Ebonics: The Great Paradox
Wat up yo? Many of you are sitting there wondering what in the world I just said, while on the other hand part of you accept what I just said as every day speech. What am I talking about? Ebonics. The debate over Ebonics produces one of the biggest paradoxes of our time. There are many different parts of this paradox. These include the opposition from the African American community toward legitimizing Ebonics as a language, the effects of a supposedly beneficial educational program, and the effects Ebonics has on segregation. The Ebonics debate has brought forth many opinions from the nation. A large majority of theses have been negative. Surprisingly, a large portion of the objections have not just come from the Caucasian community but from the African-American community. James Hill, a staff writer for the Chicago Tribune, discusses his feelings in his article "Say What? Watch Your Language". He states, "I must admit, the recent decision by the school board in Oakland left me in quite a quandary at first. I didn't know whether I should be excited as an American of African descent that the language I had heard and used on the streets in Detroit was being held up as legitimate. Or if I should be mad as hell at the fact that a
This debate contains and will always contain many paradoxes. Twenty-six years ago, Brooklyn College offered a course which taught "Black English" as the alleged native language of African-Americans. Let our children have the opportunity, and be encouraged to learn the language which will best enable them to comprehend modern science and technology, equip them to communicate intelligently with other English-speaking people of all races, and to share in the exercise of national power. The form or variety of a spoken language peculiar to a region, community, social group, occupational group, etc. Everyone will not be satisfied at he same time. Ebonics was intended to help bridge the gap between street slang and Standard English in African-American students, not segregate the two. " Society must demand greater personal discipline from parents (2). The out raged response of the NAACP to "Black English" in 1971 is instructive to those who would defend Ebonics instruction today: "This language is merely the English of the undereducated with provincial variances in accent and structure from locale to locale throughout the English-speaking world," declared the NAACP.
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