I have taken courses at Michigan State University and have had to use books that peg Ebonics as the black dialect. It makes me so upset that in 2011 my people are still looked at as ignorant in such a manner that society has pegged Ebonics.....BROKEN ENGLISH as the black dialect! How demeaning! I pay 25k a year to attend a big 10 university, one where i was accepted just the same as my white or non-African-American counterparts. And to make matters worse if you google Ebonics every definition says the same thing......it's a "slave language." Sadly, I think Ebonics is a term for a slang language. EVERY RACE uses slang!!! It is NOT an ignorant black language, but slang terminology that any and every culture uses at some point. America please stop stereotyping black people as ignorant! All of us are not!!!
Also I have an article that i have posted before that i found interesting that kind of relates to this......read if you like.
Moreover, the illusion of an America that has somehow redeemed itself of it's racist tendencies acts as a blinder to the reality of racism that is hiding in plain sight. This deception is accomplished because many mistakenly assume that racism consist solely of hostile biases and prejudices held by one group against another although this view does have elements of truth, it does not explain what racism is at its core. Racism is a group-based contest or struggle in which one group competes to control wealth and valuable resources at the expense of another group.
The primary reason millions of Blacks were kidnapped from Africa and forced to labor uncompensated for centuries was not because they had different racial or physical characteristics, but because they were idealized as the perfect human cargo to build wealth and power through mental acuity as well as physical prowess.
With the advent of the industrial revolution and the creation of larger and more sophisticated machines, it was determined that they were no longer needed to perform the back-breaking work they had done for centuries. Thus, the institution of chattel slavery was cast aside with great congratulation and fanfare, and replaced with a new form of exploitive servitude in the south- mining and sharecropping- and industrialized system of oppression in the north that consisted of mills and factories. This the economic exploitation of Blacks continued under a new guise along with social marginalization. In fact, economic and social status have long served as a gauge to determine the true condition of Blacks in America. And this standard is as relevant today as it ever was.
Recently the Urban League released its annual report about the state of Blacks in America and the statistics reveal a devastating picture of Black poverty, unemployment, lack of health care, crime and incarceration rates, in virtually every area and category of life in America, Black (as a group) are meandering at the bottom of the barrel. This is no accident. The solution is to rely on our own skill, talent, and God-given resources. To, in effect cast down our buckets where we are and to cast aside the old habit of asking others what we could and should be doing for ourselves.
BY STEVEN MALIK SHELTON (Human Rights Advocate)
