"Greed...is good..."
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.
If others want to hinder themselves with speaking ebonics it just makes it a little easier for those of us who do our best to speak proper english.
I use a lot of slang and curse words during the day. But I dont use them at work.
FWIW, I can morph into virtually any group of people through my vocabulary.
I can talk *hit and swallow spit and get crunk with Bruhman on the corner. I can speak regularly with regular people. Or I can elevate esoteric musings while speaking professorially with Professor Goldstein at the University.
Makes me no difference. My point will be made at the level my audience is residing.
"Greed...is good..."
As much as I recognize this world to be competitive, I have never seen things in quite such a zero-sum-game sense as you seem to. My goal, whether in school, sport or business, has always been to do my very best, and to meet the highest standards possible. When one does that, the winning takes care of itself, as does sportsmanship and the respect of others.
On a serious note, my nephew goes to school in the Oakland school district. The same year (96?) that this nonsense began, there were not enough desks for the students. For THREE months he used a clipboard whenever he had to do any writing. For less than $300 per classroom, the district could've purchased those large folding tables at Office Max, etc.
I was furious at my sister for not doing anything about it. My kids know that I would have spent every day jumping up and down on the principal's desk, until there were enough desks or writing tables for every student.
OTOH, my kids were in private school before we moved to Dallas. We're satisfied with our school district (Coppell), but our newest addition will go to a church school when he's ready for kindergarten (he's 3 months old).
Agreed. As a part of an expansive repertoire of languages and dialects our children master, it's fine. As their only way of communicating - it's a millstone around their necks.
In fact I once ran a couple of paragraphs worth of Chuck Darwin's psychobabble through one of the standard little language filters on the internet. As far as I could tell, it came back looking somewhat more intelligent and logical than it ever had in Darwin's original, if not sufficiently so that any reasonable person would ever buy off on it:
From: jive@ifi.unizh.ch
Subject: yo' mail
Dere are many laws regulatin' variashun, some few uh which kin be dimly seen, and gots'ta be hereafta' briefly menshuned. ah' will here only allude t'whut may be called co'relashun uh growd. Any change in de embryo o' larva gots'ta almost certainly entail changes in de mature animal. In monstrosities, de co'relashuns between quite distinct parts are real curious; and many instances are given in Isido'e Geoffroy St Hilaire's great wo'k on dis subject. Breeders recon' dat long limbs are almost always accompanied by an elongated 'haid. Some instances uh co'relashun are quite whimsical; dus cats wid blue eyes are invariably deaf; colour and constitushunal peculiarities go togeder, uh which many remarkable cases could be given amongst animals and plants. From de facts collected by Heusin'er, it appears dat honky sheep and pigs are differently affected fum coloured individuals by certain vegetable poisons. Hairless dogs gots' impuh'fect teed ; long-froed and co'se-froed animals are apt t'gots', as be asserted, long o' many ho'ns; pigeons wid feadered feet gots' skin between deir outa' toes; pigeons wid sho't beaks gots' little-ass feet, and dose wid long beaks large feet. Hence, if dude goes on selectin', and dus augmentin', any peculiarity, he gots'ta almost certainly unconsciously modify oda' parts uh de structure, owin' t'de mah'sterious laws uh de co'relashun uh growd.
My wife often has trouble communicating with me. She uses vague language when making requests. "Get me that thing" she says. I ask "what thing"? "You know, the thing over there." "Do you want the remote control?" "Yea, thats what I want." "Well why didnt you just say 'get me the remote'"?
It is a habit i have been unable to break her of. So I tell her, tell me exactly what you want, mean what you say and say what you mean.
"anyone who speaks only Patois and cannot speak correct standard English will be doomed to a life of poverty."
There is something inherently unequal in any teaching situation. The Teacher knows something the student doesn't. It takes a lot of social support for any person to accept that inequality, get around it, and learn what they need and WANT to learn. This is tough for students with culture-bound attitude problems.
A good teacher can play this inequality down and make the acquiring of the unknown a good experience. But it works both ways. The student has to put aside the inequality and attitude to accept what the teacher, good bad or indifferent is offering.
There's a time and place for everything under the sun, but come on in the classroom? I'm sending my child to school to be a well rounded and groomed citizen of the world. They should be able to mix it up with anyone on the street as well as take care of business in the boardroom.
I guess that's why my decision now is to remove my children from public school altogether. Their propensity to champion defiancy in the classroom is becoming easier than teaching life skills.
Actually, I would be satisfied if he would just clean up his room...
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