Yo kid, what's so bad about ebonics? People be actin like ebonics is so bad like we ain't got no intelligence or somethin'. 'especially dem black college graduates...they act like they is better than everybody else.
LOL
Seriously though, what's so bad about ebonics?
Let's start with the word: EBONICS = Ebony + Phonics.
Or better, let's make a distinction between ebonics and slang.
Ebonics = "I ain't got no reason to be going ova dere".
Slang: "Yo wussup chickenhead, wuddup my nucca, I'ma bout to go to da sto and buy some blunts"
It's a fine line. But my definition of ebonics is DIALECT.
As a "community" of people in America, we have learned behaviors, some of which have taught us to view our own culture through a negative lens. In other words, we've adopted some of the racism that has caused our people a history of pain. Only, the same prejudice is directed toward our own.
When we hear whites speak with a brooklyn accent we think that person is from Brooklyn. When we hear a white person speak with a British Accent, we think, 'oh, that man must be English'. But when a black person is using a Jersey accent or a Brooklyn accent, to our eyes and ears they sound harsh, dumb and ghetto.
If we go to England and hear a English person speaking Cockney, or a Scottish man speak Gaelic, which are also dialects of British English and Scots English, we don't think of them as "ghetto" or lower clash, we think they have a dialect and the way they speak has no bearing on their character but is a reflection of their culture.
When black people use a dialect other than standard American English the first thing people think is 'welfare, ghetto, uneducated, ignorant, and embarrassing'. We just want to take them and usher them off and sweep them under the rug. We'll high brow them, and shun them out of our polite little circles as if they're not even human or as if they have fouled the air just being in our presence.
We have to accept some of it for what it is. People have DIALECTS, and regional dialects. Growing up in Chicago, we used phrases that didn't exist in other places. Ie, "I'm gonna get my lick back". "lick", was just another word for "hitting" someone. Or saying "Sho'll is", instead of "Sure is". Southern people sometimes refer to "pants" as "britches" and there are people in Fargo who have their own way of speaking along with people from BAWSTON (or shall I say, Boston).
So let's give our brothers and sisters a chance and correctly identify what we are hearing as an accent. Believe it or not, people outside of AMerica view it accordingly.
Yet, there is a time and place for everything and many of today's youth do not seem to recognize the need for conducting themselves in a respectful manner when they are in the company of people who do not see the world the same way they do. I look at how many of today's generation go to job interviews and I see that the speech has infiltrated the exterior appearance to the point that there is no recognizing boundaries and borders.
Wednesday, August 6th 2008 at 8:08PM
Curly Morris
Ebonics is actually Black English Venacular and it meets all of the requirements of a language, both in structure and grammer, it also has pronunciation, grammatical structures, and vocabulary in common with various West African languages.
Myquestion is who stated or defined what Proper English is? Fact is the people of England (the British)do NOT consider what is called proper english to be proper at all, maybe that is why that change to the King's English.
Thursday, August 7th 2008 at 11:49AM
Marquerite Burgess
I agree with Curly. There is a time and place for everything and when I'm sitting in a corporate board room (let's say Rome), I'm conforming my language to the Romans. When I'm around friends at work or something, I can relax some, but I'm always mindful of my surroundings and of current company.
And I don't call THAT selling out or anything. Why? Because that ain't what my mama calls it. She taught me that to go from the back room to the board room to the hoods and through the woods and STILL make it out alive is called being WELL-ROUNDED.
So, for me. I'm all of those things. I'm ghetto, I'm classy, I'm sassy and sometimes in the bedroom with my husband (where our marriage bed is undefiled), I can be..well...something else. LOL. I can have a conversation with family and friends who are thug life or project chickish or family members, like myself, who also care to academically excel all while neither forgetting our roots or treating our roots like their beneath us. And frankly, I can be a little project chickish myself (especially when I'm irritated about something). And there's nothing wrong with conforming to your current surroudings. Heck, when I communicate with deaf people, I use neither Ebonics nor plain English-- I use American Sign Language.
I think Ebonics should be a second language, like Spanish. We're all bilingual as far as I'm concerned. :-)
Jennifer, right on. I'm right there witcha. That's me...just being ME. I am well-rounded. My mother graduated from high school and went on to cosmetology school and graduated there, too. She's has no formal college education, yet she is one of the smartest people I know.
My grandmother had all of maybe a 9th grade education (or is it 7th?), and yet, she was, rest her blessed soul, THE smartest person I know. I miss her. I truly do. She had the wisdom of Solomon, I tell ya. If you talked to her for more than 5 minutes, you'd know you weren't dealing with a dummy.
Besides, I sometimes think formal education is overrated. Why? I know a whole lot of degreed dummies! LOL.
Blessings...
Thursday, August 7th 2008 at 7:29PM
Dee Gray
E Private, seriously. I hear YOU! I especially hear you because "smart" is a relative term. And who's smart depends totally on whom you ask. It's like I said to Jennifer, I sometimes think formal education (college degrees and such) are so overrated because I know quite a few degreed dummies.
