Dooming Black Children And Pretending It's Progress
It's not a parody. The article seems to be for real.
Some HuffPo outpost called Highline has an article, "Why America Needs Ebonics Now." It's written by Michael Hobbes:
The idea that Standard English must be constantly defended against marauders is an example of what linguists call "dominant language ideology," and even well-intentioned, otherwise open-minded people display it without noticing. For instance, every semester, Wheeler gives her students, who are training to become teachers themselves, a sample essay from a 3rd grader. It's written in African-American Vernacular English--better known as "Ebonics"--and includes phrases like "mama Jeep run out of gas" and "she walk yesterday."The first response from her students is always the same: The writer doesn't understand possession, he's failing to show subject-verb agreement, he's struggling with basic concepts. "Truly 100 percent of my students who have not studied linguistics think this is a child who lacks the capacity for complex thought and writing," Wheeler says.
It's only after she explains the patterns of vernacular speech--AAVE, Appalachian English, Hawaiian English, Chicano English--that her students finally understand that "she walk yesterday" isn't a mistake. Just as a child who uses "y'all" hasn't failed to speak in the second person, a child who says "mama Jeep run out of gas" hasn't failed to indicate possession. He's simply using a different set of rules to do it.
Over the last few decades, it's become clear just how insidious dominant language ideology can be. "This way of thinking," Wheeler says, "permeates our school system, our textbooks, our tests and our teacher education."
Yes, it does. Because if you want to get a job in the real world that involves more than clearing trays, you're going to need to speak standard American English.
There's more:
In 1996, the Oakland School Board passed a resolution declaring that AAVE was a distinct language and that it should be welcomed in classrooms....Almost no one stood up to defend what Oakland was doing. And afterwards, as Ebonics disappeared from the national conversation, Americans could tell themselves that the entire episode was a close call, just another example of a time when patriotic members of the majority held the line against an attack on Standard English.
But what the last 20 years have demonstrated, and what the video above explains, is the sheer scale of the missed opportunity. America's out-of-hand dismissal of AAVE has widened the racial achievement gap, entrenched discrimination and made us all a little more scared of each other. Which raises the simple question: What's keeping us from making another push for AAVE now?
Um, thinking black kids should have a shot at joining our economy and making something of themselves using the tools that this requires -- including an ability to write and speak standard American English.
What he's calling for -- and really, I had to check a few times to try to make sure the site was for realz -- is segregating blacks from opportunity and positioning it as a fair and benevolent and culture-respecting thing to do.
A woman whose photo reveals her to be black gets it -- writing in the comments on the piece:
Stella Wilson · University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
I attended a segregated School in Birmingham Alabama in the 1950s. We spoke regular English, had all Black teachers who graduated from Black colleges, most had Master's degrees. We spoke regular English, were expected to excel and did. What is the point of normalizing poor grammar?
Presumably, this Seattle-based Michael Hobbes guy -- arguing for, as Wilson puts it, "normalizing poor grammar" -- is white. (Of course he is!)
Meanwhile, here's how parents -- black and white -- who care about their children's chance for success in the world want their children to speak:
I have some insight into Ebonics. I live in Switzerland where the native language is a dialect of Geman. Now, pretty much every town in German-speaking Switzerland has their own dialect. Some are easier to understand than others. The region I live in has a lot of French influences in their dialect because we are right on the French border.
(And, of course, if you cross that border, you won't hear standard French spoken either, as the locals speak a French dialect with heavy German influences, as the borders changed all the time.)
Anyway, my point is, while Swiss German is spoken at home, in the grocery store, and sometimes the bus drivers make announcements in dialect, all children learn high German in school. Newspapers, legal documents, and novels are written in high German.
The people love their dialect, but they recognize that if they don't speak and understand high German they are cutting off their own opportunities. You can absolutely respect a dialect and still teach a "high" or "standard" language.
No one would tell a Swiss child that he's wrong for saying "ish gut" (Baslerdeutsch) rather than "es ist gut" (Hochdeutsch), but they will remind him, "Hochdeutsch, bitte."
Boy, I feel a whole article coming on here.
