Ebonics and the Politics African-American students in Oakland’s schools. The resolution further declared of English Ebonics to be a language in its own right, not a dialect of English, and proclaimed Dennis Baron that students be taught in ways that would maintain Ebonics as well as introduce Abstract: them to standard English. In 1996 the Oakland Unified School The Oakland resolution and the District passed a resolution declaring responses to it that I shall explore in this Ebonics to be the primary language of the essay offer a lesson in language politics African-American students in its schools. and language pedagogy. Initially the The resolution further declared Ebonics Oakland resolution was received by the to be a language in its own right, not a American media, and the American dialect of English. In the face of massive public, as a declaration of linguistic national opposition to the Oakland independence, and as such it proved Ebonics resolution, this radical, separatist highly controversial. The media circus that move shifted to a conservative, instantly surrounded the Oakland assimilationist one: Oakland retracted its resolution continued for several weeks as declaration of linguistic independence and the School Board, its critics, and its reaffirmed the traditional pedagogical goal supporters tried to deal with the issues of of teaching students standard English. But language, pedagogy, and school success the Oakland Ebonics controversy reminds that the controversy raised. In the face of us that, although the English of former massive opposition, Oakland quickly British colonies has come into its own in retracted its declaration of linguistic the literary, cultural, and political scene, to independence and remodeled it into the point where we speak of World something more like a request for Englishes, the English varieties of what continued linguistic colonization. The may be regarded as internal colonies, inner Oakland School Board replaced its initial cities and the socially disenfranchised, radical stance on language with a continues to be stigmatized by speakers of conservative one, assuring the public that more esteemed varieties. its goal had never been to teach Ebonics—after all, students already knew that language. Instead, the intent of the Introduction resolution was to teach teachers about the language their students brought to school, Anyway, what was the use of my and to teach standard English to students having come from Oakland? It was who were not fluent in it, employing a not natural to have come from there methodology with a bilingual flavor that . . . . There is no there there. would direct students to translate from their home language into the standard. Gertrude Stein, Everybody’s Now that some time has passed, Autobiography, 1937 scholars have begun to look at what happened in Oakland, this present volume of World Englishes being but one example. In December, 1996, the School Board of Since 1998 at least three books on the Oakland Unified School District, in Ebonics have appeared (Baugh 1999, California, passed a resolution declaring Mufwene et al 1998, and Perry and Delpit Ebonics to be the primary language of the 1998), and more studies may be in the
World Englishes, 19 (March, 2000): 5-19. Ebonics, 2 works. But even as we recollect what blend of ‘ebony’ and ‘phonics’ referring to happened in Oakland in tranquility, there what is commonly known as ‘black is little agreement on how, or even English’, was coined by psychologist whether linguistic intervention of the kind Robert Williams in 1973. Ebonics is a proposed by the Oakland resolution can term not generally used by linguists, who be useful in improving school currently prefer the term African-American performance. Moreover, looking closely at Vernacular English (AAVE) and use it to the methods of language instruction refer to the inner-city speech form in advocated by the Oakland schools, we can question. In its initial resolution, the see that teachers are not the radicals that Oakland School Board ordered the their critics at first took them to be. superintendent of schools to implement a Instead, most teachers have reconfirmed program ‘for imparting instruction to their mission as linguistic engineers and African-American students in their primary language guardians. Convinced that their language for the combined purposes of role is to stamp out error so their students maintaining the legitimacy and richness of can gain access to the middle class, they such language … and to facilitate their remain committed to a traditional acquisition and mastery of English pedagogy of drill and correction as they language skills’ (OUSD 1996a, emphasis work toward the elusive if not illusory added). The Oakland resolution called for goal of standard English for everyone. federal bilingual education funds to Perhaps most important, the support its Ebonics program, despite the Ebonics controversy reminds us too that fact that the Ebonics program called for as we extol the diversity of English language maintenance, whereas federal around the world to the point of bilingual education funds are earmarked pluralizing it as ‘World Englishes,’ only for transitional, not maintenance, language diversity at home can be another programs. The Oakland resolution cited matter altogether. The English of former the Federal Bilingual Education Act as British colonies has come into its own on mandating programs for children of the literary, cultural, and political scene. Limited English Proficiency (LEP) and But at the same time, despite the attention argued that ‘educational programs paid to nonstandard English in literature recognizing the English-language and film, the ‘real-world’ or day-to-day acquisition and improvement skills of English varieties of internal colonies, that African-American students are as is to say the English of the inner cities and fundamental as is application of bilingual of the socially disenfranchised, continues education principles for others whose to be stigmatized by speakers of more primary languages are other than English.’ prestige varieties. The resolution reiterated that African- American pupils were on the same footing What Happened in Oakland? as Asian-American, Latino-American, Native American, and other pupils ‘who On December 18, 1996, the Oakland come from backgrounds or environments Unified School District unanimously where a language other than English is resolved that Ebonics was not only the dominant,’ and instructed the language of Oakland’s African-American superintendent of schools to secure state students, it was also ‘genetically-based and and federal title VIII bilingual education not a dialect of English’ (OUSD 1996a, and ESL funding to address the needs of emphasis added). The term Ebonics, a LEP African-American students. Ebonics, 3
The Oakland resolution was the independence. As word of the Oakland School Board’s response to the report of Ebonics resolution spread—the period the Task Force on the Education of from just before Christmas until New African American Students (OUSD Year’s Day is often slow in the news 1996b). That thirty-seven member Task media, so the story was quickly picked up Force had been appointed by the Board by the wire services and reprinted earlier that year to address serious everywhere—the protests began. Ebonics educational problems arising from the fact soon became the subject of heated that African-American students, who debates around the nation’s dinner tables. comprised 53% of students in the district, Newspapers across the country were over-represented in special education editorialized against Ebonics. The New classes and under-represented in gifted York Times called it a ‘blunder’ to give and talented classes. 64% of students ‘black slang’ a place of honor in the retained, or made to repeat a grade, were classroom. The Times objected that, ‘by African American. 67% of students labeling them as linguistic foreigners in classified as truants were African their own country, the new policy will American. 80% of suspended students actually stigmatize African-American were African American. 19% of African children—while validating habits of American high school seniors failed to speech that bar them from the cultural graduate. And African American students mainstream and decent jobs’ (Linguistic had an overall grade point average of 1.80 Confusion 1996). The San Francisco on a 4.0 scale, the lowest grade point Chronicle editorialized that Oakland was average for any ethnic or racial group in ‘doing its students a disservice’ (Oakland the district. The Task Force produced a Schools Err 1996), and followed this with twenty-four page report, focusing on a an objection that Oakland ‘chose a variety of issues, including improvement dangerous and academically unproven in family and community relations with path toward achieving [their] goal’ the schools; new conflict resolution (Compounding Ebonics Error 1996). programs for students; improved nutrition Journalists scoffed at the counterintuitive with a focus on vegetarian alternatives to notion that Ebonics was closer to African burgers and fries; new community health languages than it was to English. They services; recruitment of African-American quoted Africans who confirmed that teachers; career and college counseling; Ebonics didn’t sound like any African and neighborhood development. But the language they knew. And a Nigerian one issue that occupied the School Board journalist writing in the Detroit News said, as it discussed the report on December African Americans ‘should not be 18, the issue that resulted in a School encouraged to cling to a dialect that is Board resolution that day, was the bound to increase their alienation from recognition of Ebonics as an independent their brothers and sisters in Africa, their language. fellow Americans and the rest of the English-speaking world’ (Abati 1997). Responding to a Black English Virginia state representative L. Declaration of Independence Preston Bryant introduced a bill to prohibit any ‘nonstandard or poorly Classifying Ebonics as a language, not a spoken English from being taught in dialect, quickly came to be perceived as public schools as the equivalent of the Black English declaration of standard English’ (Va. Bill 1997). In the U.S. House of Representatives, Peter King Ebonics, 4
(R-New York) put forward a resolution to language in its own right like French, prevent federal funding of ‘any program Spanish, Chinese, or Swedish. that is based upon the premise that Some black leaders and Ebonics is a legitimate language’ (Lacey intellectuals went so far as to assert that 1997). And California State Senator Ray Ebonics was neither a language nor a Haynes introduced a bill to ban the dialect but little more than slang or ‘bad’ teaching of Ebonics not just in Oakland English. They portrayed the Oakland but in all of the state’s public schools resolution as an attempt to limit rather (California Senator 1997). than encourage the achievement of black In another form of editorializing, schoolchildren. The Rev. Jesse Jackson, comedians, cartoonists, satirists and appearing on CBS television’s Meet the journalists began to crack Ebonics jokes. Press, chided Oakland for becoming a The columnist Mike Royko took potshots national laughingstock over the Ebonics at Ebonics in a satirical column in the issue. Jackson attacked the resolution Chicago Tribune (Royko 1997). Internet promoting Ebonics as ‘making slang talk a posters took things even further, setting second language,’ ‘teaching down’ to up satirical and frequently tasteless web students, and ‘an unacceptable surrender, sites devoted to Ebonics. One site, the