The Importance Of Ebonics In America

“Every African-American is bilingual, all of us, we speak street vernacular and we speak job interview”. The crowd roars with laughter at comedian Dave Chappelle's words. But even as the comedian smirks, there’s something in his face that shows that what he said wasn't entirely a joke. What Dave Chappelle is trying to address here, is something that is controversial and continuously debated by linguists. That is if code-switching, alternating between two or more vernaculars in a conversation, is a necessity for Americans who want to flourish in society. Many people don't even know they code switch, but often do it on a daily basis. Eric Deggans describes it perfectly in his article as, ”shifting between different cultures as you move through …show more content…
That is, African Americans have already been set to face struggle under America’s overbearing systematic oppression, so it is difficult to decipher whether it is truly Ebonics that becomes an impediment to their achievements. To simply say that even if their race had been lynched, redlined, segregated, made into projects, restricted from civil rights until 1964, continuously made to be a target of police brutality, and to be profiled based on skin color, that it doesn't actually hinder their chance at success, would be nothing further from the truth. Nonetheless, to recapitulate what was discussed earlier, these factors do not interfere with the fact that Ebonics is still considered the primary language for many African Americans, and therefore code switching is still going to be required in order to excel in school. The other key argument against the importance of code switching is that it is unfair to denounce Ebonics and barring it from being used, as it has been recognized as its own vernacular. However, that isn’t the case at all. Jennifer Guerra explains the reasoning best in her article when she says, “One isn’t better than the other per se, it’s all about when it’s appropriate to use one form or the other”(Teaching students how to switch between Black English and Standard English can help them get ahead). To clarify, there has to be …show more content…
Ebonics isn’t strictly tied to African Americans, and it is wrong to assume they all speak it. It must also be known that the use of Ebonics is common in the working class and adolescents, and also that virtually everyone can speak two vernaculars or dialects of any form. In addition, recognition for all of these different vernaculars is important because there is no “right” or “wrong”, rather an proper and improper time when using them. Which is also why criticizing based off the fact that these vernaculars do not sound like Standard English is completely ludicrous because, American English should technically be considered the informal vernacular of British English. Code switching embraces all of these statements, because it demands a person to acknowledge the different ways of speech. It is truly a device meant to help navigate people who struggle to identify and differentiate their speech depending on their situation. Having understood all of these elements, it is undoubted that code switching is essential for the any American’s road to