Date: Sun, 5 Jan 1997 19:50:16 +0100 (MET)
From: malecki-AT-algonet.se (Robert Malecki)
Subject: M-I: Re: ebonics


Neil wries;
>
> Bob Malecki and a couple others say that criticizing the (strikebreaking)
>Oakland , Ca.  schoolboard and others for pandering  to the
>patois of "ebonics" as some panacea   to cover up these bourgeois
>politicians   caving in to the  gutting out of funding for english  language,
> ESL, Head start and other  moderately successful programs
>is racism or the  politics of the 'white middle class'.

I love Neil! I love Neil because he is always consistent! On EVERY question 
whether it be the former Soviet Union--the Trade Unions--and now Ebonics he 
always takes the historical ULTRA-LEFT position of throwing out the baby 
with the bath water. And Ultimately winds up on the side of the class enemy. 
Too bad because I think Neil *really* hates the bougeoisie!  The last time 
around with Neil was on the LP list and the trades unions and now that even 
the LP is getting interested in this question i shall send this + some other 
material to it. Neil was trying to tell us that the Trade Unions are at best 
counter-revolutionary and that Malecki, who thinks that Communist will be in 
trade unions and fight for the leadership of the working class was at best a 
asskisser to the trade union bureaucracy. Because Neil as usual can not see 
the difference, nor the historical role that trade unions play for the 
proletariat. His line is to go out in the desert and build something 
rrrrrr-volutionary with his little state cap ultra-left group. 

Now Neil has turned his attention to the question of Ebonics with basically 
the same methodology that he has on the trade unions. The only difference is 
that now Malecki is kissing ass for the "strikebreaking" Oakland scoollboard 
who at best are just trying to wrip off the state for money. In fact he says 
i am caving in to the board who does not want to fund english classes.

Well he is wrong on all three counts as usual. In fact Communists nor have i 
said one word in support of the Oakland schoolboard. And in fact Communists 
are for free education for children and in this case Ebonics as a tool in 
helping these children to find a way they can communicate in a language that 
they feel comfortable in. It does not mean that i am for not teaching 
english or anything else but it does mean that i support the demands for 
teaching Ebonics to these children.

And in fact i have a question to Neil. Don't you think that this debate that 
is going on has very racist overtones? Not in the least the so called 
reverse racism shit that is becoming very popular. I recently said in 
another letter the following;

Oh really! Well, I disagree with you! Despite your sour looks- white rascism 
has been the OPPRESSOR-Black rascism has been the OPPRESSED! Now to me that 
is a BIG difference.. And if Justin agrees with you he is full of shit also. 
Communists are not democrats on this stuff. We look at it the WHYS,the 
WHERES and the WHO,S to determine a position on a question like Ebonics. But 
for you this question is posed as all liberals pose the question. You hit me 
and i hit you back thus you are both wrong.

and

 I did not nor ever will say that Ebonics has a tendency to split along 
racist lines.Because it certainly does! Well this also goes for the National 
Question but it does not mean that Communists do not fight for the right of 
peoples to self determination - including the right to succeed and build 
their own state. This naturally does not mean that Communists raise this to 
a PRINCIPLE everywhere but we do try to have a Marxist approach to this stuff.

among other things.
>
>Bullshit Bob! Try  Preaching  your liberal platitudes and panderings
>to black students in LA or Oakland Schools who are sick and tired
>of being dissed( whoops !!) by the upper middle class forces  who
>sit on these school boards  and who go along with 90% of 
>of Pete Wilson's and the Calif. Legislatures cutting hundreds 
>of millions of dollars out of school budgets over the last 6 years.

You should have been and algebra teacher. Because your arguement is OB+BOB. Oakland Board + black oppression = Betrayal! But it has nothing to to 
with dialectics nor contradictions, nor combined and uneven development, nor 
having any kind of tactics to intervene in poor and working class struggle 
other then screaming.
Bullshit Bob as you once again wonder off into the desert!
>
>Along with the bourgeois programme of making the workers 
>paying for more 'public' monies tranferred to the rich.
>Many black , white, latin  and other working class  students 
>are facing a dummying-down of public education into previously
>latent but now more blatant 3 or 4 tiered public education based
>directly not just on race, but class as well.

