Monday, April 28, 2008

Jeremiah Wright: Black Physics and Black English

As readers of this blog regularly would know, I graduated from New Mexico State University with a B.S. in physics (with high honors).  Despite the pretty good grades, I never thought I had a real talent for physics (although that, and other scientific subjects, still fascinate me--partially explaining why I have been a lifelong reader of science fiction).  I would go into the U.S. Army out of New Mexico State (in 1969), and from the U.S. Army directly into the University of Texas School of Law. 

I can assure you that there is no such thing as "black physics", or "black mathematics", or even "black psychology".  There is no "black biology" (although African-Americans--or some of them--obviously have some genetic susceptibility to certain diseases, like sickle cell anenmia, not generally shared by others).  There is no "black chemistry". 

That is one of the several really disturbing things about Reverend Wright's speech at the NAACP Detroit chapter.  See the previous entry, where I discuss sthe fundamentally racist idea that African-Americans are automatically "different" from "Europeans", and that such "difference" needs to be emphasized/recognized in education.   The idea of a separate language known as "Black English", fullly as valid as standard English, is one of the pernicious concepts that do nothing but threaten African-American education.  This does not refer to the study of how regional and cultural vairations of standard English develop.  It refers to the idea that African-American children need to be TAUGHT in "black English", or that they need to be taught that it is "just as good" as standard English.

I grew up (until about age 12) in a small Arkansas town in Arkansas hill coutrty (might even be called "hillbilly country) called Mt. Ida.  As I said early on in this blog, my grandmother (father's mother) raised NINE children (as a single mother a good part of the time), and my most vivid memory of her is her doing laundry (for a living) in large IRON POTS.  This wasn't even THAT far back (1950's).  Although most of her nine children were pretty successful (my father was a physician--GP--although his personal demons kept hiim from ever being really successful).  However, one of my uncles was a often a bottlegger on the run from the "revenoors".  As I have mentioned in this blog, Stephen Hunter libeled Mt. Ida in "Hot Springs" (Mt. Ida is 37miles from Hot Springs at one end of Lake Ouachita (Mt. Ida is at the other end--the huge, mainly man-made lake being "constructed" when I was a child).   The libel was that Mt. Ida had nothing but a saloon.  It was a DRY place--hence my uncle's "profession". 

I grew up saying "cain't" for can't (as a very yoiund child)    The people of Mt. Ida would have, and I am sure do, LAUGH at Reverend Wright for calling them "Europeans".  I think that hey would regard that, alone, as "hate speech"--much less the real hate speech theat Reverend Wright has spread. 

When I went to school, however, no one even thought of the idea of teaching me "hillbilly" English, or teaching me that I was not "deficient" for using words like "cain't" (I realize more than a mispronunciation than a real misspelling).  The benighted school, in a poor community, did not even teach "Southern" as a separate "language".  We were simply taught English (well, I might add--from grade school in Mt. Ida to high school in Silver City, New Mexico to college in Las Cruces, New Mexico, I would learn English well enough to get 785 out of 800 on the LSAT--standardized law school admisson test).

Sharyn McCrumb (author of some truly outstanding novels of the Appalacian South) has written of the "oral tradition" of those people, and of their cultural heritage.  Yet, you don't get the feeling that those people think that they are speaking a totally different language, or should be taught in a totally different language.  Again, the idea of being "European" would never occur to them.

Then there is Jeff Foxworthy.  He has made a career out of "redneck" humor.  He has put out something called the "Redneck Dictionary".  Do "rednecks" in the South (NASCAR people that elitist politicians labeled "undesirable" in Washington state) have a regional variation of English all their own?  Of course they do.  But, except for Jeff Foxworthy, no one ever thought to label the language as a distinctly different language from English.

On the border, people often speak a "corrupted" form of Spanish called "border Spanish".  Is that the languate taught in schools in Juarez, Mexico, or even El Paso (where I live).  Don't be silly.  Even Spanish speakers are taught "correct" Spanish in school. 

The idea that "black English" is some sort of special "language", different from English in ways that regional dialects and variations are not different, has pretty much been discredited (except for black nationalists like Reverend Wright).  In Boston, they may speak funny, but the schools teach the same English the schools teach everywhere.  Ditto for England.  They may talk funny, and have some different words and meanings, but the English taught is still basically the same as that used by Charles Dickens, and by Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes).  It is the same English taught in American schools--those that still even recognize Dickens.  There are considerable differences in "British" and "American" English, but the formally correct English language actually differs very little between the two contries.  You doubt this?  Consider that the Harry Potter books were written by an ENGLISH author. 

In other words, there is no reason to make a big point of "Black English" being a separate language.  It is not that black children should be looked down upon for not speaking the English of Charles Dickens, any more than I should have been looked down upon for speaking a form of "redneck" English.  And I really don't think they generally are looked down upon for that reason.  However, those who want to excuse AFrican-American children from learning "correct" English, which is necessary to communicate with other educated people, developed the concept of "Black English" to "explain"/excuse the failure of African-Americans in school and on standardized tests (not written in "Black English").   

Note that I have no problem with studying African-American cultural history (as people have studied the cultural, oral history of Sharynn McCrumb's Appalacia).  I don't even have a problem with linguists studying the different, regional and cultural variations of the English language, including African-American variations, and roots some of them may have in Africa.

What Reverend Wright, and those who think like him, are doing is very different from that, however.  They are trying to say that African-Americans should NOT have to meet the same standards as others, because their way is just as good ("different but not deficient").  That, of course, is a non-sequitur.  English words are often NOT spelled "phonetically".  You can argue that there are BETTER spellings of the words.  So what.  You still have to learn STANDARD English, whether you are in the hill country of Arkansas or the urban jungles of Chicago (admittedly a really dangerouos place these days, because of the failure of leftists and black leaders to instill real values in African-American children). 

Reverend Wright's defenders say that he is merely highlighting the way that schools are failing black students.  Not true.  Reverend Wright is trying to BLAME "European" education for not "understanding" African-American children. 

As I have noted repeatedly in this blog, the real failure has been leftist ideology that haws destroyed the black family.  This has nothing to do with "Africa".  It has much more to do with PRESENT black urban culture, and the way people like Reverend Wright have enc coouraged a "separatist", resentful point of view.  Leftist welfare policies, and leftist encouragement of the "new morality", have done more to destroy African-American families in this country than any other factor. 

As with "black physics", there is no such thing as "black values" and "white values" (as distinct from surface culture).  There are RIGHT values, and there are WRONG values.  This is a case where "different" IS "deficient", and it has been proven so.  Oh, "white values" have deteriorated as well, but "whites" could beter afford it.  African-Americans could not.

See Hollywood "black" movies from the 1930's to the early 1960's ("A Raison in the Sun" is one of the last of this type, and a very good one).  I am not talking about the Hollywood caricatures, where the characters DID speak a Hollywood version of "Black English".  I am talking about serious moview with all black casts, that you see from time to time on Turner Classic Movies.  The black characters speak perfectly good English, AND have the same family values as "white" families of the time.  Reverend Wright almost surely regards that as a "sell out" to "white values".  Certainly, urban black youths of today are being broought up to have contempt for the old "white middle class" values.  I question whether that comes from Africa.  It seems to me to come from the urban black culture of TODAY, fed by the "language" of hip-hop type music rather than "African" traditions. 

Spoken language is a living thing.  Even written language evolves over time (read Shakespeare).   So what.  Reverend Wright is still sending the wrong message.   It is a message of separatism and hate--despite his efforts to "clean it up" in light of the criticism.   

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