English Profs Want ‘Black Linguistic Justice,’ Demand Colleges to Reject ‘Standard English’
“The professors use the term, ‘White Linguistic Supremacy,’ and suggested that English is a language stemming from racism and solely belonging to White people.”
I guess standard English is racist? The Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) wants to abolish this linguistic racism!
From Campus Reform:
The announcement, titled “This Ain’t Another Statement! This is a DEMAND for Black Linguistic Justice!” cited Michigan State University English professor April Baker-Bell’s assertion that “the way Black language is devalued in schools reflects how Black lives are devalued in the world . . . [and] the anti-Black linguistic racism that is used to diminish Black Language and Black students in classrooms is not separate from the rampant and deliberate anti-Black racism and violence inflicted upon Black people in society.”
Baker-Bell is a self-proclaimed “teacher-scholar-activist” who touts that she coined the term “Anti-Black Linguistic Racism.”
The professors use the term, “White Linguistic Supremacy,” and suggested that English is a language stemming from racism and solely belonging to White people. The organization demanded that higher education, therefore, reject “Standard English as the Accepted Communicative Norm” and push for the education of “Black Language.”
The group claimed that opposition to this point shows a disregard for “Black Lives.”
In the same statement, the professors upheld CCCC’s statementon Ebonics. Ebonics is defined by Merriam-Webster as “African American Vernacular English” which it defines as “a nonstandard variety of English spoken by some African Americans.”
“Ebonics reflects the Black experience and conveys Black traditions and socially real truths. Black Languages are crucial to Black identity. Black Language sayings, such as ‘What goes around comes around,’ are crucial to Black ways of being in the world. Black Languages, like Black lives, matter,” states CCCC.
However, instead of labeling Ebonics as a variety of the English language, this organization repeatedly identifies it as its own “Black Language.”
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Comments
A better idea would be for blacks to learn to speak proper English!
I may be wrong but, hear me out. I suspect that the black students who are majoring in STEM or other worthwhile majors already have a good grasp of proper English composition and speech.
It is the grievance studies majors -the ones taken in in order to meet the racial quotas mandated by Our Betters in Washingtion – that lack the intelligence needed to master the language.
“Oh Stewardess, I speak jive”
https://youtu.be/g0j2dVuhr6s?t=68
Right. Because what does it matter if people can understand each other? Clear communication just causes racism anyway!
I hope the taxpayers of Michigan are happy they are paying for another America hating, hyphenated hater. The hyphen is a dead giveaway. Usually, they are overweight and very angry. The good news of all of this is that hate, anger and negativity always kills it’s host.
What a con game these attention whoring pseudo-intellectual mediocrities get away with. They’re so tiresome, but they must know they’ve got a great hustle going. Your tax dollars at work, Michigan.
So, are they planning to teach everyone else in the world “Black English”? Because if I ran a company which routinely dealt with non-native Englsih speakers (i.e. folks from Germany, Russian, Indonesia, India, Brazil, etc., etc.) or those from other English speaking countries where Ebonics isn’t used by any segment of society, no matter their skin tone, the last thing I need is people who interface with customers and coworkers who can’t speak or write a form of English those people can understand.
Can you imagine how L’Académie Française would react to suggestions that they should be teaching a “Black Language” version of French instead of proper French in school? Is there even such a thing?
Isn’t this simply cultural appropriation?
If Marxist Blacks don’t want to speak a White language then shouldn’t they study an African language? Obviously not Afrikaans, but there’s hundreds of other choices. Why instead seek to have bad English treated the same as correct English?
Side note, I never heard of ‘ebonics’ but a dictionary defines it as any of the non-standard forms spoken by African-Americans. Frankly that makes it sound like l33t, except with less visibility.
Ebonics was a major meme in the 1990’s (before the term “meme” was coined). It was suggested that schoolchildren in minority neighborhoods not be required to learn proper English but rather to recognize the incomprehensible, often obcenity-laden street slang as a legitimate language. This generated many parodies, like the Declaration of Independence in Ebonics (https://groups.google.com/g/soc.culture.african.american/c/J9tERvLxvl4?pli=1), the Ten Commandments (http://pileojunk.tripod.com/commandments.html).
I was looking for the Gettysburg Address and Marc Anthony’s eulogy of Julius Caesar that I recall from that decade but they must have gotten taken down.
This notion is, of course, insane. If Betsy deVoss had the power I wonder if she would defund all university ethnic studies departments. Or should I called that “Allegedly aggrieved group” studies? As well, defund all universities that feature segregated graduation ceremonies. Harvard can coast along for a while but most couldn’t do that. Uh-oh.. Starting on a rant. I’ll force myself to stop here.
PS. Mr. Kaplan, stay away from the ambassador’s mansion and Mount Rushmore. (Disclosure: I’m a minor fan of old Alfred Hitchcock movies. 🙂
Geez. This is so Eighties.
Blacks invented “What goes around comes around”?
Probably not. Wouldn’t that be “Whu’ go’ ‘roun’ come ‘roun’?”
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The Left and particularly the Black Left will never be satisfied. I propose we give those Black and White folks who don’t like the USA their own country. California, Washington and Oregon, largely occupied and governed by Leftists would be ideal. They can all get free stuff, speak bastardized English, loot and burn until their hearts are content. The rest of us can build a new wall keeping those misfits confined to their new country, The Peoples Republic of the Dis-satisfied.
Multiculturalism says to US, “We are the world” — to which US has factual, historic, and legal right to assert, in reply, “No, we”re not.
“We’re a nation, and social cohesion via a standardized system of intelligible communication, is essential to nationhood.
This principle applies to ALL Americans and must be pursued universally, w/r/t to all American citizens.”
This is some sinister BS. Command of Standard Written English is an important component of upward mobility. This is an effort to keep the black community on the Democratic Party plantation, the subtext being “you’re too stupid to compete with us, so we white progressives will take care of you poor children. Just keep voting for us and we’ll keep you on welfare and dumb down our schools to accommodate you, our lowest common denominator.”
This makes me INSANE. This is a pet project for blacks in universities making 6-figure salaries, and it profits THEM. The problem is that these ideas then infiltrate K-12 education, and exactly how will the inability to speak proper English help the average black kid whose future likely does NOT include a degree from an Ivy league university? Answer: It won’t. In fact, it will make in nearly impossible for him to ever get a decent job and create a decent life for himself. These people are harming those for whom they purport to speak. They disgust me.
They’re doing it precisely because it makes the black kid unemployable. Unemployable, angry, and hating the (or so he’s told) racist whites for holding him down. The kind of person that makes ideal recruitment fodder for a violent revolutionary movement. The kind of person who will willingly participate in a death squad (see shooting of Trump supporter in Portland).
These people are a disgrace to the teaching profession (which already has more than enough disgraces already). They have no desire to impart knowledge, but only to intensify the self-esteem of students who have far too much of that already.
If the dialect you use is so important, why do you not use it for this? Because you want to be understood?
If you’re in a Japanese crowd, speak Japanese. If you’re in a Standard English crowd, speak Standard English. It’s the responsibility of the speaker, not the listener, to communicate well.
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