Language Reparation: African American English (AAE) and the US Education System
I have a confession to make. Growing up, I was what my family teasingly called the “grammar police.” When one of my cousins would say something like, “Bryan and me walkin’ to Jimmy’s,” a ten-year-old me would kindly suggest, “I think you mean, ‘Bryan and I are walking to Jimmy’s house.’” Or when my friends from my street and I would plan to hang out and they would text me, “Where you at?,” I would gently reply with, “You know you can’t end a sentence with a dangling preposition, right?” And don’t even get me started on the contraction “ain’t.” I took pride in my “grammar police” title because I genuinely believed that I was helping my loved ones speak properly, (whatever that actually means). At school, my teachers paternalistically told me that I was “articulate.” On the school bus, my peers mockingly told me I was “white.” Unsure of what to make of the way I spoke, I felt estranged from full access to communication in the classroom and on the playground. So, to prevent myself from languishing in discomfort, I kept grammar policing to carve out a space for myself between the two seemingly irreconcilable spheres.
I still cringe whenever I recall my grammar policing days. I was well-intentioned, but admittedly obnoxious. Unbeknownst to me, I was actually acting out of a place of misinformed ignorance. The education system in my area conditioned me to haphazardly conflate the bad or incorrect uses of Standard English (SE) with the linguistically legitimate grammar structures of African American English (AAE) that some of my peers and loved ones used. African American English (AAE), also known as African American Vernacular English (AAVE), Black English (BE), or more archaically, Ebonics, is a dialect of English with contextually local and ancestrally African influences most predominantly spoken by members of the African American community. To be clear, not all African Americans speak AAE, nor do all speakers of AAE identify as African American. However, it would be accurate to identify AAE’s prevalence and relevance to the African American experience at-large. Dignifying the use and study of African American English can be an essential step in language reparation, establishing a helpful continuity between the worlds of cultural acceptance and institutional access.
In Vinson Cunningham’s New Yorker review of John McWhorter’s book Talking Back, Talking Black, Cunningham notes that McWhorter seems to be a prominent proponent of AAE’s linguistic legitimacy and its ability to reflect intrinsic expressions of African American culture. [1] McWhorter further asserts that African American English has positioned itself to be an integral American lingua franca that should not be considered deficient or inferior to the Standard English dialect. In fact, he explains how certain AAE grammar constructions capture subtleties and complexities that SE lacks. For example, McWhorter analyzes AAE’s utilization of a grammar marker called the habitual “be.” In a sentence, like “He be comin’ ’round here every Monday,” the “be” emphasizes the progressive and measured repetition of the action. Another phrase like “She be runnin’ at 6pm today” would be incorrect within AAE’s parameters since the described action is not habitual. If this grammatical subtlety does not serve as a hallmark of linguistic legitimacy, I’m not sure what does.
Yet, simply acknowledging the linguistic legitimacy of a dialect, language, or other mode of communication falls short of proposing its right to institutional support, as complete language reparation requires. There has been ample debate over whether or not African American English should have a respected place in the classroom throughout the dialect’s history. In 1996, the Oakland School district board released a policy proposing the incorporation of AAE, then referred to as Ebonics, into academic curricula. [2] Discourse ensued. Admittedly, some of the language the Oakland board utilized only made the discussion of the policy’s implementation more contentious. The earliest rendition of the policy suggested that Ebonics was the “genetically based” “primary language” of many African American students. After receiving intense criticism, the Oakland board removed this wording, but remained faithful to their initial objective of having Ebonics recognized in the classroom.
Prominent educators and linguistic scholars are still divided over the ramifications of the Oakland school Ebonics policy and others like it. On one hand, McWhorter, for example, does not believe that the use of African American English in schools would benefit African American students, since regardless of AAE’s incorporation, as he writes in the article “Losing the Race,” “inner city backgrounds do not prepare many children to be receptive to education in school.” [3] McWhorter is also concerned that utilizing AAE in the classroom will not adequately equip students to employ the Standard English of the workplace. On the other hand, there are quite a few scholars with a more optimistic outlook for AAE’s role in education. Noteworthy speech pathologist Julie Washington insists that introducing African American English into classrooms will actually fortify AAE speakers’ ability to master SE. Washington believes that the ability to proficiently use both AAE and SE as a form of code-switching is a skillset that should be cultivated and celebrated in academic environments. In an interview with Atlantic journalist William Brennan, Washington shares, “We see value in speaking two languages… But we don’t see value in speaking two dialects. Maybe it’s time that we did.”[4] Washington may be right in suggesting an embrace of a type of “bidialectalism” to indicate the significance of AAE in all spheres of African American life and culture.
To some degree, I do understand the concerns of scholars like McWhorter in regards to AAE’s incorporation into education. It is true that the dialect is typically not expected or accepted in workspaces or higher spheres of academia. Yet, this reality is only perpetuated by the propagation of harmful historical narratives about the dialect's inferiority. It is worthwhile to imagine a future in which workplaces and academic spaces may have Standard English as the primary mode of communication while also embracing AAE and bidialectalism as additional modes of discourse. This will in turn make these environments more accessible and welcoming to more individuals. Tomorrow’s university halls, conference rooms, and offices are rooted in today’s classrooms. Language reparation starts at school. Incorporating the understanding of various English dialects into curricula to at least some level can perhaps enhance inclusion within student interaction. I truly admire the facilitating efforts of leaders like Julie Washington to these ends. More specifically, I also believe that the integration of African American English will instill a new confidence in AAE speakers and give them the freedom to express themselves, beginning the generational work of repairing institutional spheres that have denied access to AAE speakers for far too long.
[1] Cunningham, Vinson. “The Case for Black English.” The New Yorker, The New Yorker, 19 June 2017, www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/05/15/the-case-for-black-english.
[2] Lee, Felicia R. “Lingering Conflict in the Schools: Black Dialect vs. Standard Speech.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 5 Jan. 1994, www.nytimes.com/1994/01/05/nyregion/lingering-conflict-in-the-schools-black-dialect-vs-standard-speech.html.
[3] Cunningham, Vinson. “The Case for Black English.”
[4] Brennan, William. “Julie Washington's Quest to Get Schools to Respect African-American English.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 12 Mar. 2018, www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/04/the-code-switcher/554099/
