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Speak White ... In 1996, the Oakland Unified
School District set off a media feeding frenzy when it announced that it would treat African-American English as a separate language, called Ebonics. The white media became hysterical, and forgot that the school board
was not proposing that students be taught in Ebonics, but that they be taught English the same way that Spanish-speaking kids are. Students would learn to readily translate Ebonics into standard English, instead of
being told that Ebonics was wrong. Even Ebonics supporters will agree that all Americans, whatever their race or ethnicity, need to speak standard English if they want to get ahead. Nevertheless, there is little
debate over whether or not Ebonic is a viable dialect. The American Speech, Language and Hearing Association classified Ebonics as a social dialect with its own grammar, lexicon, syntax, phonology and semantics. And the
Linguistic Society of America conceded that the Oakland plan was "linguistically and pedagogically sound." Even so, few would argue that students need to speak standard English to get ahead, even if their
"mother tongue" is Spanish, Ebonics or anything else. In fact, most prominent black commentators surprised the media by supporting standard English, including Jesse Jackson, Bill Cosby (who calls it
Ignoromics) and Spike Lee ("I be thinking that Ebonics be stupid"). Moreover, the move was at least in part administrative, and may have been intended to get more funding, through English as a Second
Language programs, for a group of students whose language patterns put them at a demonstrated disadvantage from the moment they first walk into school. But the sheer fury of the white response, from the news media to
the Internet to late-night monologues, suggest that for many, the problem wasn't concern for the career advancement of young blacks, but anger that uppity niggers wanted to do things their own way. ... unless you are White Interestingly, a similar language controversy is being settled the other way in Europe. According to an item in the Philadelphia Inquirer, all Scottish public schools have recognized Scots as a formal part of the curriculum, and the dialect is increasingly being seen as a language of its own. Chris Robinson, an educator at the University of Edinburgh, even went so far as to observe that a language is just a dialect with an army. Aye, but Blacks dinnae ken that ...
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