Out of all of the problems with the Oakland Ebonics Controversy of 1996, I personally think the route of the problem had to do with the linguistic validity of Ebonics. By this I mean that many standard English speakers seemed to look down on Ebonics and consider it a lowly language. The reason they believed it to be lowly was because many of the grammatical rules almost make it sound incomplete or unintelligent. Also, many standard speakers who have racist roots look down upon the black society who speak Ebonics. Through typing, I’ve realized that racism is an even deeper context in regards to the linguistic validity of Ebonics.
What makes people think one way or the other on a language; and yes, i said language. I don’t believe it is simply just a dialect, but through all of these controversies has developed into a language that can’t be understood by someone who doesn’t speak it. Many of the speakers of this language are African Americans, often ones who live in “the hood” of their city, and don’t have much of an education, wear baggy clothes, and in general are looked down on. Living in the south my entire life, I’ve seen first hand the racism that still exists, and can definitely understand how that racism could effect the opinions on Ebonics.
The reason I think this sparked problems more than anything else is the underlying hatred involved. I don’t think the average person would care about Ebonics being taught in school if it had to do with government spending. Also, to the average American, I just don’t think there’s enough time in the day for someone to worry about whether or not Ebonics is a language or a dialect. It just doesn’t really matter.
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