Language Diversity in the Classroom - ymerleksi - home

Black English as Ebonics 177rather muddy these waters, however. The intent in the original documentwas to instruct students ‘in their primary language’ (i.e. Ebonics), both tomaintain that variety and to facilitate the acquisition of English. In theamended resolution, however, the main emphasis is upon masteringEnglish while, at the same time, ‘respecting and embracing thelegitimacy and richness’ of Ebonics.Even in its revised form, then, the Oakland school board’s declarationwas not without ambiguities and infelicities: it was clearly not adocument produced by professional linguists. It was perhaps anacknowledgement of this, coupled with the intense reaction to itsactivities, which finally led the board to delete references to Ebonicsaltogether (Baugh, 2004). The whole matter, however, remains instructivein a number of ways. 1 If we put aside matters of dialect-languagedistinction, and acknowledgements that both scholarly and officialdeterminations have made it clear that Ebonics is a form of nonstandardEnglish (and thus ineligible for support under the auspices of existingbilingual education legislation), we are still left with an intenselyinteresting and informative chapter in the sociology of language. RichardRiley, the American Secretary of Education, lost no time in making theofficial position clear. On Boxing Day, 1996, he stated that Ebonics was anonstandard form of English and not a foreign language. ‘ElevatingBlack English to the status of a language’, he said, ‘is not the way to raisestandards of achievement in our schools’ (Globe & Mail, 1996). Baugh(2000) and Richardson (1998) discuss Riley’s reaction, and provide fullerdetails of other governmental and official responses.Some of the most salient aspects of the whole affair have been brieflybut usefully summarized by Wolfram (2005), who pointed to the publicconceptions and misconceptions that it triggered. The school-boardresolutions were seen variously to suggest, first, that Ebonics was aseparate language tout court; second, that Ebonics was an Africanlanguage; third arising from the unfortunate term, ‘genetically-based’ that African Americans were ‘biologically predisposed’ to Ebonics;fourth, that speakers of Ebonics were as eligible as (say) HispanicAmericans for federal bilingual education funding; fifth, that pupils wereto be taught in Ebonics by suitably prepared teachers. And Baugh (2004:316) provides a final important summary point: ‘the Ebonics debate thatbegan in Oakland was never fully resolved; in the wake of a hostilepublic reception, it was simply abandoned’. Among the chorus of voices,many were hostile (as we shall see below), and even the moreenlightened ones were critical and cautious. An important issue wasleft hanging, while ‘far too many African American students continue to