Ebonics debate neglects real issues by Amy White

The only thing we can say with certainty about the recent Ebonics controversy is that everybody had an opinion and they all wanted you to hear it. As a result, much academic and not-so-scholarly nitpicking distracted most people from the real issue, the education of African-American students. Instead, the vast majority of Americans condemned the Oakland school board's resolution without the benefit of valid linguistic or educational data. In fact, the average American now considers himself an expert on the subject based on a few random comments from uninformed people he saw on television.   The public was exposed to so little thoughtful and scientific investigation that unbiased insight was all but lost on the masses, and debate never turned to the true problems of education for most Black, inner city children. The concern that spurred the Oakland school board into action, and that has inspired scholarly inquiry into African-American speech over the past three decades, is the fact that African-Americans as a group perform well below their peers on standardized tests and in the classroom, not only in Oakland but across the nation. The statistics speak for themselves: disproportionate numbers of Blacks are held back, assigned to special education classes, and eventually lost to the system as drop-outs. The bottom line? We want - need - to do something about this disparity. Cliched as it sounds, America's schools are failing African-American children to an even greater degree than they are failing other students. While Republicans (and now Democrats, too) complain and snatch away benefits and government aid to poor families - the type of families whose children attend Oakland schools - they balk at the proposal that we actually try to remedy the problem instead of the symptoms. Furthermore, few policymakers seemed willing to even consider arguments in defense of Ebonics. Senator Lauch Faircloth, the North Carolina Republican who testified in opposition to the Oakland school board's resolution, dropped by the hearings on the issue just long enough to pronounce the resolution "absurd" and to rally for school uniforms and old-fashioned classroom discipline, then left the hearings immediately without listening to any of the testimony in favor of the resolution. Notably absent from the pro-Ebonics side of the debate were the diehard patriots who advocate English-only legislation. Few people will publicly dispute the notion that all Americans should have the opportunity to learn standard English - to do so would be blatantly racist and indefensibly separatist. Yet I didn't hear a single Official-English proponent back measures to teach standard English through Ebonics or to fund programs like bilingual education. Why haven't they been at the center of this movement to spread the acquisition of Standard American English? I'm as puzzled as the next linguistic libertarian. The people I have seen at the front lines of this battle include sincere, dedicated educators, concerned patrons, and black students like Michael Lampkins, the 17-year-old Oakland student who testified before the Senate committee. Contrary to the image portrayed in the mass media, the originators of Oakland's proposal actually had the best interests of their students in mind: to help them master Standard English while gaining understanding and appreciation of their native dialect and its place in their culture. One aspect that was particularly befuddling to a liberal wondering which side to back was the divergence of African-Americans' responses to Ebonics. The NAACP condemned it, Sen. Maxine Waters, the head of the Congressional Black Caucus, spoke in favor of the resolution, and Jesse Jackson flip-flopped (but insisted, paradoxically, that he had not changed his position).   Jesse was torn over Ebonics   A great deal of the opposition, though, stemmed from the misperception that Oakland was "dumbing down" the curriculum, implying that black students had less learning capacity than their counterparts. Many prominent black leaders were justly offended by the public perception of Oakland's intentions, which was skewed by some vague and uninformed language used in the original resolution. These confusions then were magnified when the mass media picked it up, popularized the catchy "Ebonics" label, and made it a topic of conversation across the country. As progressives, we need to not only remedy the misinformation that the public at large has received, but also support the intentions of the educators behind the Oakland resolution. When opponents argued that the board was subversively seeking federal bilingual education funds, we should have questioned why, if the allegation is true, inner city schools must always search for additional funds to supplement their inadequate budgets. We must support any attempt to improve our nation's ailing inner-city schools, but keep in mind that taking on issues of linguistic competency and difference can not be done without the aid of experts. The most fundamental lesson we must take from the Ebonics controversy, however, is that educators need to approach situations that challenge the cultural status quo boldly, while being aware of the implications of their actions. Only by making well-informed, culturally sensitive steps can we surmount the barriers that still stand between African-American children and an equal education.

Back to The L-Word