borderlining on disgrace’ (Rojas 1996). Ebonics Translator, which allowed visitors NAACP head Kweisi Mfume weighed in to enter ‘standard English’ texts and have against Ebonics, as did James Meredith, them translated into Ebonics, proved so the man who thirty-five years earlier had offensive that it was soon taken down. been the first black student at the The Village Voice ran a nasty satirical piece University of Mississippi. Meredith on ‘Ebonics for Travelers’ (Hannaham announced the creation of an institute to 1997); and Mad Magazine did one called teach black American males to abandon ‘Hooked on Ebonics’ (Hooked 1997). black English (School 1997). The It had been some time since race columnist William Raspberry said Ebonics could safely be the butt of network ‘sounds rather like what our mothers used television and mainstream print humor, to call Bad English’ (Raspberry 1996). He and the enthusiasm with which Ebonics predicted that Ebonics would fail in the jokes and parodies circulated suggested same way black English reading texts the release of much pent-up racial hostility ‘about tenements and rats and roaches, in the United States. Eventually the and—I’m not kidding—black math’ federal government interceded. In July, programs had failed earlier (Raspberry 1997, the Equal Employment 1997b). Raspberry also noted that black Opportunity Commission (EEOC) took a parents had objected in the past to any stand against Ebonics jokes as a form of attempts ‘to confirm their children in workplace harassment, ruling that Ghettoese’ (Raspberry 1997a). And Shelby ‘disseminating derogatory electronic Steele faulted Ebonics—which he messages regarding ‘ebonics’ to your co- characterized as ‘broken English’—for workers is against the law’ (Volokh 1997). emphasizing self-esteem rather than Even the more reserved print media academic performance (Steele 1997). focused their racial hostility in terms of The columnist Debra Saunders linguistic correctness, concluding by and saw the Oakland resolution as large that Ebonics should not be dignified unfortunately separatist in its intent: by capitalization, but should appear in ‘Apparently the board hasn’t noticed that their columns as ebonics, lower-cased to many black students speak English just discourage any thought that it might be a fine, thank you. Their parents may not Ebonics, 5 want their kids forced into a linguistic School Board by surprise. Some Board ghetto’ (Saunders 1996). Similarly, the members—including its president— poet Maya Angelou argued that ‘‘the very claimed they had never read the original idea that African-American language is a resolution, which they characterized as language separate and apart’ could ‘hurriedly passed’ at the urging of a encourage young black students not to community activist after 11 p.m. at the tail learn standard English’ (Golden 1997). end of a long meeting full of ‘long-winded And as recently as October, 1998, an ad tributes to outgoing board members’ signed ‘Speak out against ebonics’ and (Applebome 1997). Complicating things sponsored by a group called Atlanta’s further, a new board took office two Black Professionals appeared in the New weeks after the resolution’s passage, on York Times implying that Ebonics January 1, with a new president, some represented a return to the pre-Civil continuing members, and some new ones Rights era (I Has a Dream 1998). In this who had not voted on the original ad, behind the legend ‘I has a dream,’ an resolution. Bombarded by calls from the accompanying graphic shows Martin press and attacks from a broad spectrum Luther King turning his back on Ebonics. of critics, the School Board hired a public The text continues, ‘if you think [Ebonics] relations consultant and one month later, has become a controversy because white on Jan. 15, 1997, it passed an amended America doesn’t want us messing with resolution retracting its initial claim that their precious language, don’t. White Ebonics was an independent language America couldn’t care less what we do to genetically encoded in the DNA of segregate ourselves.’ African Americans. Instead, the new Other critics perceived the resolution represented Ebonics as Oakland resolution as an inappropriate genetically descended from—that is, based attempt to claim a share of federal on or related to—African languages and bilingual education funding. For black not merely a dialect of English. The Board Chicago Tribune writer James Hill, this soft-pedaled its claim on bilingual move turned Oakland’s linguistic education funds, though it repeated the argument about the African roots of parallel it saw between African-American Ebonics ‘into a gimmick and not even a students and other students classified as cleverly crafted one’ (Hill 1996). U. S. having limited proficiency in English. And Secretary of Education Richard Riley the Board insisted that it never intended quickly ruled that Ebonics was not a for Ebonics to be taught in the classroom. language, and was therefore not eligible Instead, it hoped to educate teachers in for federal bilingual education funding the language their students brought with (Bennett 1996). And Pennsylvania Senator them to the classroom, so that these Arlen Specter announced hearings on the teachers would be better able to lead their question of Ebonics for his Subcommittee students from Ebonics toward standard on Labor, Health and Human Services, English (OUSD 1997). and Education, a subgroup of the Senate This amended resolution appeased Appropriations Committee. many Ebonics opponents. It put forth a doctrine of language deficiency that the Oakland Retreats to a Safer Position critics of Ebonics could live with, since it represented what to them was an obvious The negative national response to the truth: Black English is not standard Ebonics resolution caught the Oakland English, and for African