Newsgroups: sci.lang
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!bb3.andrew.cmu.edu!newsfeed.pitt.edu!portc02.blue.aol.com!howland.erols.net!netcom.com!petrich
From: petrich@netcom.com (Loren Petrich)
Subject: Re: Ebonics?
Message-ID: <petrichE2vqF0.8yy@netcom.com>
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
References: <01bbeec7$1dddd340$af8faec7@festus.inhouse.compuserve.com>
Date: Mon, 23 Dec 1996 18:37:48 GMT
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Sender: petrich@netcom10.netcom.com

	Does anyone have the full text of the Oakland School Board's
announcement online? I suspect that it is being misunderstood and forced 
into ideological categories.

	And one assertion of the OSB that was especially absurd is that
(something like) black people's genetics somehow predispose them to speak
languages with structure like those of some African languages, and that
the differences between Black English and Standard American English can be
attributed to that. Furthermore, Black English is closest to Southern 
American English, which is hardly surprising, given black Americans' 
history. Although I do wonder why they have not taken to speaking 
"Yankee" to associate themselves with the "Northern liberators".

	The trouble here is that that is totally absurd. Black Americans 
can speak standard English with no trouble at all, especially if they got 
a head start by learning it in childhood. 
-- 
Loren Petrich				Happiness is a fast Macintosh
petrich@netcom.com			And a fast train
My home page: http://www.webcom.com/petrich/home.html
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