OK! I can buy this stuff. At least from a distamce. I mean the same thing is 
going on in Scandinavia including a form of the Ebonics debate. I recently 
said that we have here in Sweden a garantee for first and seconf generation 
foreign nationals to send their children to state funded home language 
courses. Because these children feeling secure in their home language first 
can learn to communicate in a secure and comfortable envionment. Going on 
later to be able to learn other languages instead of winding up in a dead 
end of having NO language at all!
>
>In LA as well as Oakland here in Calif, many  black public school students
>and parents themselves  have denounced the use of "ebonics" as part
>of this dummying- down  process for working class students . 
>With all the budget cuts and class over crowding.
>(Typical  HS English classes pushing 40  students in LA and Oakland
> public schools!)
>Use of Ebonics will more likely just use up more precious class time 
>and in this education for the capitalist  market system , leave  many
>working class black youth  falling even further behind the higher tiers
>of  the "separate and unequal" "schools" in the phony 
>"bourgeois " equality of the present  public education system.
>Educators  like Jonathon Kozol  (Savage Inequalities) have shown have
>tiered the education funding and training structure to serve the needs
>of the bourgeois corporations, who as they need LESS skilled ghetto  labor,
>and LESS educated black workers who  are a key  potential volcano
>of workers rebellion of   past and future, are truly ghettoizing the level
>of  "education' for workers to correspond to THEIR profit needs and 
>the needs of social control as well.

Well, everything that is done in society the bougeoisie certainly fight for 
their interests. But this does not mean that you take out a stick and beat 
Ebonics and black kids on the head. It means that Communists defend free 
school and education in any language which their appears to be a need for 
amongst poor and working class people. So in fact you are just supporting 
the parents who trash ebonics I defend both these parents and the parents of 
those children who want to use Ebonics!
>
>If "ebonics' use by teachers  can  combat elitism and bring the 
>teachers , TAs, classified employees,  students and working class
> parents together to fight for quality education in the inner cities, then
> that would would be a big step forward for the black and other working
> class forces, who have taken defeat after defeat from the rich and their state
>here in Cali f .and other states over th past 5 years..

Good. Sounds like a fairly decent partial goal for teachers. I think that we 
have to go much futher and build a poor and working class republic in the 
United States as elsewhere being the only *real* garantee that our children 
have a future at all! 
>
>But to promote the use of  "ebonics" (patois) as a  second  language  and make
>pseudo scientific defenses of it, e.g  "Ebonics is genetically based 
>language in African Americans with origins in Africa" ( Arguments so absurd 
that
>even the board members  are retracting them now!!) is to fall into 
>a real trap of reactionary "eugenics" thinking . This is however ,
>where so many  nationalist supporters of separatism/segregation, usually  
>mainly white  racist exploiters but now with a coterie of black  nationalists 
>sucking up for a bigger piece of capitalist pie, are taking us.

Ah Neil are you a board member? I mean you always appear to know what those 
in power are trying to do. The problem is that you always throw out the baby 
with the bathwater! Once again! As you have done on the question of the 
Soviet Union--the trade unions--and now Ebonics! Never any contradictions, 
no tactics, and in the final analisis desertion into the desert in the face 
of the ruling classes attacks on poor and working class people!

In Defense of Ebonics!

In Defense of all children to free education!

For a workers government which is the only garantee of justice and equality!

For a Multi-racial Workers Party in the United States!

Bob Malecki

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------

http://www.kmf.org/malecki/

Read the book! Ha Ha Ha McNamara,
Vietnam-My Bellybutton is my Crystalball!

COCKROACH, a zine for poor and workingclass people
NOW ON LINE
--------------------------------------------------------





     --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---