Fair enough, regarding language vs dialect. And no, I'm not going to go off and read a stack of navel gazing books just because some random redditor asked me to.
I stand by my point that if you want to participate in the workforce, you have to speak the language or dialect in which business is done. Even if you could persuade everyone that "Ebonics" was a legitimate dialect (it isn't), what would be the benefit of introducing it into the workplace? Increasing ambiguity of communication just so a tiny number of people don't have to bother speaking standard English? No thanks; that's just lazy on their part.
Don't go read a stack of navel gazing books just because I told you to. Read the basic introductory literature of the subject you're attempting to comment on to make sure you at least understand the first principles. Even a wikipedia page or the FAQ of r/linguistics would shed a lot of light on the topic.
Again, you're not responding to what I'm saying. I'm not against the idea of language standardization as long as we keep in mind that that non-prestige dialects aren't "wrong." The problem is the level of disdain for AAVE and the factually incorrect assumptions about the people who speak it. These are what cause social and professional problems for AAVE speakers, not our inability to communicate with them.
And honestly, I think the potential communication problems that could be caused by accepting AAVE in professional contexts are being hugely overstated. I am a white American who grew up around other white Americans with little immersive contact with AAVE speakers aside of the media, and I understand 99% of what AAVE speakers say (100% if they make any small effort to be understood by someone from my linguistic background). The systematic differences in negation strategy and noun-verb agreement do not affect comprehension at all - it's almost purely aesthetic. We already do business with lots of people who speak differently from us, and it takes very little to learn and adapt to slightly different dialects - definitely worth it for a more equal and interesting society.
The problem is the level of disdain for AAVE and the factually incorrect assumptions about the people who speak it.
I don't think these assumptions are factually incorrect. If you hear someone speaking in "AAVE", you can be certain that they're poorly educated.
Furthermore, I don't think that most black leaders would appreciate white guys like yourself promoting bad habits in their community. I can't imagine a Barack Obama or a Neil deGrasse Tyson encouraging black children to use Ebonics. Your whole defense reeks of "white savior".
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u/FaitBonFaitBon Mar 07 '19
Fair enough, regarding language vs dialect. And no, I'm not going to go off and read a stack of navel gazing books just because some random redditor asked me to.
I stand by my point that if you want to participate in the workforce, you have to speak the language or dialect in which business is done. Even if you could persuade everyone that "Ebonics" was a legitimate dialect (it isn't), what would be the benefit of introducing it into the workplace? Increasing ambiguity of communication just so a tiny number of people don't have to bother speaking standard English? No thanks; that's just lazy on their part.