William Rodney Herring's Courses

“I gone don that yesterday.” Translation: I did my homework yesterday with three hours to spare, allowing me to go to bed at a decent hour in preparation for an early start on the next day.

So this is a language? Because it sounds a lot like bad grammar and word choice to me. If someone had told me this in response to the question “Did you do your homework?” I would probably stare at them blankly and assume, obviously, that no schoolwork had been done. Nor had it ever been done in the past.

Before I get drawn and quartered in the name of “tolerance,” allow me to express my opinion a bit further. What I mean to say is that regardless of whether or not we allow Ebonics - or Black English, or Slave Jive, or whichever name scholars have chosen - to be considered a legitimate language, the point remains that we live in a country - nay, a world - where communication is vital for survival and success. In order to truly “make it,” a person needs to be able to articulate and communicate effectively with the people around them.

The relevancy of my point is that no matter what, in this case the ends justify the means. As long as students of non-standard English are able to leave their educational institutions with a comprehensive understanding of and ability to use Standard English (as it is called), I don’t exactly see a problem. Americans will always view dialects and nonstandard forms of their precious linguistic constructs as insufficiently communicative, whether they want to admit it or not. And if Smitherman and Heilbronn need a legislative categorization of their ghetto dialect and a state mandate to better accommodate black students, then so be it. As long as the kids do their homework.