "I done got me" is a legitimate English phrase have some sort of valid cultural reasons for thinking that way. I also hope people would laugh their asses off if I tried to argue that.
Whites who speak an Appalachian English as well as whites who speak Creole are often seen as stupid--just as you see black people who speak AAVE, Appalachian English or Creole are seen as stupid and uneducated.
AAVE, Appalachian dialects and Louisiana Creole didn't begin because of a lack of education. It began when groups who spoke 2 separate languages blended together creating a pidgin. The children of these people used the pidgin, adding grammar to create a stable creole. This has nothing to do with one group being uneducated or not. Creoles have nothing to do with education.
This is not just something unique to black or white Americans--this is something that happens all over the world, regardless of education (or lack thereof). Creoles of English exist on every continent, in places where English colonies existed.
I learned how to speak AAVE from my parents. They learned AAVE from their parents, and so on. I learned to speak Standard American English before I entered primary school, when my mother made my siblings and I read from dictionaries to learn how to speak Standard American English.
Why should I be forced to speak it at home, where I feel comfortable? Or around my friends?
American English is a creole of English.
"Standard" languages, though they may be constructs, are still very real, and will be for the forseeable future. They are the currency of every economy and formal social situation. Without a thorough understanding of that currency, people get left behind. The practical effects of embracing Ebonics (or the euphemistic acronym of AAVE) are to keep people from succeeding.
There is nothing wrong with AAVE. The only problem would be if AAVE replaced Standard American English, which has not happened. Most speakers of AAVE speak or can understand both Standard American English and AAVE.
And just to let you know: the term "ebonics" is not a standard way to refer to AAVE, and is actually one of the later terms used to describe AAVE.
Kids whose culture already invites them to disregard education aren't going to understand the point of linguistic cultural theory. All they know is that they now have an excuse to blow off paying attention in class. Sorry, teacher. You can't tell me to speak correctly because it's MY CULTURE to speak like this.
Black culture invites black children to disregard education? Where do you see this? You say you are a "bleeding heart" but all I see is someone spewing more stereotypes about a people you don't really want to understand.
Just because something is traditional in an identifiable subculture doesn't mean it's a good thing. It's traditional in the subculture I came from to down a half rack and beat the shit out of your wife and kids. That doesn't mean I should argue that that behavior is valid.
I don't understand the comparison between beating your wife and kids and speaking a valid dialect.
Poor grammar is a cultural thing in that it represents a group who have had little access to (or interest in) education. That should be cause for alarm, not celebration.
It is not poor grammar. AAVE grammar pulls from various sources to create its own unique grammar.
(frozen) Re: Hello!
In casual communication, sure. But not in formal communication. And considering how hard English is in the first place (considering how bastardized it is from several other language roots) I don't see any reason to confuse kids about what is and isn't correct.
Black culture invites black children to disregard education? Where do you see this? You say you are a "bleeding heart" but all I see is someone spewing more stereotypes about a people you don't really want to understand.
Where did I call it "black culture?" The culture I'm referring to is a subculture created by poverty and poor education. That crosses racial lines.
Ebonics doesn't destroy Standard English...
Most of my family is pretty much saddidy or bougie, which means middle-upper class black people. I spoke AAVE in the home until my mother made my siblings and I read aloud from the dictionaries and encyclopedias in our home (as my sister posted above). My grandmother speaks AAVE, some Italian and Creole, so we also grew up with that as well. Speaking AAVE is not just about economic level or having less access to "proper" education.
There are various dialects in every place in the world. Are you telling me that America is the exception? Why is it so hard to believe that multiple peoples speak multiple tongues? Of course we're not going to use it to get a job, but still. Look at Italy, Spain, countries in Africa, Mexico, Chile- they have the same thing, and many of those people face the same discrimination as blacks and others do here.
My ancestors came from Ireland and Sicily as well, and I honestly don't think that the comparison applies simply because they already have a recognized language that they gave up to be included into the American scheme. So while my grandmother was able to teach us some Italian words and phrases, it was AAVE that I was able to completely converse in. I learned the grammar, words and usage of AAVE before I learned English. AAVE has a grammatical and semantic structure that mirrors those found in West Africa and Central Africa. Words for Ebonics came from "code" and "switching" when Blacks did not want their white "masters" to understand them. It’s not as if slaves just passed through time without taking a conscious look at their existence.
It's only "bad" grammar if you look at Standard English being "right" grammar. That's why it's called Standard English, it’s the standard-something that the majority of people speak. I look at AAVE in the same light as Patois. If there were many people who spoke SE and not Patois, I'm pretty sure Jamaica would have a problem with Patois as well. My family is Creole as well. They speak a hybrid language with its own grammar as well.
It’s just hard for me to see how people can believe AAVE is simply "bad" grammar. What do you think happened to the linguistic formations from Africa? Did my African ancestors simply forget? Or did they not make an effort to pass some of that structure down? Knowing Ebonics does not negate knowing Standard English. One doesn't destroy the other.
You point out that there is a problem with the Education System in America---that's true! There is a big problem with the system and we’re not treating our kids like they can learn. However, that really isn't caused by Ebonics. It’s caused by people not teaching Standard English, poor standards, lack of tax monies and not being worried about the success of students in Standard English.
I speak Ebonics at home and in part situations and Standard English at the University, and I'm fine. When my white friends ask what I'm saying, I explain the dialect and move on as do the majority of black friends!
I'm not trying to argue you down; I just think that my dialect is not an example of "poor" English. It's a distinctive way of speaking. Still, I would not want anyone to go to a job interview speaking Ebonics simply because it’s not really respected and SE is the most common form of English in the United States right now.
