You're Wrong About The “Ebonics” Controversy
Apr 4, 2019
A discussion on how a school district's idea about recognizing Ebonics sparked a nationwide racial panic. Includes talk about slasher movies, Space Invaders, homeschooling, and the evolving taglines of the show.
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Disproving Language Deficiency Theory
- The cultural deficit theory falsely claimed African American children lacked language capacity.
- William Labov's research disproved this, showing rich verbal culture and complexity in African American English.
Legitimacy of African American English
- African American English is a rule-governed dialect with grammatical and phonological structures.
- Not recognizing it as valid stigmatizes its speakers and undermines their identity.
Classroom Bilingual Exercises
- Teacher Daniel Russell used bilingual exercises teaching the differences between African American English and Standard English.
- This method helped students translate between dialects, respecting both and avoiding deficit framing.