In a follow-up to the story of a Houston police officer suspended and forced to attend diversity training by a local school district for distributing an eight page “guide to ebonics” to 15 Independent School District police officers during a meeting in May (essentially, what it amounted to was a short guide to common street slang), here’s Houston Chronicle letter writer Pamela D. Reed, diversity consultant and assistant professor of English and African American Literature, Virginia State University, setting the record straight on the ignorance of the officers involved:
It is unfortunate that such ignorance abounds in this country with regard to African-American language, sometimes called ebonics.
The “Ghetto Handbook: Ebonics 101” incident at Houston Independent School District’s Police Department was appalling and speaks to the need for greater education and understanding.
— unless it’s “greater education and understanding” of actual slang. In which case, you know, RACIST!
Evidently, “diversity consultants” such as Ms Reed would prefer we keep our “education and understanding” at the theoretical stage, where education and understanding are restricted to talk about the need for such things. Alternately, I imagine, a city may hire persons of Ms Reed’s “diversity” pedigree to teach street lingo to cops likely to encounter it, gussying it up in the formal garb of cultural cache and pretend import required to metacontextualize it.
Because, you see, it “belongs” to a certain group, and can only be transmitted to those outside that group by group members, or those who have studied group members academically, and can put on offer their diversity bona fides.
Continues Ms Reed, with a near audible sniff:
For starters, it must be made clear that ebonics and slang are not one and the same.
American ebonics is a contact language that resulted from the mingling of non-English speaking, displaced enslaved Africans with speakers of English.
There is an ongoing debate about whether ebonics is an actual language or just a dialect.
What is not up for debate is the fact that the vast majority of African-Americans speak in a tongue that is all their own  even when they are capable of speaking perfect English  and they should not be demonized or ridiculed because of this phenomenon called “code-switching.”
Of course, were others to learn to speak “ebonics” (or, say, learn the “dialect”), the language would no longer be “a tongue that is all their own,” because presumably it would then belong to all those who could learn or speak it.
So why is Ms Reed so outraged?
From what I can gather (and I admit my familiarity with the story is only passing; could be that the intent of the officers was to belittle Blacks, which is a whole different concern), Reed is indignant that HISD officers incorrectly called their slang book “ebonics.” But as Ms Reed herself notes, whether or not “ebonics” is an actual language is still widely contested, with most scholars resistant to any such claims. The alternative — that ebonics is a “dialect” rather than its own separate language — means that ebonics has been reformulated as “a complete system of verbal communication (oral or signed, but not necessarily written) with its own vocabulary and grammar.” Which would mean either that standard English would be considered “slang” within the constraints of her classification of ebonics, or else she will have to concede that some of the vocabulary common to ebonics has become, in effect, popularized slang.
Surely, though, Ms Reed is not in high dudgeon because a group of police officers without her advanced training in “diversity” were unable properly to differentiate between particular and specialized modes of cultural discourse. So what is it that rankles her so?
Is it the presumptuousness of the officers for having identified and disseminated common slang not properly theirs? The intent behind the effort that Ms Reed ascribes to the officers as “racist”? Embarrassment over that slang, which Ms Reed takes to be part of her own culture? How is making fun of President Bush saying “nu-ku-lar” any different than poking fun at “aks”?
Other than that the group being “targeted” is presumed too delicate to withstand such vicious broadsides? — although not, it seems, by certain members of said group who don’t agitate on behalf of the grievance lobby:
I thought it was hilarious what the officer did. I was only upset that he was suspended.
Those people who say things such as, “It was really a slap in the African-American community’s face” (president of the Houston NAACP, Carol Mims Galloway), have no sense of humor. As an African-American teenager, I can vouch that many black, Hispanic and even white kids, in fact, do speak “ebonics,” and I think the campus police need to know what the kids are saying.
People who say that the ghetto handbook was offensive need to lighten up.
Lighten up? Please. Lightening up might actually help ease racial tensions — and it is the goal of “diversity consultants” and grievance group lobbyists to turn any perceived transgression into proof that we live in a racist society. That such keeps us in need of their services is just a happy coincidence.
Lectures Ms Reed:
Language is an integral part of the cultural mosaic and, as such, must always be factored into diversity training.
Hopefully, it will be mandated at HISD.
Sure. I mean, as long as they’ve already got the handbooks…
(h/t John H)
Rent-seeking. Turn language into a minefield and sell maps of the safe way through.
Precisely, Dr Steve.
Because when an expert steps on the same mine, they can write it off as a teachable moment.
If they can keep the stump from quivering too noticeably.
Again the diversity “Tsar” is female and African-American.
Where is the diversity of race and gender when it comes to hiring diversity Tsars? THERE’S NO DIVERSITY IN … UM … DIVERSITY!!!
I continue to be confused by the royal and/or magical powers that only allow black females to teach diversity unless, of course, very very act of diversity in choosing a diversity Tsar doesn’t constitute non-diversity if the non-diversity reflects an actual construct for diversity.
Brain.Hurts.
Oh and Jeff & Drsteve: I propose finding a nice sniper perch and targeting the mines as the non diverse diversity Tsars walk by.
Calling it the “Ghetto Handbook” and labeling it as “ebonics” strikes me as kind of inappropriate for the police, given that “common slang dictionary update” would describe it pretty well without applying any sort of economic or racial signifier to it. But claiming a subsection of slang terms as a dialect and trying to grant it some kind of ex post facto cultural context and exclusivity based on skin color? That’s uh, how you say, objectively racist and needlessly divisive. F’realz, son. My shit’s trilingual all of a sudden.
A poor man’s version of Ghetto Delta …
Funny as hell over beers but does it really belong in the squad room?
It doesnt take an Einstein to know you dont pass this kind of stuff around work in today’s society…
That such keeps us in need of their services is just a happy coincidence.