Suzanne Lucas at September 26, 2017 12:38 AM
Ebonics: Da Engesh o Amos 'n Andy, withn o feu Biteeches, Hos 'n MoFos trown in.
Wfjag at September 26, 2017 2:33 AM
I suspect the motives for pushing this are a bit more insidious.
What it is really about IMHO is finding teaching jobs for barely literate college grads who speak and understand non standard English.
They are the only ones who can * relate* to the permenent linguistic underclass.
And as more and more of them accept and encourage non standard English in their classrooms, the more demand there will be for sub literate teachers, who will necessarily be of the same ethnic group as the sub literate students.
I watched this same scam with bilingual Spanish English programs.
Isab at September 26, 2017 3:03 AM
Language structures the way we think and organize our thoughts.
I recently read an article about that said Chinese may better enable Children in math because of its structure.
Higher conceptual thinking (and learning) requires a higher language. "Mama Jeep run outta gas" is not a higher language. If we want poor children to be proficient in higher concepts, we need to teach them a language that will enable them to grasp and organize these concepts.
Or do we want them to be the permanent underclass incapable of expressing (or having) any more complex thought than "mama Jeep run outta gas."
Conan the Grammarian at September 26, 2017 4:59 AM
I'm waiting for a similar movement to legitimize my native Appalachian English.
No?
Dialects can be beautiful, complex things. Just ask Mark Twain, Flannery O'Connor, or William Faulkner. But "code switching" helps us understand each other, and it gives us opportunities that we wouldn't otherwise have. The only reason to legitimize AAVE or Appalachian English is to keep poor people down.
I agree with Suzanne Lucas: "You can absolutely respect a dialect and still teach a 'high' or 'standard' language." There's a way to talk at home, and there's a way to talk in public. AAVE and other dialects should stay informal; they shouldn't be legitimized. Let the linguists study them, but don't make them standard.
Jay Hall at September 26, 2017 5:03 AM
Oh, and Sidney Poitier is a Bahamian-American, so he learned his language skills outside the PC-ridden swamp that is the American education system.
Listen to actor,Colin Salmon, speak and tell me black children cannot grasp the Queen's English.
Conan the Grammarian at September 26, 2017 5:09 AM
Saying that someone is not using proper English is not saying that the child "lacks the capacity for complex thought."
Sounds to me like the student whose works she's citing isn't the only one who doesn't understand English.
Patrick at September 26, 2017 5:12 AM
Suzanne, right on, as usual. This is how it should be -- because you need to speak the standard language of the place. It's why, when German Jews came to Detroit, they did not allow Hebrew in Temple Beth El, the oldest Jewish congregation there. It was "too Jewish," when they wanted desperately to become American, language and all.
Joining our economy requires speaking and writing like Megan McArdle, not like somebody you see in a movie or hear on the street corner.
For the record, I love the sound of "black English," as did Elmore Leonard. I just think we all need standard English to be employable and make it in social ways.
Amy Alkon at September 26, 2017 5:42 AM
Or do we want them to be the permanent underclass incapable of expressing (or having) any more complex thought than "mama Jeep run outta gas."
Well, it can be politically useful. A unified voting block that feels put upon and friendless except for certain politicians.
I R A Darth Aggie at September 26, 2017 7:28 AM
"Appalachian English"
Har dee har har. I grew up in it (sort of), and I can speak redneck with the best of them when necessary. But I can gar-damn-tee you that if I went onto a liberal arts college campus and did that, they'd call me a Trump voter and run me off of the campus. And you know what? Putting aside the Trump bit, they'd sort of be right. My parents were New South before it was cool. I got scolded for saying "y'all" or "ain't" or pronouncing the long 'i' as 'ah'. I grew up around a bunch of Germans and actually picked up a bit of their dialect, which got me teased when we went to places with more "native" dialects.
Now, most dialects have some things about them that can be charming, and sometimes a dialect comes up with a word or usage that's actually an improvement on standard English -- that's one way that our language continues to evolve. (I can make the argument about "y'all" being the second person plural pronoun that English is otherwise lacking.) And dialects are certainly worthy of academic study, because they can tell you a lot about the people who speak them. But there's a big difference between spicing up the language with bits of dialect, and speaking in a language that is incomprehensible outside of my immediate circle. Going around speaking redneck would make no more sense for me than going around speaking Latin would.
