Date: Thu, 2 Jan 1997 15:02:26 +0100 (MET)
From: malecki-AT-algonet.se (Robert Malecki)
Subject: M-G: Re: M-I: Ebonics


Daniel wrote in reply to Rakesh;

>so far so good but maybe we should look further and not be so "logical
>rational pragmatic and realistic (or so we think or pride ourselves in
>being)" and think about meditate on ponder on the ironic (organically
>poetic) richness of language in general no matter where we find it....isn't
>there enough room for all lagnuages? what language would we truly want to
>castigate? and lets not get piddling about what is and what isn't a
>language (someone said that a language is a dialect with an army to back it
>up). why should it be so exclusively the realm of linguists philologists
>anthropologists ethnographers psychologists psychiatrists philosophers
>advertisers business men military planners city planners lawyers diplomats
>scientists engineers scriptwriters IMFers WORLD BANKERS sociologists poets
>novelists sociologists news anchor women and men newspaper journalists and
>editors professional educators (yuh really gotta watch out for them not
>that they are innately evil or anyhing; they'er as basically good as anyone
>(and I do believe that most people on the planet are basically good but
>they'er doing too many wrong things and gittin' ripped off t' boot.)
>educators it seems too often forget or never knew that folks are truly
>self-starters and self-educators; professional educators are usually paid
>to through an official block against a human beings' natural (meaning from
>birth) tendency to spontaneously self-educate etc. etc.? ...i.e.
>specialists or experts of one kind or another get the license to get into
>all kinds of esoteric stuff in and about the use of the generation of and
>the policing of language but the plain ol' student of stuff in general
>don't get t' be treated to such high fallootin'(sp?) things as being
>respected for who and what they are and for the language they naturally
>speak (every relatively exterior takes priority over the nourishment of the
>human soul and heart; heart and soul ain't practical enough; ain't real
>enough)...I say take a human being as you find her/him...and by the way
>(instead of buy the way) Oakland Schools did not propose to *teach* Ebonics
>(let's not distort from the git). the Oakland Schools did not (did not, do
>not) propose to **teach** Ebonics or whatever it should truly be called
>(try language of a particular people); Oakland Schools wanted its teachers
>to be acquainted with the language their students spoke so as to better
>communicate with them better understand them respect them empathize with
>them vibe with them (what better word than vibe? a low-life word? come on
>now folks lets really get real 'n' come down off o' all this playing
>ourselves against one another; allowin' ourselves t' get played in the name
>of some kind o' raging unconscious bottom-line-istic positivism.). what's
>really wrong with that folks? and don't forget Finnegans Wake! there seems
>to have been a general retreat from accepting the challenge of the
>endlessly creative power of language wherever it is spoken and by whomever
>it is spoken...language always bursts beyond our attempts to corral or
>hierarchialize it. often folks who have been oppressed and that's most of
>us on the planet truth be told tend to be ashamed of their most amazing
>powers flowers and intuitions * especially when confronted by one bottom
>line requirement (state corporate economic terrorism etc. even the
>so-called need to get a degree or the so-called need to get a high-school
>diploma...care to get radical?) or another...
>
>* self-illuminating and self-organizing potential (goes with anarchism in
>its essence also goes with what some very advanced "scientific" and other
>"thinkers" (musicians artists writers painters...certain remarkable ones,
>much too often,  very marginalized) "think" muse and act upon these days.).

Very Nice Daniel! I agree with you on this. But there is a political aspect 
to this stuff. Rakesh when he replied was talking as some uppity professor 
who strickly is translating some unwritten or written rule about how English 
is suppose to be. Who made the rules? and Why did they make the rules? one 
of the central political reasons in America for the use of the English 
language was to break any group coming in from its former culteral and 
language heritage into the anglo saxon white 
protestant rule. But for blacks who came over as slaves have been around 
almost as long as the first settlers it is for entirely different reasons 
that the language question developed and looks like it does today. 

And in fact the question of ebonics is not just a question of having a 
"open" attitute towards dialects or street languge which for anybody with 
and english major would claim to be wrong. But a pedogogical question of how 
to reach a large group of children who have been put outside the boundaries 
of a normal learning process in rascist America! To deny this is to deny any 
kind of reality and coming from any socialist a scandal. As if slang is noy 
class biased-some excepted as normal like the west coast "dude" shit or the 
gutter slang "Fuck you" world and all of a sudden people start getting 
principles about how english is to be spoken when it comes down to Ebonics!

This is and outrage. Who sets up just what type of language is acceptable. 
Naturally it is the ruling class. Certain deviations from the norm are 
completely acceptable-even certain elements of ghetto street language as 
long as it turns a buck. "Rap" for example. But children who have no 
language but the one they developed outside of the system and because the 
system put them in the situation. Now that appears even for some of our 
SOcialists here at MI to have stepped over the line. I personally condemn 
anybody claiming to be Socialist who doesn.t defend the "right" to Ebonics 
for these kids for at best being unconcious rascists. And second best are 
trying to find all kinds of excuses to justify not defending these children 
in having street language as their first language. I futhermore say that 
learning this street language which is both *real* and quite widespread in 
certain ghetto areas is far more important in the learning process then 
trying to stuff any english-english down their throats. 

Because the learning process does not work that way. It works much like how 
Daniel in a partiell way describes it. I say even more that these children 
are not stupid nor bnackward. The envirionment that was forced on them by 
society over a long historical period of slavery, racist, unmequyal and 
injust society are responsible for the development of a group of kids who 
have most incredibly found a way to communicate amongst themselves just 
because society put them in the situation they find themselves.

I say once again I stand upon my first statement as the only principlty 
correct position to have on this subject. And anybody who thinks that it is 
wrong should try and prove it. Not try some sort of slick side stepping the 
issue as Rakesh does.

In fact Rakesk if i rember correctly you have and Indian (India) in your 
background and i am quite sure that this question is vital in India also. I 
would not doubt that it is directly connected to a lot of stuff like the 
caste system. And your friend Zeynep in a certain sense this language 
question on Ebonics is connected to the language question for the Kurds. So 
it is really going to be interesting to see how Rakesk gets out of his first 
what i feel in the bones "hauth" ,Tupp, Tupp", and all that reply!

And Finally this question is a very serious question not only for Americans 
but the entire International workers movement. Because in the final analisis 
it is only the working class movement Internationally taking political power 
that can solve the language question in a simple and democratic way. Simply 
by saying speak what ever you want. Because we will not use language to 
oppress any of our poor and working class brothers and sisters.

Bob Malecki

In fact I think this issue so important that my original letter, Tony, 
Rakesh and Davids reply+ this answer will go out on usenet as and extra 
number of "Cockroach" on Ebonics. If you watch it very closely you will see 
that it is going to attact a very lot of attention.  
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