On Sat, 21 Dec 1996, Mark Rosen wrote:

No. Speaking in Ebonics is the same as speaking with an accent. You can't control their expression; you learned to speak with a Southern accent as a child, while other people learned to speak with an Ebonic accent (?). By condoning speaking in a Southern accent, you condone speaking in Ebonics.

Whatever rational basis your arguments may have had were eradicated by the ludicrous logical conclusion drawn above.

I can't understand thick Southern accents. No matter how smart you are, I'm not going to hire you because I can't understand you. How do you feel?

Oh so sad. Let me make this clear, an accent is far different from grammatically incorrect speech. I can speak with grammatic perfection and a drawl so heavy it'll make your eyeballs hurt. (Of course, being from New Orleans, my normal accent is more like brooklyn than Nashville -- four years in Mississippi changed all that)

Replace the word Ebonics with "Southern accent" and "black English" with "Southern twang" and you'll see how hypocritical you are. Also, why do you make an exception for foriegn accents? They're just as difficult to understand.

And can still be spoken with proper grammar. I make an exception for foreign accents because we are dealing a completely separate language. Speakers of ebonics are certainly not bilingual in this sense (and neither am I). I don't see hypocrisy at all. I do see an apologist, pampering, paternal point of view, however. And we southern folk jes' don't abide that sorta thang.

Language is completely different from intellect. You can't control whether you were taught, Ebonics, a Southern accent, or "normal" English.

I wasn't "taught" a Southern accent. I absorbed it in daily conversation. I certainly wasn't taught a Southern dialect. I was taught the English language. I'll say it again...the notion that Ebonics exists as a separate language -- not derived as slang from standard English -- is absurd. me _______________________________________________________________ Omegaman <mailto:omega@bigeasy.com> PGP Key fingerprint = 6D 31 C3 00 77 8C D1 C2 59 0A 01 E3 AF 81 94 63 Send e-mail with "get key" in the "Subject:" field to get a copy of my public key _______________________________________________________________