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One must wonder what members of the Oakland (Calif.) School Board were thinking when they approved a resolution to officially recognize "Black English."
They even came up with a name for it - "Ebonics" - which is a combination of the words ebony and phonics.
In Ebonics "We are going downtown" becomes "We be goin' downtown."
Color me unenlightened, but this is probably the dumbest thing I've heard in a while. I suppose the thing that surprises me most is that it didn't come from Washington.
The school board figured that since many Oakland students speak Ebonics, it should be treated as a language. That way, teachers can learn about Ebonics and be better equipped to teach black students proper English.
Here's a quote from a high school principal in the Oakland district: "It's not to have the teachers teach Ebonics. It's to have the teachers understand the language. It happens with other non English-speaking or limited-English proficient students, and we felt the same should be done for African-American students."
What? So now some black students are "non English-speaking or limited-English proficient?" What a slap in the face.
And by putting Ebonics on par with other foreign languages, doesn't that make black students foreigners in their own country?
It's a classic case of the unintended consequence. These enlightened school officials in Oakland are trying hard to be politically correct. To integrate black language. To achieve inclusion. To accommodate unity.
The net effect, of course, is division, alienation and estrangement. Can you guess what reaction non-black students will have toward Ebonics? Think they'll embrace the concept with open arms? Think they'll work to understand it?
Nope.
My guess is, they'll belittle it, poke fun at it and generally deride it. What a great way to nurture a little racism.
The bottom line is that Ebonics isn't a language at all. It's a dialect. There are lots of dialects in the U.S.
I guess this means if you live in the Appalachian Mountain region you speak "Hillonics." If you live in Wisconsin you speak "Scandonics." If you live in Texas you speak "Twangonics." And if you hail from Jamaica you speak "Rastafonics." There would be "Polonics," "Italonics," "Germonics," "Mexonics" and "Britonics," just to name a few. Think of all the people running around the country who are bilingual and didn't even know it.
Of course, legitimizing Ebonics as an official language makes the school eligible to apply for federal funds to cover the cost of training teachers. So a little old-fashioned greed factors into the equation, too.
I agree with the Rev. Jesse Jackson's take on Ebonics. He is urging the Oakland School Board to reverse its decision. "I understand the attempt to reach out to those children, but this is an unacceptable surrender, borderlining on disgrace," he said. "I hope they will reverse their decision, accept the bigger challenge of teaching our youth, teaching them up and challenging them."
All the above was my first reaction to the Ebonics issue. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized they just may be on to something out there in Oakland.
In the newspaper business, we are always trying to save space. Newspaper space is a valuable commodity. Shorter is better. We try to use "but" instead of "however," "cut" instead of "laceration." You get the picture.
This Ebonics stuff could be a real boon.
In Ebonics, the phrase "What's up" becomes " 'sup." And "What's happening" becomes " 's'ap' ."
And that tricky singular/plural noun/verb matching thing suddenly becomes simple. No longer would we debate whether the correct usage is "couple were" or "couple was." The correct usage in Ebonics is "couple be."
Open-minded as I am, I decided to give Ebonis a try. When one of the newsroom staffers - Alice - walked in the office the other morning, I said "Mone Alz." She gave me a rather surprised look, smiled and politely said, "Pardon me?"
"Mone Alz," I repeated.
She looked annoyed and said "What?!"
I explained I was speaking Ebonics and was attempting to say good morning. "Oh," she said with a narrowed brow and look of concern. She walked away thinking I had lost my mind.
Other attempts at communicating via Ebonics left people thinking I had finally slipped over the edge into dementia.
Of course those people are just unenlightened. They just don't understand.
But if I can find enough enlightened people, maybe Ebonics will catch on around here and we can all become bilingual.
Until then, I guess I'll have to stick with that pesky, cumbersome, politically incorrect language - English.
