Understand Issue Before Commenting

Last month the Oakland Unified School District announced its plans to create a new English program to help African Americans learn and speak standard English by using Ebonics.

Although the school board members had good intentions, they were instantly ridiculed by almost all of America, including countless skits and jokes by Jay Leno.

I will admit I thought Leno’s Ebonics jokes were somewhat funny, but I know when to quit laughing.

The other day while in my first period Spanish class, we reviewed the conjugation of a few verbs. The teacher explained, “People don’t go around saying, ‘We be, you be, I be;’ people say ‘we are, you are, I am.”’

Before the last words had left my teacher’s mouth, a curly haired freshman boy interrupted and said, “Unless you speak Ebonics.”

My classmates who obviously hadn’t read or watched the news during winter vacation were curious about the statement. He answered by telling them Ebonics was created to help the Blacks in Oakland get more school money.

“Oh, well that’s dumb,” said a sophomore girl.

I was extremely offended by both of their remarks, but before I had a chance to set them straight, my teacher jumped in and briefly said something on the topic and the class went on.

I know some people might wonder why I took offense to the comments when I don’t speak Ebonics and will probably never be effected by Oakland’s policy. I’ll tell you why I was offended and why everyone else in the class should have taken some offense.

Contrary to what the curly haired boy said, Ebonics, or Black English, is not new. It is a derivation of English that has been spoken by some African Americans in the United States for a long time. Take a look at U.S. history and recall what you learned about how blacks, excuse me, Colored, then Negro people, were treated.

I’ll tell you briefly that educating them while they were slaves was not even considered, and once we were free it was the last thing many of this country’s leaders had on their minds. Slaves picked up the language as best they could and it has been spoken that way since then.

Yes, Ebonics is a dialect with its own grammar rules and vocabulary. It is different, not inferior English, just like Australian English, Irish English and dozens of other English dialects.

Back to the sophomore girl, who has no prior knowledge of Ebonics, yet called it “dumb.” When you formulate opinions without information or foundation, who’s the dumb one?

Everyone should take offense when someone says my history is dumb, because my history is your history. It’s the history of the United States and the way things used to be.

I’m not comfortable in school when people say such insensitive things about other people’s culture. Everyone has the right to learn without having other people’s bias or ignorance forced upon them.

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