My dear brother, what I do understand from some of this is that many of us at home spoke what I call Black English. I don’t ever call it a dialect, it was Black English. We spoke it at home, we did not usually speak it outside unless we were gathered together with each other. Then when we got to school, we had to deal with what they call, the “King’s English”, or now the “Queen’s English”. And we did that, and did it well. But we always had that other language that we were involved in and with. And it was an amazing language. It was the language that spoke in beauty. It was language that Jimmy Baldwin said thank God we had this language because it made this American English much more interesting. I think it’s important that we understand that. That we just don’t in any way discard this thing called Black English. That is something that we do, have done for a long time. Langston Hughes and Sterling Brown and all the other people who wrote in Black English, they were describing many of the old-timers, the people who didn’t go to school, the people who worked the land and walked the land in search of freedom. Jimmy Baldwin said thank God we had this language because it made this American English much more interesting. Tweet Share Above all, I heard my grandmother speak Black English. And I used to imitate her in a place called Birmingham, Alabama. And what I loved was the lilting sound, the beauty of it. And I didn’t understand that at some point, I was imitating her. It took years for me to truly understand what exactly I was doing. Toni Morrison said, “We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.” And the measure of my life has been that I have understood this Black English was indeed a language as Jimmy Baldwin said it was. And it’s a shame that some people now are trying to take it away from us because they think this is terrible. But he said when you did not teach the proper English to us, you let us learn it on our own and turn to our survival. And we then learned to use this language in different ways, then you got angry because you had it and began to deny the idea of this thing called Black English. Published in 1970, this was one of the first books written by Sonia Sanchez. Published in 1970, this was one of the first books written by Sonia Sanchez. You know, every ten years a reporter will call me and ask, “Is there such a thing as black language or Black English?” And I always laugh and refer them to a man that [Amiri] Baraka called “God’s Black Revolutionary Mouth”. He was referring to brother Jimmy Baldwin. Baldwin said in 1979, in a New York Times article, “If Black English isn’t a language, then tell me what is…it goes without without saying, then, that language is also a political instrument, means, and proof of power. It is the most vivid and crucial key to identity. It reveals the private identity, and connects one with, or divorces one from the larger, public, or communal identity.” That’s the deal there. I began to remember all the ways that my grandmother and people in New York City spoke, this Black English, this hip English. These words that we began to play with and throw at people. Taking on this identity of sometimes working class people and poor people and even your family. Your grandmother, your mother, your father, and run it out into the streets, into the country, and to the world and say, This is part of our identity. Listen to this musical language. Listen to these words that we have invented because you would not let us go to school and get the so-called “proper” education.
Posted on: Thu, 07 Aug 2014 23:28:39 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015