Americans to succeed, they must acquire the language of Ebonics, 6 success, standard English. On the the amended Oakland resolution was defensive, the Oakland schools put out passed, the standard view seemed to be the message that what they were really that Oakland had righted itself after an advocating was the Standard English initial mistake, whether one thought that Proficiency program, or SEP, a twenty- mistake was the claim that Ebonics was a year old California program in use in separate language, or that the problem lay many schools in the state and, in some in a poorly-worded, hastily passed instances, actually funded by the federal resolution that did not reflect the intent of government. SEP uses the methodology Oakland school administrators. At the of foreign language teaching to move start of the Specter hearings, students from nonstandard to standard subcommittee member Senator Lauch English. Stressing contrastive analysis, Faircloth denounced Ebonics as ‘absurd,’ teachers take the language that their found the School Board’s recognition of it students produce and ask them to in classrooms to be ‘political correctness ‘translate’ it into standard English. gone out of control,’ and then walked out Teachers ‘value’ the students’ home (Sanchez 1997; the full hearings were language, but make students aware of broadcast on CSPAN). However, Carolyn what they conceive of as its limits and Getridge, the Oakland school deficiencies. If SEP sounds familiar, that superintendent, accompanied by school is because it echoes the bidialectal board member Toni Cook, a classroom educational programs of the 1960s, with teacher, and an Oakland high school their contrastive drills designed to take senior, all testified to Specter’s satisfaction students from black English to the that their goal was to move students standard, programs so eloquently toward standard English. The challenged at the time by William Labov sociolinguist William Labov confirmed in and James Sledd. The difference between his testimony to the subcommittee that Oakland’s SEP and other versions of the African-American Vernacular English, the California program was Oakland’s term linguists prefer to Ebonics, was an insistence that Ebonics was a separate important and valuable social dialect, and language and not a nonstandard variety of he supported Oakland’s SEP efforts, English (Terry and Delpit 1998). suggesting that since previous attempts to But the new version of the improve the school performance of Oakland resolution was just what Jesse African-American students were Jackson wanted. Even before the unsuccessful, using foreign-language amended resolution was passed, Jackson methodology was certainly worth met in Oakland with School Board leaders considering. According to Labov, ‘It’s the to confirm that their primary interest was present, not the past, that’s creating this teaching what he called ‘standard, division.’ (Holmes 1996). Labov described competitive English.’ Jackson confirmed two schools of thought concerning as well the common assumption that black nonstandard English: one school bans English is bad English: ‘Just as you go nonstandard English from the classroom, from Spanish to English, you must go fearing that legitimizing it will only from improper grammar (ebonics) to encourage students to use it instead of English,’ and he called on the Department standard English, while the other school of Education to fund Oakland’s proposal argues that it is important to accept the (Asimov 1996). By the time Arlen Specter language children bring with them to the held his Senate subcommittee hearings on classroom, since ‘children learn most Ebonics, on January 23, 1997, a week after rapidly in their home language.’ He Ebonics, 7 concluded, ‘The essence of the Oakland The Role of Linguistics in the Ebonics school board resolution is that the first Controversy method has not succeeded and that the second deserves a trial’ and he supported Although after the revision of the the Board’s efforts (Labov 1997). Oakland resolution the public quickly The term Ebonics itself disappeared became satisfied that the Ebonics from a third and final modification of controversy had been appropriately Oakland’s plan, released in May, 1997, a thwarted or at least contained, if not move that seemed necessary to calm resolved, there remain some interesting public opinion, but which also signaled loose ends. For one thing, linguists Oakland’s admission that it had lost the complained about their inability to language battle. The San Francisco Chronicle influence school language policy, both at praised this new revision: ‘In a wise move, the national and at the local levels. the Oakland School District has decided Oakland did not consult linguists in to put the ebonics controversy behind it formulating its position on Ebonics, and get on with the real task of giving its although it did refer obliquely and to students the speaking and writing tools some extent inaccurately to linguistic needed to prosper in American society’ scholarship connecting black English to (Editorial 1997). But an accompanying African languages. But as Geoffrey news article made it clear that Oakland Nunberg (1997) points out, the press did was committed to increasing the scope of consult linguists in reporting the Ebonics the SEP plan, and hoped to commit a controversy, presenting their explanations significant amount of money toward using more or less accurately. About ten days foreign-language methodologies to teach before Oakland modified its resolution, standard English. The article further the Linguistic Society of America, at its accused the School Board of violating the annual meeting in January, issued a California public records law by refusing statement confirming the rule-governed to release copies of the December status of African-American