I wish I could have made this a link, but I couldn't. So here it is in full.


The Washington Post
March 23, 1997, Sunday,
Final Edition
SECTION: STYLE
Ebonics? It's Just Talk.
By Lonnae O'Neal Parker
Washington Post Staff Writer


The Oakland School Board caused a firestorm recently when some thought it proposed teaching "Ebonics" in schools. I agree, there is a real danger in that. Teachers might get it wrong. Ebonics needs to be taught in the home.
Oh, I wish I had a witness. Stay wit' me now. (a)
I am an educated woman, and I speak Ebonics fluently. With subtlety and nuance, accent and inflection, and much, much attitude.
Fo' real tho', yo' girl can go. (b)
At work, I can toggle between software applications in a keystroke. I am constantly reading, researching and importing text between applications with different rules, different aesthetics, different sets of assumptions.
It kind of reminds me of what black people in this country do all the time.
I spend my days alt-tabbing through competing realities. I doublethink.
Y'all don't know nut'n 'bout that George Orwell. Baby was all that. That 1984 was da bomb, yo. (c)
Ebonics is more than slang and fractured verse and fodder for political pontification. It is, for me, subtext, context and pretext. It is the filter through which all of my ideas flow. It is my first language, the one I think in. The rest is just translation.Tha's real. (d)Sometimes I'll have an "Ebonics moment" in front of the water cooler or standing at the mirror checking my lipstick. It is a word, a turn of phrase, a gesture or a meaningful look. It is a way of understanding the world and of understanding yourself, seldom seen by people in the office.Lessin' they black folks.It is the reason why black people downtown, who may be unknown to one another, almost always speak when passing. It is a tacit acknowledgment:We out here, ain't we? (e)For a creative writing assignment, I once wrote a letter in Ebonics and had a professor -- tryin' to school yo, girl (f) -- tell me, "Educated black people would not talk like that."I was like, yo, P, "Ain't I a Woman," yo? (g)To say he didn't get it would be an understatement. Maybe I need to 'splain myself. Check it:I grew up steeped in the classics. I was a journalism major in college and I am fond of citing the philosophical underpinnings of a free press as an argument for diversity. I can talk Dante, and Bronte.But you know, I gots to brang a li'l Ha'ay Belafonte. And y'all be straight sleep on that Roxanne Shante, see. (h)Ebonics is the spoken rhythm of my home. It is kickin' it with the sisters while washing dishes and watching "Star Trek."Girl check out Number One, baby is fine. (i)And it punctuates the sweet, intimate moments spent at play with my little girl.Dat mommy be nibblin' on dem baby toes. (j)Ebonics is not unknown, it is not misunderstood, even by those blacks who would have you believe in its aberrance. For a generation, it may be a shameful little secret. A way to distinguish one kind of black from another. Negroes from African Americans. But it is the tradition we all come from.It is one not unfamiliar to Colin Powell, a tradition that gave rise to Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas.MCs act like they don't know, but you know Clarence get to them family reunions and be talkin' up some stuff. He from Georgia too. Please. (k)I've seen white people claim not to get it. But oh, they want to. These are the same folks at the office Christmas party singing:Whachoo want?/ Baby I got it./ Whachoo need?/ You know I got it.(They axin' fo' respect, chile.) (l)When it comes to Aretha Franklin, or the Temptations or B.B. King, white folks "get it," all day long, because they understand there is a range of emotion that simply cannot be expressed in standard English. It's got to be infused, embellished.You feelin' me? (m)It is the reason black people gave the world jazz and rap. It is why we sing the blues.It is creative, resilient; fluid. And for me, it is my ticket to ride: uptown and downtown. It reminds me that if I get too far from where I started, I'm lost.An' you know, forget where you come from an' you might get to thinkin nobody'll eve'try'n sen' you back. (n)So my husband and I might cold break into Ebonics at the Smithsonian with my daughter.No shame to our game. (o)Because dance is a pas de deux and the Bankhead Bounce. Because French is the Champs-Elysees and the French Quarter. Because Spanish is Madrid and a rose in Spanish Harlem. And because the world is so much bigger than subject-verb agreement when I sing to her,You are a chocolate star/ Though you may not be a bass guitar, baby bubba,It's all good. (p)My daughter giggles. She doesn't think I'm ignorant, and she never questions my elocution.She be lookin' all like, oo-ooo, represent, represent. 'Cause my baby know. That mommy ol' school. She jus' be keepin' it real.Peace Out. (q)Ebonics to Standard English translation by letter:a. Although the comment is meant flippantly, author is "testifying," and checking the audience for like-minded sentiments. Author makes an entreaty to closely follow her line of reasoning. Stems from the call-and-response tradition of the black church.b. Honestly, the author speaks it well.c. To self-conscious effect, author is calling attention to use of George Orwell "doublethink" (the simultaneous acceptance of two opposing propositions). As an aside, author thinks highly of the novelist and novel.d. The author is not joking.e. Reference to kinship and being outnumbered.f. Equivalent to "as if." Disbelieving. Author takes umbrage at and feels patronized by professor's instruction on this matter.g. Truncated expression meaning, "Hello . . . hello? Aren't I the exact thing this person is talking about?" Derived from famous quote by former slave and women's rights activist Sojourner Truth refuting pronouncements of women's gentility and feebleness by pointing out how hard she had been made to work and how often she had been beaten.h. Deliberate use of rhyme. (1) Reference is to black activism and Caribbean consciousness. (2) Tongue-in-cheek reference to mid-1980s "old school" female New York rapper. In toto, appreciative reference is made to street slang and sexual bravado.i. SS Enterprise first mate Cmdr. Will Riker is a handsome fellow.j.k. Despite their protestations to the contrary, author suspects that masters of ceremony -- Establishment black people such as Clarence Thomas -- occasionally slip into black vernacular, particularly when surrounded by family. Author contends, implying some intimate knowledge, that Georgia has large Ebonics-speaking contingent.l. This is Aretha. Aretha needs no translation.m. Do you get it?n. A reference to slavery, and the ensuing political and economic subjugation of black people.o. Author is unabashed.p. (1) Bootsy Collins lyric, widely familiar and harking back to late-'70s and early-'80s "P-Funk" musical sound. (2) The sentiments thus expressed are self-evident, easily accepted, and celebrated.q.
Author takes literary license to leave unexplained. Strongly urges use of context clues.