Never, EVER, join, trust, support, or otherwise give aid and comfort to a group whose ostensible purpose is to put itself out of business.
“American ebonics is a contact language that resulted from the mingling of non-English speaking, displaced enslaved Africans with speakers of English.”
I call BS. There are no “foreign” words in what people call “ebonics”, that woman’s talking about Gullah and there’s no way a cop in Houston would confuse the two or ever even hear Gullah for that matter.
A professor, now that’s different, they can just make shit up.
… and what the hell is ‘CRUNK’ anyways ?
Ah, but you see, calling it slang is also the basis for complaint. because…
So, it’s best if you just shut your big fat racist yap about such things, Whitey.
Wasn’t there a movement to get ebonics tought in schools in neighborhoods with a high percentage of poor blacks? Or rather, have classes taught by teachers who could speak in ebonics? I remember it vividly causing a furor during the early 1990s.
Yo, bitch! Chill!
Most of ebonics is indistinguishable from po’ southunah or po’ white trash anyway. I call bs on any claim for an African origin.
“For starters, it must be made clear that ebonics and slang are not one and the same.”
I don’t know if it must be made clear, but I can vouch that it hasn’t been made clear, and I would hazard that it probably can’t be made clear. Unless you’re talking about the labels “ebonics” and “slang,” in which case the difference is quite clear: one’s a punchline and the other is a viable descriptor that real actual people can say with a straight face. And woe betide those who got their advanced degrees in a field that can be accurately described as a punchline, for lo, they shall become the subjects of Onion articles.
From ProgrammingGrads Meet a Skills Gap in the Real World (eWeek.com)
How much of reality, the kind in which facts rather than self-righteous presumption affect thinking, “isn’t being replicated in a smaller closed environment like a college”? The article quoted bemoans the lack of knowledge and practical skills programmers have, when newly graduated. When a subset of a scientific universe (computer science) sees universities as part of a “smaller, closed environment”, how irrelevant must the humanities departments be? How divorced from reality must they be?
They are becoming parodies of themselves.
When can we defund them and spend the money on health care?
eWeek.com
I hope that supplies the link.
Yep. The Oakland, CA School Board tried to begin teaching it to the unfortunate students under its aegis.
It sounds like Pamela D. Reed got all upset ’cause the police officer got all uppity.
Back in the early 1980s I had a chart called the P-Funk Dictionary, presumably published by the record label that George Clinton worked for, that was a close analog to this cop’s (Bo-Dan: “Minister of Herbal Supply”; Bop-a-tron: “High-power, lease-breaking stereo system”).
Do we ship George and Bootsie off to reeducaton camp, too?
“Most of ebonics is indistinguishable from po’ southunah or po’ white trash anyway. I call bs on any claim for an African origin.”
Read an excellent piece by Thomas Sowell on this awhile back, don’t remember exactly where. His point was that at one time southern blacks and whites spoke exactly the same dialect, but whites were derided as ignorant white trash and strongly encouraged to leave it behind, which they largely did. Meanwhile blacks were held to lower expectations, held on to it longer, and are now actually encouraged to not move on and learn to speak proper English.
Dat ole soff bigotry agin, I rekonz.
No, because that wasn’t racist, that was a Psychoalphadiscobetabioaquadooloop
Oh, stewardess! I speak jive.
S’mo fo butter layin’ to the bone. Jackin’ me up.
Tightly.
He said that he’s in great pain and he wants to know if you can help him.
Jess hang loose, blood. She gonna catch ya up on da rebound on da med side.
Pootie Tang: See, my damie, Pootie Tang don’t wa-da-tah to the shama cow… ’cause thats a cama cama leepa-chaiii, dig?
Shit’s wild homo.
American ebonics is
a contact language that resulted from the mingling of non-English speaking, displaced enslaved Africans with speakers of English. Academic Horse Shit. -Ms ReedI fixed it for her.
Second try:
American ebonics is
a contact language that resulted from the mingling of non-English speaking, displaced enslaved Africans with speakers of English.Academic Horse Shit. -Ms ReedI fixed it for her.
“Jes’ slap me a porterhouse on da platta.”
The thing here is the base opportunism of Pamela and her ilk that are solely interested in using this sort of thing to assert the value of “diversity training.” Punish him, suspend him, whatever, but don’t dehumanize the guy by pretending that he is incapable of drawing the conclusion that the sanction he is receiving means his behavior was wrong and she shouldn’t do stuff like that again. He doesn’t need a freaking seminar to self-correct. That’s what’s so disgusting. This reeducation camp crap. And perpetuating it by seizing on any and every available pretext. The opportunism is just a symptom though. Pamela Reed is a sick, hateful woman, oblivious to how her proscribed solution is fundamentally degrading of human integrity.
“I was sick,” says the cop. “All better now.”
*he shouldn’t*
omment by Eric Anondson on 9/5 @ 10:29 am #
Wasn’t there a movement to get ebonics tought in schools in neighborhoods with a high percentage of poor blacks? Or rather, have classes taught by teachers who could speak in ebonics? I remember it vividly causing a furor during the early 1990s.
Yep. And thereby condemning those kids to remain in their poor neighborhoods. Fortunately the parents of the kids knew what was better for their kids.
Cut me some slack, Jack!
Chump don’ want no help, chump don’t GET no help!
Crazy mother….
I did that “proscribed” thing again. Words is hard.
Seems to be a one way street with the diversity crowd.
“Diversity” is just the latest name on the bat used to beat the unenlightened, TJ. See also: racist, sexist, homophobic, unsustainable.
Don’t forget the big one: “Inappropriate!!”
“Thank you for calling Protein Wisdom.
For Ebonics, be pressin’ two.”