“Black students have been told by teachers, by the whole school system, frequently by their own parents, that Black English is bad, improper.” -Christina McVay Often times as African-Americans, we are told that our language is improper or even sometimes “ghetto”. That our way of expressing ourselves in our own dialogue is wrong and in order to talk proper you have to talk “white”. This conception of the black dialogue as been this way since the beginning of time but as time progresses we learn that our language is considered literature and proper English. Black English.
The Black English should be celebrated because it comes from so many generations of strong African-Americans, particularly African-American women. One of the best black woman authors is Zora Neal Hurston because she doesn’t sugar-coat the dialogue. She writes as if she’s listening in on a black person’s dialect. Some people may criticize her for using so called “slang” in her text but that is the beauty of the Black language. The beauty of the Black English is that so called “slang” and the way we form our words and sentences is all a part of our background and a part of who we are as a race. It distinguishes us from the rest.
Mcvay points out that black women reading Black literacy helps them make a connection between what they’ve read to their personal situations. It is so important for us, not only as black women but as a black race, to realize that we do not have to feel isolated because of the way we talk. In actuality the way we talk is the right way because it’s our culture. It’s our uniqueness. It’s essential for the Black race to not get caught up in pronouncing every syllable correctly or thinking that “white is always right” because at the end Black English is right, it’s us.
-Kiah Ellis
-Kiah Ellis
It wasn't until I took Educational Psychology, that I learned Black English was really a form to be recognized. Many black students in low socioeconomic neighborhoods do not do well in school because of their form of dialect and often the teacher doesn't communicate with the student in Black English. Your right, people do get too caught up in the way black people pronounce (or lack thereofe) their words.
ReplyDeleteOn the flip side, I do not like when people in the black community criticize other black people for choosing to enunciate their words.
-Britney-Myshante Howard
I agree with this article, because when I was younger, I was taught how to speak properly, but sometimes I would pick up some slang because that's how my friends spoke. When my mom heard what I was saying she would get upset because she did not want me to learn to be grammatically incorrect at a young age, because more than likely I would take it with me when I got older. I think that there is a time and place for everything, and for/in corporate America slang is not appropriate, but I do still believe we should embrace how we speak, and not be ashamed of it.
ReplyDeleteI agree I think that black literacy does have that connection between what African Americans are experiencing. I also like the way the English teacher that was being interview had them make there own dictionary with slang in it.
ReplyDeleteWe are taught in school that slang is an incorrect way of speech. It’s like if we don’t talk like most white people then we aren’t accepted. How come they can’t learn how to speak slang? How come they can’t learn how to speak the way African Americans speak? The way the teach us how to speak in school is making the language that our ancestors brought up obsolete.
-J’Nae SMith