I wonder how many liberal arts students today realize what a load of garbage is being fobbed off on them.
Cousin Dave at September 26, 2017 8:13 AM
And you would think that someone as eloquent as Barack Obama would be an inspiration to black children. "If I spoke like him, I would get far in life."
Fayd at September 26, 2017 8:15 AM
AAVE is little more than baby talk. PC progressives, who are racist to the core, clearly don't think poor black people have the ability to learn standard, adult English. If they did they'd be emphasizing the importance of it and pushing for greater expenditure and effort toward helping black kids learn it. Instead they come up with this ridiculous rationalization, and accuse honest people who oppose treating black people like perpetually incompetent children of racism.
Progressive political correctness and multiculturalism in government, education and industry is the institutionalized racism that keeps poor minorities living hopelessly in poverty and misery.
Ken R at September 26, 2017 10:21 AM
Wasn't there a president who dubbed it "the soft bigotry of low expectations?"
But he was racist and hated black people, so....
Conan the Grammarian at September 26, 2017 10:46 AM
I'm sure that the insidious nature exists among the "top" of the PC circus. However, from the individuals I have met, it seems they truly believe this stuff.
They think it is more important to "respect" people as they are than to "improve" them as some outsider thinks is improvement.
It is the complete fall of standards. Whatever you are RIGHT NOW is what you should always be. Nobody can tell you that you should do better, because "better" is relative - so it doesn't really exist.
That is why the history of African Americans in this country is, in some places, disregarded. The fact that at one point, for instance, hoodies and saggy jeans were NOT what anyone wore (better yet considered part of "black culture") doesn't impact the fact that a paste-colored kid wearing it is "acting black" or "appropriating" or that a dark skinned kid will be "acting white" if he wears a button-down shirt. Because there are NO standards.
So, standard American English can't be forced on anyone. Because 6-year-olds who don't know better are assumed to come from a different cultural background (even if they don't) and we can't touch that. Sucks to be the kid of immigrants who actually wants to learn proper English, in this case, doesn't it?
Sorry to go off, but this is just one aspect of a wider issue. I want to be respectful of people, but the all-out attack on standards is getting huge.
Shannon at September 26, 2017 11:32 AM
"A unified voting block that feels put upon and friendless except for certain politicians."
Thus, the hoax. A scam running since ~1964.
"Language structures the way we think and organize our thoughts." - Conan
I am surprised no one has cited Orwell, whose Newspeak, produced by Minitrue, controlled public thought by removing unauthorized references to ownlife, outside Party needs. Oldthinkers unbellyfeel Ingsoc. You know that's true.
From Nineteen Eighty-Four : "Have you seen the Newspeak dictionary, Smith? It's that thick (indicates with thumb and forefinger). The new edition is *that* thick (indicates reduction by half). It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words." - Syme
"Excuse me, brother," interjects a man at the next table. "But what you are saying is that the last vestiges of Goldsteinism will be removed when the language is pure."
General agreement follows.
If you don't have the words, you cannot discuss a concept.
Radwaste at September 26, 2017 11:55 AM
"It's why, when German Jews came to Detroit, they did not allow Hebrew in Temple Beth El, the oldest Jewish congregation there. It was "too Jewish," when they wanted desperately to become American, language and all"
Sure you are not thinking of Yiddish? Most German Jews probably did not speak Hebrew as I understand it.
Isab at September 26, 2017 12:40 PM
Standard English isn't just the province of white folks, as Toni Morrison and James Baldwin (to name just two outstanding prose stylists) would agree.
Minority groups in a culture have a great effect on language — but it's less in grammar than it is in vocabulary. "Jazz," the music and the word, came out of the black community (sometimes styled "jass"). There are dozens of examples of black slang that worked their way into the dictionary, and even more that didn't survive. But they were useful for their time.
"Ratchet" and "saditty" are two modern examples. I'm not sure if they'll be in the dictionaries of 2050, or if they'll sound as archaic as "groovy." Today's "Becky" is yesterday's "Miss Ann."
