School Decision on Black English Stirs Up a Storm of Commentary

For Oakland school board President Lucella Harrison, it has brought a merciless barrage of barbs. For radio talk show host Larry Elder, it’s been the broadcast equivalent of manna from heaven. Prominent rappers had their opinions, not surprisingly, but so did Arnold Schwarzenegger’s former dialect coach--who recalled how the Austrian actor was mocked for his speech.

Whether you call it “Ebonics” or black English, the Oakland school district’s decision to officially recognize black dialect as a separate language has rendered few people speechless.

From classrooms in South Los Angeles to the airwaves across the nation, the question of the legitimacy of black English sizzled.

Outside Locke High School, Antonio Royal, 15, said Oakland officials went too far when they vowed to use the recognition of “Ebonics” to teach African American students standard English. As Antonio sees it, black English is fine on its own.

“I think that’s foul, no joke,” he said of the Oakland Unified School District’s action.

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But recognizing black English seemed like a bad joke to most of the callers to a KABC talk show--one that was “just so incredibly stupid,” said black conservative host Elder.

“Anytime you’ve got something that involves education . . . and race, you’ve got an emotional and volatile subject,” said Elder, whose six phone lines lighted up for three solid hours Thursday night.

The callers who identified themselves as African American seemed most offended of all, according to the host.

“It’s condescending . . . an excuse to justify bad grammar,” said Elder, whose shoot-from-the-lip style has built a loyal following. “One caller said, ‘Relax, this is one more nail in the coffin of government schools.’ Another caller said, ‘What’s next? Black math? One plus one be three?’ What are we talking about here?”

Four hundred miles north, school board leader Harrison said hundreds of calls about the controversy have tied up the Oakland schools’ switchboard--some supportive and many irate, incredulous or just confused.

“I never thought we would get this much attention,” said Harrison, an African American who has spent much of the past two days appearing on radio and television to explain the reasons behind the district’s unusual stance.

Oakland is the first school district in the nation to officially recognize black English as “the predominantly primary language of African American students.” It intends to develop programs to sensitize teachers to the cultural and historic basis of the language and to encourage them to view youngsters who speak it as having educational handicaps similar to other students for whom English is a second language.

“People are frightened to think that we are going to throw out all the standard English textbooks and curriculum and substitute something that is substandard. That is totally wrong,” Harrison said. “We are not going to glorify black English. . . . We want to take children where they are and not devalue them because they use it. And we want to take them into standard English.”

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Black English was decreed a bona fide “social dialect” with its own lexicon, syntax and semantics in 1982 by the American Speech and Hearing Assn. Some linguists and others prefer to call the black vernacular “Ebonics,” a term that merges ebony and phonics.

But whether it should be considered an entirely separate language still causes debate to boil in the academic community and among the public at large. A particularly prickly question is whether those who use it are linguistically deficient or just different.

Proponents of the first think that “people who don’t speak like Bryant Gumbel must not be intelligent,” said John Baugh, a Stanford University professor of education and linguistics who is African American. Although he is not comfortable calling black English a separate language, he applauds Oakland for “finally addressing the linguistic consequences of slavery.”

But University of California Regent Ward Connerly, the chief architect of the campaign behind Proposition 209, which calls for the elimination of race- and gender-based preferences in California government, railed against the Oakland district, saying officials there are “a laughingstock.”

“Here we have a high concentration of black people living in Oakland, carving out for themselves a separate language,” he said. “We have these kids who find it difficult to negotiate normal transactions in our society because of their inability to communicate. Sanctioning this street slang they’re using and giving it legitimacy is just upside down . . . it is idiocy.”

Others urge understanding--and sympathy.

Robert Easton, one of Hollywood’s leading dialect coaches, has helped hundreds of clients learn new accents--and shake old ones that they found embarrassing. He said no one should feel ashamed about the way they speak, but that being “functionally bilingual”--able to switch between black English, say, and standard English--is a skill to be valued.

Easton recalled coaching Schwarzenegger when the Austrian native first came to Hollywood and was very self-conscious about his heavy accent. All his life, even before he came to the United States, the bodybuilder-turned-actor had been maligned for the way he talked--by more citified countrymen because he spoke like a yokel, and later by Germans who mocked his Viennese accent, Easton said.

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“I worked with him to use his own voice,” Easton said, suggesting the same principle apply to students who favor African American dialect. “If people can stop putting each other down and stop putting negative value judgments on the way people speak, it helps a great deal. . . . People need to know they have the control to change speech if they wish. That is key--if they wish.”

Rap artist Chuck D of Public Enemy, speaking from his home in Atlanta, said a balance should be achieved between a “dialect” and standard English. But he criticized the view that there is only one black dialect.

“Black English in the United States of America is more regional than it is national,” he said.

He said that while he “hybridizes” language in his rap lyrics, taking forms from different black dialects and mixing them with more mainstream usage, he believes learning standard English is essential.

In South Los Angeles, Shirley Perkins-Little, who teaches at 109th Street School, said critics such as Connerly were overreacting. She teaches her second- and third-graders to be selective when using black English, to “code-switch” and learn when standard English or black slang is appropriate.

Two fifth-graders at the school said they switch back and forth between black and standard English depending on where they are and the person listening to them.

“It’s just like when I’m with my Mexican friends,” said one of the 10-year-olds. “I have to speak Spanish when I’m with my Spanish friends.”