Re: Ebonic Plague

["Tony G. Rocco" <trocco -at- NAVIS -dot- COM>]

Mr. Westbrook's post (below) tells us several things:

1) He incorrectly assumes there is such thing as "proper English" when, in
fact, there is not.

2) He thinks Black speech is an incorrect rendering of this mythical
"proper English," which he assumes the English spoken by *some*
middle-class white people to be. In fact, it is not an incorrect or poorly
learned version of "proper English," but a dialect or variant with its own
grammar and syntax.

3) He feels no compunction about making racist assumptions and remarks in
regard to African American culture and language, referring to their unique
vernacular as somehow a function of being poor, lazy, and on welfare, which
it is not.

Mr. Westbrook reveals much about the errant assumptions in his thinking,
shared, I am afraid, by far too many insular, elitist, and misinformed
white people. His post is one of the most offensive and spurious things I
have read on this list.

- tgr


At 11:50 -0800 12/20/96, BrYan Westbrook wrote:
>Since when does not being able to properly speak any language make one
>bilingual?

>This entire decision is indicative of the welfare mentality.  Its
>proponents do not want to make the effort to learn to speak properly, so
>they want to have their laziness validated.  Listen to anyone on the news
>talking "ebonics" and see if you can take them as seriously as someone =
>who
>is talking proper English.

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