By M Dowling
The Black Californians United for Early Care & Education (BlackECE) demanded that California force preschoolers to learn Black English.
Great idea; have them learn poorly pronounced English so no one in the Western world understands them.
The group wants to “end harmful hierarchies.” They say they’ll make Black English “legitimate” and show it is “rule-governed, rooted” in Black history and culture.
This will only divide us more and put Black children at a disadvantage. Proper English is what the Brits speak, and we should all learn proper English.
What is Black English or Ebonics?
KQED reports that university lecturer Ashley Williams explains. She didn’t feel comfortable communicating this way growing up in South Los Angeles.
Williams said that when she was 3 or 4 years old, her grandmother would correct the way she pronounced words like “napkin” whenever she dropped the “p” sound. Her older sister and cousin also told her about the way she spoke: “amongst our community wasn’t OK at the schoolhouse.”
Generations of Black children grew up learning that their home language wasn’t acceptable in school or the workplace. Many internalized the belief that Black English — sometimes referred to as African American Vernacular English, or AAVE, African American language, or Ebonics — is bad English, loaded with slang and grammatical errors.