Vernacular Oakland Task Force Report, the ultimate English LSA 1997). The LSA statement, source of the Ebonics controversy, until reported widely both in the press and on the May 2 School Board meeting television, stressed the contingent nature (Olszewski 1997). By the Fall of 1997, a of definitions of language and dialect. It proposed boycott of Oakland schools for confirmed the usefulness of both diversity failing to carry through on Ebonics and and standard language. And it stressed the SEP drew little response from parents, advantage of recognizing the legitimacy of and the Oakland schools ran afoul of the nonstandard language varieties in terms of federal government for not hiring enough teaching the standard. In addition, a bilingual education teachers. And in the number of linguists—including John Spring of 1998, California voters wary that Baugh, William Labov, James McWhorter, recognizing any language but standard Salikoko Mufwene, John Rickford, and English in classrooms represented a call to Geneva Smitherman—were interviewed linguistic insurgency, put an end not just by the media or wrote op-ed essays to Ebonics but to bilingual education as assuring the public that black English was well by passing Proposition 227, which valid, and that standard English was a required English immersion programs and legitimate goal. The New York Times and the linguistic mainstreaming after one year other newspapers ran articles detailing the of all non-English-speaking or LEP colorful nature of Black English and its students. important contributions to the ‘standard’ Ebonics, 8 vocabulary of the language (Jefferson Is Ebonics a Language or a Dialect? 1997), and many writers and opinion makers weighed in with support for black The public discussion of Ebonics drew English, now that it was to be considered attention to the idea that languages can be not as a separate language, nor as a defined politically or culturally as well as replacement for the standard, but as a structurally. The examples of Chinese and valid form of cultural expression. Scandinavian were cited in the LSA Unfortunately, this expert statement and elsewhere to illustrate this testimony on a national issue did not do concept. Although Cantonese, Mandarin, much to sway the public’s suspicion of Hakka, Wu, Xiang, and the other varieties Ebonics. What linguists say about of Chinese are not mutually intelligible, language variation contradicts what people Chinese is considered to be a single feel they know about standardization and language because the Chinese consider the rightness and wrongness of language themselves to be one people, because use. Educators, legislators, and the public mainland China is conceived of as a single at large are not yet ready to buy into the political and cultural entity, and because notion that stigmatized varieties of a the varieties of Chinese throughout the language may be rule-governed, let alone world share a common script. On the useful anywhere but on the street. Even other hand, Danish, Swedish, Icelandic more disturbing to the public equilibrium and Norwegian, which can be mutually is the observation that the acquisition of intelligible (much like Hindi and Urdu), standard English, however it is defined, are considered separate languages rather may in fact be insufficient to guarantee than dialects of an all-embracing admission into the economic mainstream. Scandinavian language, because they are Experts, even when their opinion was used in distinct though neighboring sought out, didn’t have much impact on countries which have not always gotten the Ebonics controversy because the along in the past. But despite this experts didn’t necessarily agree with one explanation of the political and cultural another (some going so far as to sidestep aspects of language naming, the linguists language issues altogether and call for a generally confirmed the popular feeling return to phonics in reading instruction), that Ebonics did not need to be a separate and because the position of linguists language, since structurally and historically seemed so far out of line with the popular it was, for linguists and AAVE speakers sentiment on the issue. There is a popular alike, a dialect or variety of English. This mistrust of expertise afoot, a sense that view made sense to the public, since most linguists are neither speaking, nor speakers of Ebonics tend to move studying, the language everyone else is seamlessly among several varieties of using. One thing everyone did agree on, English, a phenomenon known as code however, was that the schools were failing switching, and since non-Ebonics to graduate students who could read and speakers can usually understand Ebonics write effectively, but few people, including without too much difficulty. linguists, were convinced that a linguistic In addition to rejecting the politics approach, particularly the kind advocated behind classifying Ebonics as an by Oakland, could effectively address this independent language, some linguists situation. noted as well that Oakland’s equation of language variety with race would not work: there are African Americans who do not use Ebonics, just as there are non- Ebonics, 9 blacks who do use it. Furthermore, black smacks of cultural separatism, and it English is not a single, monolithic variety standardizes a pattern of speech that is of English. It varies from group to group regarded as purely colloquial even by most and region to region (see Hinton and of the people who use it’ (1997). But Pollock, this volume), by age, gender, Menand rejects the linguistic explanation social class, and context, just as all forms of Ebonics as one that is politically of language do. This linguistic information motivated: fueled some of the discussion of the Oakland controversy. For example, the The initial resolution of the Oakland legal scholar Patricia J. Williams, writing in school board was a reminder that the New York Times, picked up on the linguistics has often been as much complexity of black English: ‘Can the ideology as science … Politics notion of a singular black vernacular (if march right alongside the ‘scientific’ that is what ebonics purports to be) conclusions. The notion that account for the enormous variations in African-Americans speak an black American speech?’ Williams noted underdeveloped form of the speech wryly that black English is understood by of Southern whites who emigrated those who don’t use it: ‘The contorted from England connotes racial battles over rap lyrics as political speech— condescension; the notion that they however densely vernacular the language speak an independent dialect is—have not been about the failure of the connotes racial pride; and the notion larger society to understand the words as that they speak a distinct language English.’ She went on to challenge the connotes cultural separateness. equally problematic notion that there is a Everything seems to turn on which single agreed-upon variety of standard explanation you prefer. English: ‘Is so-called Received Standard American English what most Americans Ebonics: A Minority View speak anyway?’ (Williams 1996). The linguist Geoffrey Nunberg cites a bill Menand cites political agendas introduced into the Virginia legislature in dismissively in order to devalue linguistic response to the Oakland resolution to analysis and to make his point that change the state’s official language from Ebonics is not language but merely slang. English to standard English. This But it is the political agenda behind legislation does not mention Ebonics by naming Ebonics as a language that may be name but defines standard English as ‘the the most interesting aspect of the entire written and spoken language which is Oakland resolution. If as Max Weinreich accepted by generally recognized suggested, ‘a language is a dialect with an authorities as grammatically correct in the army and a navy,’ Oakland was clearly and United States and shall not include any deliberately trying to become the mouse dialect, patois, or jargon based on the that roared by going up against the most English language,’ a definition which heavily armed language in the world, as Nunberg rightly suggests strains the the following summary shows: notion of what we mean when we say ‘standard English’ (Nunberg 1997). • the School Board selected language Louis Menand, writing in The New status for Ebonics out of a whole Yorker, also rejected the essentialism of range of recommendations to focus Oakland’s position on Ebonics: ‘it on for its resolution associates language with skin color, it Ebonics, 10
• naming Ebonics as a language sparked part presumptuousness and, most a strong national reaction which began complicated of all, part of the to dissipate once the assertion was mainstream’s assimilation of black retracted speech patterns that, once • claiming language status for Ebonics incorporated, are promptly underscores the helplessness of forgotten as such. Oakland, the only school district in California with a majority black Considering black English as a student population, in the face of separate language was not a view invented massive student underachievement in Oakland. Indeed, it is not a new • and the failure of the attempt to phenomenon: a small but significant supply Ebonics with an army and a number of African American students navy forces us to consider the whose education was not particularly afro- ambiguous position of black English centric have reported to me over the past in the United States. twenty-five years that they were told, by teachers in high school, that black English Neither the public nor the linguists who was not a dialect but a separate language. focused on Ebonics devoted much time More recently, though, in discussions of to exploring the fact that some people in the Ebonics controversy in the winter and Oakland clearly had felt the political need spring of 1997 at the University of Illinois to classify Ebonics as a separate language. and elsewhere, while the black faculty Indeed, the motivation of these Oakland tended to accept Ebonics as either a residents was not just to grab bilingual dialect of English or even a separate education dollars, but instead possibly to language, a surprising number of African counter the powerlessness they felt when American students reported that they had confronted by the poor performance of never been exposed to the concept of a their African-American students, or racialized language variety at all, either in perhaps to express their frustration at school or at home. Instead, they had been having their language both unconsciously told by parents and teachers that there embraced and openly rejected by wasn’t ‘white English’ or ‘black English,’ American popular culture. Williams (1996) just ‘good English’ and ‘bad English.’ For touches on this frustration, observing that example, one African-American high black English in the United States is both school senior in California told reporters, emulated as the height of creative ‘We don’t say, ‘I be.’ That’s slave language linguistic style and reviled as the … The last time I checked, black people embodiment of illiteracy: just speak English’ (Asimov and Perhaps the real argument is not Olszewski 1996). Denial of a separate, about whether ebonics is a black English is not a new phenomenon. language or not. Rather, the tension Hale (1998: 19) reports that, consistent is revealed in the contradiction of with the black post-Civil War self- black speech being simultaneously consciousness regarding the culture of understood yet not understood … slavery days, one resident of the Georgia There are enough standard-English Sea Islands, where the Gullah dialect speakers who just love to ‘talk replete with Africanisms still survived, black,’ who at the drop of a hat insisted to an anthropologist collecting break out in ‘basketball’ … This folklore in 1919, ‘Dere is not’in de matter phenomenon is part minstrelsy, wid us but bad grammar.’ Ebonics, 11
