[lbo-talk] words for the black community

[Joseph Wanzala]

Some of you may remember that Bill Cosby made a movie with Sidney Poitier 
called 'A Piece of the Action' in which they worked with disadvantaged black 
youth at a community center and tried to get them to understand the 
relationship between elocution, education and success. At first the kids 
were opposed to learing anything but in the long run some of them came 
around.  So this is an issue that Cosby has been working on for a long time 
- as opposed to him just being a crotchety old man. Indeed the Cosby show 
was about cultivating these values among African Americans. It is true, as 
somebody pointed out, that the white underclass has some of the same 
tendencies he describes. But he is not concerned with the white underclass. 
Many otherwise progressive and prominent African Americans of the 'old 
school' like say Max Roach, are actually very culturally and socially 
consevative. Indeed, the Nation of Islam has for a long time encouraged the 
proper use of language and promoted broad and deep literacy amongst its 
followers. But there is another reality. Most African Americans, like 
Africans, are adept are operating simutaneously in several modes, both 
culturally and linguistically. Most Africans speak several languages and 
within that, several colloquially based dialects. I myself speak three 
African languages, Spanish and some French, and I am one of the least 
linguistically adept Africans I know. Many West Indians speak in creole or 
patois and yet also speak very precise English and or French. There need not 
be a dichotomy between collouquial black English and mainstream 'proper' 
English. I think what Cosby is bemoaning is the way black youth are losing 
the ability to operate in both modes and reinforcing their marginalization 
by being proficient only in their own 'language'.

Joe W.

p.s. Sometimes the way African-American speak or pronounce words is not 
because of 'ignorance' but because of latent linguistic predispositions. One 
of my favorite examples of this is the word 'ask'. Many African Americans 
pronounce it as 'ax'. So do West Africans.