My grandmother used to say all the time, "A brainful of book sense don't amount to hill of beans if you have no common sense." The book will tell you what and many times how, but a BOOK doesn't account for circumstances not outlined in it. If something unexpected happens and that book has let you down, you have to clock in and actually apply some critical thinking, and I know WAY TOO MANY people who can't do that.
Blessings...
Thursday, August 7th 2008 at 7:33PM
Dee Gray
WOW..HM HM HM..Rob..your political explanation is on point. I would love to hear this convo in my classroom...and that's why I wrote a blog "There is life outside America" ..maybe I should have added and emphasized " Black" America. Must be a class issue..there are millions of Blacks who speak, so called "proper" English..something else is going on here. E Private ?good stirring the pot of "likker."
Thursday, September 4th 2008 at 4:07PM
Marta Fernandez
If one wants to q
Thursday, April 10th 2014 at 6:47PM
ROBINSON IRMA
Thank you E Private.
Thursday, April 10th 2014 at 6:47PM
ROBINSON IRMA
If one wants to q
Thursday, April 10th 2014 at 6:47PM
ROBINSON IRMA
I know that I will never be able to forget or forgive myself for , after about 3-4 years in public school, asking my grandmother, "Why don't you speak English"?!?
Now I know ( too many years after her death)about "Ebonics" and all of the powers that comes with not settling with being "valued"/getting self-esteme by what the White man says. E Private has led me to realize this reality along with the mission of this site. A place for us to talk to each about each other within the Black community and not limit our selves to 'talking' about what we have "heard" about being "Black in America"
Thursday, April 10th 2014 at 6:47PM
ROBINSON IRMA
For which E Private, I would like to add some of these things which have been past from generation to generations of "Black in America"for over 300 years from family member to family member,ORALLY.One example, my grandmother and her peers always said "chunk" not "throw". Chunk is the African word for "toss". This is why when asked on any form what is my first language:I put down ebonics.
I was born about 20 miles south of where Oprah was born. If Oprah who by the way grew up with the same first language as myself,Curly do you think(if she needed to APPLY for work) she would be turned down for the job if she uses herTRUE first language or be looked doen on or fired? T-H-I-N-K about reeducation of "Black in America". As, it would sure help us clean up a lot of this negative image of the Black in America!!!!!!What do you think......
Thursday, April 10th 2014 at 6:47PM
ROBINSON IRMA
And, Dee, I would like to add to the might of those grade school educations. My grandmother and my idol still today could stand with the best doctor of today from what she learned from her grandmother. Short of something like cancer/hiv Aides, she could successfully treat with the herbs she gathered from the woods to help heal family and the whole neighborhood. The 'hood' back then was called 'town'. The big drug company was called the near by woods.
Thursday, April 10th 2014 at 6:47PM
ROBINSON IRMA
My Spanish professor would always correct the words in our college text book(Dimilo tu) because 'they' ,in North America's Spanish speakers did not use these words.The words used were Spanish used in SPAIN. Now back to words used "professionaly" and with FORMAL college training???????!!!!!!!!?????
Thursday, April 10th 2014 at 6:47PM
ROBINSON IRMA
...and a Mexican student having complained to NAACP about her Spanish professor telling her she could not "Speak Spanish" got her contract canceled by the UNiversity and she returned to S-P-A-I-N!
Thursday, April 10th 2014 at 6:47PM
ROBINSON IRMA
...sorry "Dimelo tu"(second addition)
Thursday, April 10th 2014 at 6:47PM
ROBINSON IRMA
Here we go with the proper "ENGLISH" bull and what Rev. J. Wright said about our brains being different as MARXIS. They never called Whitney Huston a marxis when she sang to National Anthem or our JAZZ singers for producing JAZZ of the JAZZ songers.... a it got labeled as a "New form of music. The Africans for building round and not square homes now did they??!!?? Blacks tend to 'make up " things, while thinking because of the failuar to "think" in standard English so they just make up thigs like "dubba do,etc." Jazz and Jazz singers represent a NEW 'form/style' of Ebonics that is accepted by the White majority while we condem Rev. J. Wright for talking about "Black in America" from the truth/real Black community's reality!!!!WAKE UP.....?
Thursday, April 10th 2014 at 6:47PM
ROBINSON IRMA
..and by the way the Dubba do is used to give the singers time to think of the words in their heads to replcae the Standard English...Ebonics is many different things in our culture unlike the White culture who just define it as another African-American produced blight on the world.
The American Standard is more German based than England. When we fail altoghter to be able to understand is the ENGLISH unable to be fully understood is then labeled things like Cockeny English...get my point!!!!
So, my Black in America please try to make an effort to look at Ebonics as just another tool used by us to survive. "We shall over come"...try looking at Ebonics from this Black community's point of view for a change..... P-L-E-A-S-E???????It will go a long way in Unity amonge/between our selves as a race of people
Thursday, April 10th 2014 at 6:47PM
ROBINSON IRMA