I feel that solely teaching Ebonics would be idiotic, but that’s not what people are saying. Why is that always the argument?: You can’t get a job speaking Ebonics!! It’s not like people are really going to do that if you teach them Standard English as well.
I guess I'm defensive as well because you're essentially saying that my dialect is one of bad grammar, uneducated peoples and people who use lazy English.
I sincerely hope that one day you might meet someone who can do a better job at showing you the truth about Ebonics. If not, that's okay as well, because in all honesty, the cross of proving the legitimacy of AAVE is not yours to bear.
Re: Ebonics doesn't destroy Standard English...
Grammar is only one component of a dialect, but it's a critical one when it comes to communication and literacy. It should be possible to retain the other features of a dialect (accents, slang, colloquialisms) while still correcting the problem grammar. That goes for any dialect, including the ones my relatives speak.
I really feel that including bad grammar as some sort of protected part of a dialect is shirking the responsibility to give kids the best education possible. Instead of addressing the problems that created the bad grammar in the first place, those problems are being blown off as just cultural things.
Illiteracy is a critical issue among poor AA and Latino populations. In the case of Latinos, it is easy to understand due to so many Latino families in the U.S. being only first or second generation. AAs don't have that issue. Rather, the problem is due to poverty and failures of education (both due to a long history of institutionalized racism, of course.)
With this being such a huge problem, and one that contributes to the continuation of poverty, criminal behavior and other big problems, I don't understand why any AA--or any person concerned about the conditions too many AAs live in--would not want to do as much as possible to correct the underlying problems.
Any teen or adult using bad grammar in anything but the most deliberate way should be a warning sign that something has gone wrong with that person's education. The mere existence of middle and upper class AAs who speak this vernacular casually as well as speaking correct standard English doesn't erase the problem of poor AAs who speak that way not as a choice but due to education failures.
Please excuse me if I don't continue the conversation past this post. I get caught up in these things too easily, and I have a lot to do next week. Understand, though, that I respect your point of view. I just think that the promotion of the bad grammar portions of any vernacular is ultimately damaging to the cause of literacy. There are so many other ways to preserve a culture or subculture that don't involve making education more difficult for at-risk children.
no subject
Whenever I hear about the whole "ebonics vs. standard English" debate, I am reminded of my early adolescence. I attended junior high school (er, middle school now) in the early 1970s, in Oakland, California, where at that time the Black Panthers were a significant social and political force in the area (Oakland being their home of origin; they were heavily involved in positive social work like providing daycare and meals to the multitude of poor and working poor blacks in the Bay Area, in addition to their revolution-behind-the-barrel-of-a-gun stance). I was a small white girl - very white, you'd pretty much have to be albino to have a lighter skin tone than me - and I was sent to one of the poorer schools in Oakland; not the worst inner city ones, but definitely up there in terms of mostly poor, mostly black, students. I think the school make-up at the time was something like 70% black, 15% white and 10% Latino and Asian.
Anyway. In order to fit in, I learned to "walk the walk, talk the talk," by which I specifically mean I started talking "ghetto" - that's what it was called back then, long before such speech was studied academically or described as a cultural artifact worthy (or not) of preservation.
I got good at it (while maintaining a consistent "A" in the advanced English classes I took while at this school); so good, in fact, that one day in gym class, a black girl came up to me and asked me, "are you part black?" 'Cause I sounded "black" (sounded ghetto), though here I was, this ultra-white girl.
I was immensely flattered that she would think I cuold be black; still am, actually, because it meant my "disguise" for the times worked, and worked well.
Meantime, I had a close black friend in the same school at the same time; Adrienne was very dark-skinned, but was from an upper-middle class black family (unusual in those times) - she got at least twice as much grief on the basis of class (read: class=race as many people still think) as I ever got on the basis of color. The reason? She didn't speak "ghetto," either honestly didn't know how or refused to do so (it's 30+ years ago now, I don't remember her exact reasoning)....
Now the language issue is a subject of academic and cultural studies, and there's a lot of equivalency talk going around; I won't get into those debates. But every time I hear such, I think back to Claremont Junior High School and a part of me cringes and another part smiles.
no subject
What I argue is that reinforcing the grammatical components of it in children limits their ability to learn correct grammar in Standard English--thereby limiting their ability to earn a good living.
I've been a voracious reader and writer since I was a small fry, but even now I still have trouble with certain grammar and punctuation quirks. I didn't understand the that/which thing until my newswriting class last fall. Yet I even had the benefit of being encouraged to learn
I can't imagine what a poor child in a community that doesn't value education (which is unfortunately true for a lot of poor and oppressed people who see public schools as a representation of an oppressive force) might have to go through to get the basics of Standard English down when she's getting a completely different picture of the language reinforced by her culture.
Poor white kids have some of the same problem in that the version of English spoken at home isn't usually the version they're learning in school, but if the school is doing its job, it works on, well, beating the bad grammar out of their heads.
What reinforcing AAVE is doing, then, is equivalent to a teacher of a white kid saying, "oh, you speak rural Southwest English. Go ahead and keep speaking that, but try to remember these 2,000 different rules about Standard English, too."
Even if a handful of kids--usually middle class ones, or ones with educational support--can manage to speak both fluently, there are still many, many more whose literacy will be damaged by not reinforcing the common language of commerce.
Communication and literacy are so intensely critical to solving poverty that I just can't imagine why anyone would think preserving a dialect is more important than educating at-risk kids.