New words are good, and if they prove their long-term worth, they're even better — whatever the source. But they fit in the framework of standard English.
Kevin at September 26, 2017 1:04 PM
If you don't have the words, you can't frame the concept, let alone discuss it. You would be like a dog listening to your master's voice, it's all just squeaky nonsense to you.
The higher concepts are something you feel, but cannot describe or wrap your mind around because you lack the tools to build a framework around it. Like teaching geometry to a chimpanzee.
The entire development of philosophy, art, drama, et al are based on the ability to frame a concept. Before we could describe colors, we needed to develop words for them. Homer's wine dark sea has perplexed linguists for centuries.
The last color to be labeled (in almost every language on earth) was blue. The exception was ancient Egypt, which happened to be the only civilization that could produce a blue dye.
Linguists debate whether blue's late vocabulary arrival is because it was the last color humans could see or because it was the last one named. The number of cones in our retinas determines which colors we can see, but how do we describe those colors? How do we distinguish between cornflower blue and royal blue?
In one experiment, an African tribe with no word for blue could not distinguish between blue and green tiles. The tribe had several words for green and could easily distinguish between green tiles with only the slightest variation in shade. Did they not describe blue because they could not see it or did they not see it because they did not linguistically distinguish it from green?
If we take advanced languages and words away from these underprivileged children, are we taking away their ability to fram their higher thoughts and concepts, and even to distinguish the world around them? Are we condemning them to the colorless life or our primitive forebears? What's the point of evolving if we're just going to voluntarily jump back down the evolutionary ladder?
Conan the Grammarian at September 26, 2017 1:57 PM
Did the civil rights thing in MS '67 and '68. We worked with kids who would be going to Rust College that fall.
They were bright and it's probably some kind of suggestive thingy that I thought I saw their skulls bulging and roiling as they tried to explain a new concept. That's an exaggeration of course, but the frustration was obvious.
Being top of your class in a MS black high school in the Sixties didn't mean you'd been, you know, educated.
What frustrated me was the ubiquity of what I called the "non specific referent" because I could never find the real title.
It was "it", "they", "up" "down", "over" and over and over. It was difficult to explain that while you can follow from a specific to a non specific once, by the time you get to two or three in a row, all sense is lost.
I think they were trying to write a verbal language in which corrections and intonation made up the shortfall.
But no ebonics. They'd have laughed at that, and not politely.
"They'll turn us into beggars 'cuz we're easier to please>." For"please" read "control".
Richard Aubrey at September 26, 2017 2:53 PM
I have to say, I long constantly for the company of adults of ANY age, almost, who use the word "like" only when it's grammatically correct. (Thankfully, I do know some - plus even some small children who talk properly!)
One might say: There's bad snobbery and then there's good snobbery. Or, as Dame Edith Sitwell said: "I am patient with stupidity, but not with those who are proud of it."
And, from the comments on a 2014 column on adults who use baby talk with babies and toddlers:
__________________________________________
di89: A bit of a sore spot for me... When my cousin started kindergarten they thought he was mentally disabled, Turned out he just had a horrible speech delay because his babysitting grandma talked to him in baby talk. He didn't answer to his own given name or use "you" and "I". Kind of like Elmo, it was "Does Mikey wanna..." "Yes Mikey wanna..."
So hearing stuff like that drives me nuts. Also people allowing a kid too big to use babyish nicknames for things or mispronunciations because it's just sooo darn cute. Your kid asking for a drink of nemolade is four...maybe it's time to fix that?
GladGrace: I agree. And, on the flip side, people look at you funny when you have a complex conversation with a toddler in public. "Yes, the dolphin looks different above the water surface and below. It's because of the way light passes through the water surface." I may have used the word refraction. That kid now has a huge vocabulary because we all talked to him like a regular human being from day one.
Talitha: My son and I were talking about this very thing last night, GG. He thanked me for the gillionth time in his 38 years for always talking to him like a sentient human being, contributing to his ultimate acquisition of a large vocabulary and knowing how to use it.