These competing views of can see from the following San Francisco Ebonics—as language, dialect, bad Chronicle vignette from Secret’s class, English—are not necessarily exclusive, for where she emphasizes ‘correctness’ rather even the radical independent language than ‘translation’ from L1 to L2: position on Ebonics may remain connected to the deficit model of black Yesterday, Secret had her students English. For example, Oakland fifth-grade read essays aloud and told them to teacher Carrie Secret, herself a member of enunciate. the Oakland Task Force and a supporter of the initial Oakland resolution, classifies ‘Jist for seven days … ‘ one boy Ebonics as an independent language: ‘We began. see and understand that our language patterns and structure come from a family Secret interrupted him. ‘You said, of languages totally unrelated to the ‘jist.’ Use it right.’ Germanic roots of English … The view is, ‘We are teaching you a second The boy corrected himself using ‘just,’ language, not fixing the home language the standard English translation. you bring to school’’ (Perry and Delpit, [Walker 1996; emphasis added] 1998: 80). But while Secret insists that she values the students’ home language, in The problem here is that ‘jist’ is not performance she clearly shows a necessarily an AAVE form. Indeed, the preference for standard English as correct pronunciation indicated by spelling the English. The San Francisco Chronicle reports word jist is not even marked as deviant, Secret telling her students that their ‘home nonstandard, or dialectal by any of the language’ is their ‘L1,’ the conventional leading English dictionaries. Perhaps this linguistic shorthand for a first language, or is a slip on the part of the instructor, but mother tongue, a practice consistent with Secret repeatedly maintains that English, a bilingual approach. She tells her students not Ebonics, is the appropriate language that the ‘L2’—the second language—is to use in school. Her support of students’ standard English (Walker 1996). Secret L1 is little more than a sop, as it becomes comments, ‘Telling them that black clear that her instructional goal is not English is different, not wrong, makes translation but correctness. Similar them feel better about themselves.’ She examples of SEP pedagogy, with students adds, ‘If a child says, ‘You was sitting in dutifully ‘translating’ from what they or my chair,’ I say to them, ‘L2 please—you their teachers called slang or home were sitting in my chair.’’ So far, so good. language into what is conceived to be But if part of the goal of SEP is to standard English, were presented in counter linguistic insecurity, I’m not sure various television news reports whose that goal can be achieved by telling intent was to allay public fears that the English-speaking students that they are Ebonics revolution signaled some sort of really speaking a foreign language, an idea social insurrection. In these that is patently a fiction to students and demonstrations, saying it in standard teachers alike. English was always characterized as saying Moreover, the pretense that SEP it correctly. The illustrations assured methodology deals with a relative viewers that it was clearly business as difference in linguistic form rather than an usual in Oakland’s classrooms, with absolute notion of right and wrong teachers grading the students on their quickly falls away in actual practice, as we Ebonics, 12 ability to approach a linguistically correct may be necessary, but it is seldom target form. sufficient, for school and workplace More problematic still in the success. And if our sports heroes, media Oakland fallout is the fact that no one celebrities, and public figures are anything called into question the SEP methodology to judge by, success is often achieved as a bridge to standard English. without standard English. In addition, few Unfortunately, this sort of translation drill of the success stories of first-generation from source to target language may not be immigrants to this country involve the the most effective way to learn a language learning of impeccable standard English. or a language variety. Foreign language As teacher’s aide Yolanda Hernandez methodologies may work with small, cynically put it when asked by a reporter highly motivated groups of students, using to comment on the furor generated by the well-trained teachers, but most American Ebonics resolution, ‘Proposition 187, schools have not had great success in Proposition 209, and now this. It’s easy to imparting required French or Spanish to see a pattern. They don’t want immigrants their students. Even native speakers of here, and they don’t want us to get jobs. Spanish in American schools may do so But they want us all to talk the same’ poorly in formal Spanish instruction that (Rojas 1996). they require special Spanish classes for students who know the language but fail Conclusion the tests. Nor does bilingual instruction for non-English speaking school children Language in Oakland, as it often does yield rave reviews—while California’s elsewhere, masked deeper issues. The rejection of bilingual education may Ebonics resolution opened discussions on reflect xenophobia, it also reflects a lack race relations, education, and a variety of of confidence in a methodology that may social problems. Many people viewed the work more often in theory than it does in Oakland resolution as a declaration of practice. independence, a separatist move going The last, and what is likely to be beyond language. When Oakland reversed the least popular of my