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These sorts of objections always seemed superficial to me. To the former point, I gurantee you that parts of Australian English are in fact discouraged whether

These sorts of objections always seemed superficial to me. To the former point, I gurantee you that parts of Australian English are in fact discouraged whether rightly so or not. Australians casually use expletives that are heavily frowned on in the USA for example and I gurantee you 'hoodlum' English does as well. To the ladder and imo more significant point, the reason a lot of the sort of African American vernacular you're addressing is discouraged is because there is no inherently african/black language. It's an outcome of societal factors. It's frowned upon by institutions, albeit for pettier/racist reasons by individuals, because it implies a racially biased failing by the systems of education which are otherwise viewed as having successfully (to a degree) normalized the prestige grammar with other enrolled pupils. Whether or not the prestige grammar should be held in such high esteem is red herring, imo anyway, when compared to asking why the systems of education are so obviously able to yield the desired outcome for students so long as they have the right skin color. We'll never be able to achieve antiracist goals with tools and systems that have racist effectiveness.

bedobi 5y ago
> the reason a lot of the sort of African American vernacular you're addressing is discouraged is because there is no inherently african/black language What? Of course there is no "inherently african/black language". Africa itself is a giant continent home to the most linguistic (and ethnic, and genetic) diversity on the planet, so that would be a tough claim to back up. And no, out of the laundry list of reasons AAVE is stigmatized, that "there is no inherently african/black language" is not one of them. The rest of your reply, despite best efforts, I literally don't even understand what any of it means. I don't mean to be uncharitable but it's kind of ironic given the topic being English Language... To the degree you're trying to say something about AAVE being bad grammar, or being perceived to be bad grammar, that's not even half of it. Even those who speak perfectly grammatical Standard American English, but with an African American accent only, are still stigmatized. So it's not enough for speakers to speak grammatical Standard American English, they have to completely change they way they speak in order not to be stigmatized, which is sad and wrong.

bedobi 5y ago

> the reason a lot of the sort of African American vernacular you're addressing is discouraged is because there is no inherently african/black language What? Of course there is no "inherently african/black language". Africa itself is a giant continent home to the most linguistic (and ethnic, and genetic) diversity on the planet, so that would be a tough claim to back up. And no, out of the laundry list of reasons AAVE is stigmatized, that "there is no inherently african/black language" is not one of them. The rest of your reply, despite best efforts, I literally don't even understand what any of it means. I don't mean to be uncharitable but it's kind of ironic given the topic being English Language... To the degree you're trying to say something about AAVE being bad grammar, or being perceived to be bad grammar, that's not even half of it. Even those who speak perfectly grammatical Standard American English, but with an African American accent only, are still stigmatized. So it's not enough for speakers to speak grammatical Standard American English, they have to completely change they way they speak in order not to be stigmatized, which is sad and wrong.