Folks who talk down to children irk me no end.
magwitch: Are you me, GladGrace? I was horrified to see a dad at the duck pond with a little kid in a stroller. He poked the kid's arm and pointed to the ducks without saying a word. This seems to be a common belief, that at some point the kid starts talking like an adult (magically) and at that point you talk to the kid.
My own kid was part of a legal team monitoring visits a 17 year old boy was making to his baby (efforts being made to keep him from getting custody) and the boy mostly played with his cellphone and looked at the ceiling. Occasionally he'd shake a toy in the baby's face. It was suggested to him that he talk to the baby (about a year old) and he laughed and said the baby would not understand....Sigh.
Epilogue--the baby was adopted by its wonderful foster parents after the 17 year old was jailed for a felony...
DCinND: haha...my brother had the best story about my niece at a zoo when she was about 3. They were standing beside another family with a similar-aged toddler looking at a koala, and the other parent was talking to their child along the lines of "see the bear? can you say bear?" and my niece looked at her and said "that's not a bear. That's a koala. It's a marsupial."
lenona at September 26, 2017 3:14 PM
I lied to my three year old grand niece. I said I liked her screaming purple slippers.
Without half a second's hesitation, she said, "We can get a bigger size for you."
I sure hope not.
The point is that her parents and grandparents talk to her as if she's a normal human being. She not only has the vocab you'd expect, she gets concepts.
She didn't, however, grok that I was only being polite. Progress yet.
Richard Aubrey at September 26, 2017 5:21 PM
The point of correct English is to be able to communicate precisely. If you want to be understood, you must be able to write properly. Slang and hillbilly talk is fine for songs and jiving around, but not if you want to explain to to assemble something or to make you political point clear.
The proponents of ebonics are implicitly saying that blacks cannot learn to speak/write correctly. As someone with friends from other countries who have had to learn English, I say rubbish. Saying blacks cannot learn English is simply racist.
cc at September 27, 2017 4:16 PM
I went to nursing school with a cuban who won the visa lottery and got to move here. He taught himself english in 6 months watching tv, as a man in his 20s, not a kid. He had been here 2 years when we met and spoke more correct english than most of the rest of us.
I work with filipino, columbian, and puerto rican nurses and cna's, all of whom came here as adults, all of whom speak fluent proper english. Ditto the various african ones-and I mean from Africa, as adults. But american blacks cant??
Side note: these people were all highly educated professionals in their countries. The cuban was a veterinarian. One african was a microbiologist. Nurses, teachers.....and they all fought to legally come here, knowing theyd be starting from scratch employment-wise here. Theyd rather wipe butts as CNAs in America than work as highly respected professionals where they were born. And hearing their stories, I would too. Our poorest of the poor live better than most did there.
Momof4 at September 27, 2017 4:42 PM
(Hope a FEW people will see this.)
Richard Aubrey said:
"Being top of your class in a MS black high school in the Sixties didn't mean you'd been, you know, educated."
______________________________________________
Not that teachers didn't really try, sometimes.
From pages 31-32 of Sunny Decker's book "An Empty Spoon" (about her two years - 1966-1968 - as a white teacher in an all-black high school in North Philadelphia):
"The night we went to see 'Streetcar Named Desire,' we had our only tense moment. We filled the first several rows of the theater. None of the kids had ever been to a play before. And they did love it. The problem was that they thought it was a comedy. That ridiculous broad in the white dress guzzling booze and the big dummy in the bowling shirt were the funniest things they'd ever seen. They roared. Through the whole first act. The actors seemed tense. I shrank down in my seat. But how can you be mad? They were beautifully behaved—they just saw the play differently than the rest of the world— which was certainly their privilege. At intermission, I decided something had to be done. In my quietest lecture voice, I talked for fifteen minutes about Tennessee Williams and his pathetic Southern heroines, who, like the slaves, had been devastated by the Civil War and clung to the security of the past. I painted poor Stanley as an animal, reacting only on instinct, trying to survive in an artificial society. They nodded their heads. Poor Blanche. Poor Stella. Poor Stanley. Then the second act began. They roared."
lenona at October 1, 2017 10:28 AM
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