observations, is course and tried to make its focus on that the acquisition of standard English, Ebonics seem more like an assimilationist problematic as it may be in terms of move, critics were appeased. But it seems pedagogy, has never guaranteed success in to me that the Oakland resolution, both in life or even access to the economic its original and its modified form, also mainstream. Discrimination—on account seemed to resist official or standard of their language—against people who English, a move guaranteed to strike speak non-standard English usually masks people as revolutionary. There is a other, more sinister forms of prejudice. perception abroad that privileging any Women and members of every ethnic and voice other than standard English, even racial minority have found that mastering alongside standard English, even as a the mainstream varieties of English—say, bridge to standard English, disrupts the legal language, business English, or intellectual and moral as well as the social technical jargon—by itself will not order. guarantee them equal treatment. Even if The response to the Oakland your language is irreproachable, if Ebonics resolution further suggests the teachers, employers, or landlords want to continued existence of internal colonies in discriminate against you, they will find a postcolonial world, the existence of another way to do so. Standard English Ebonics, 13 subaltern peoples, an underclass whose focused the nation’s attention, for a brief voice remains unheard. That in itself time, on the political issues that can seems to be one reason for Oakland’s underlie questions of language. Ebonics attempt to define itself out of English into foregrounded the struggle over who gets its own language. The other, more to name language. It forced Americans to practical reason, was surely to get funds consider how language varieties struggle equivalent to what was being spent on for privilege and against stigma. And it ESL students. Nativism came to the fore showed as well that language pedagogy is, as some African-American community at best, an uphill battle. Most important, activists in Oakland must have wondered, perhaps, it brought to the public arena, if ‘Are we going to sit idly by while fleetingly, the notion that standard immigrants get a special education deal English and Ebonics are constructed from the federal government?’ Such categories, just as class and race are. The thinking would seem to underlie that fact world is always already multilingual that in the Fall of 1997, Oakland budgeted (Calvet 1974) and multidialectal—as are some $400,000 to support the SEP individuals. Putting these notions together program while angering federal authorities we see that the constructions we make of by not hiring enough bilingual education language are temporary and fluid, shifting teachers. as context and power bases shift. The But critics and some supporters of American public did not take to this idea the Oakland resolution as well noted that very readily—no surprise there—for that even if SEP programs bolster students’ public sees language variation as fine so self-image, they have not been long as standards are maintained and the demonstrably successful at improving test political order is not challenged. In this scores. Complicating things further for view, home language is valued so long as those who see standard English as the it is confined to the home, or the streets. only voice that is listened to, the paths to But Oakland’s declaration of linguistic assimilation are not simple ones. linguistic independence challenged those Then there is James Sledd’s (1973) conventional standards and that linguistic criticism of bidialectalism and its relation order, with predictable results: Ebonics to social mobility to consider: not was not recognized as a language, nor everyone wants to move into the middle were bilingual education dollars allocated class, at least not on the terms that seem for African American students. The to be available. Even for the many whose fallback position Oakland moved to in goal is economic success, there is the response to the public outcry against realization that second language teaching Ebonics restored the status quo but left us techniques don’t seem very effective in with the unsettling reminder that language teaching second languages; how will they colonies continue to exist in a world that be effective teaching first languages? sees itself, politically, as very much a Translations from home language to postcolonial one. standard English are wooden, mechanical, The Oakland School Board may just another example of school busy work have had an inkling that an independent that doesn’t match how language operates language of Ebonics might not prevail in the world outside the classroom. even within the progressively multicultural but beleaguered city of Oakland. Their The Oakland Ebonics controversy radical December 18 resolution provided brought into relief not just the plight of an alternative, a concession to the old way underperforming school children. It of doing things that was overlooked by Ebonics, 14 the media and the linguists alike. Works Cited According to the resolution, parents could have their children’s speech classified not Abati, Reuben (1997). To an African, as a foreign language but as a pathological ‘Ebonics’ or black English sounds or deficient form of English: ‘African- foreign. Detroit News, Jan. 26 American parents who view their child’s
segregation in the South, 1890- Nunberg, Geoffrey (1997). Double 1940. New York: Vintage. standards.
Sanchez, Rene (1997). Ebonics debate comes to Capitol Hill. Washington Post, Jan. 24, p. A15. Saunders, Debra (1996). Oakland’s Ebonics farce. San Francisco Chronicle, Dec. 24, p. A15. School will teach blacks to abandon black English (1997). Philadelphia Daily News, Nov. 24