“You Want This Taught?”- California Activists Demand Black English in Schools

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
Tell me how dumb of an idea this is, or maybe you may say, this is a great idea.
So in California, activists are proposing for California to have a class, which page is that on, by the way? The activist store in California? Is it Addendum? This is gonna be one of the weirdest stories you're gonna hear.

**Tom** (0:21)
Addendum 15, I think?

**SPEAKER_1** (0:22)
Well, you're gonna say, there's no way this is true. But it is true, let me read it to you. Activists demand black English be pushed on kids in California preschools.

**Tom** (0:30)
Preschools?

**SPEAKER_1** (0:31)
What?

**Tom** (0:31)
Learning to talk.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:33)
What is black English? What is black English to be pushed? By the way, how racist is this?
I mean, I'm really trying to see, like, what angle do you want to take with this? Let me read it to you. Activists are pushing black English to be legitimized in preschools as a way to build children's literacy skills in California. Black California is united for early care and education as part of a movement challenge with harmful language hierarchies and affirm black language as a legitimate, rule-governed language rooted in black history, culture, and community movement also seeks to address how language bias shows up in early learning spaces and how it can be dismantled. I don't want my son to walk around in any room and feel like his voice is not valued or his perspective cannot be heard because he is not saying it one way or the other. Black East co-founder Ashley Williams told PBS, she also remembered how speaking black English is full of slangs and grammatical errors, so it came with a lot of embarrassment.
So learn to speak like I used to speak English. I'm still learning English till today. It's my fifth language. But can you imagine? It's like, no, it's your fault listeners for my bad English. It's not my fault. Allow me to speak Assyrian, Armenian, Farsi, German, English as a fifth language. You need to adjust to me, not me adjust to you. It's a little weird. Tom, how ridiculous of a story is this?

**Tom** (1:57)
Well, I think this is beyond ridiculous. This is setting kids back. And we can make all the jokes about it, about, you know, okay, now I understand why preschoolers in California walk up to me and say honky cracker, redneck.
But that's, people make the jokes about it.
But this is setting kids back. You're setting kids back who are just learning regular English. Every kid that comes to America, and by the way, we can talk about this for a while. Have you met kids from India that went to IIT, and then they come over here? Some of them speak English with the British accent and speak better English than we do, more enunciated, appropriate with a wider vocabulary. And now you're telling me you want to take a preschooler and basically allow them to speak in slangs and colloquials and then run them through the system, and now they're going to say, wow, you know, going to get a job at age 16, you know, and you need to communicate with everybody that comes through there, including, you know, the people from Mexico and California that are trying to learn English so that they can go do things. You know, it just really frustrates me, Pat. It's like these are activists looking for something to do.

**SPEAKER_1** (3:15)
What is black English, though, Tom? What is black English?
Okay, so I just asked, can you ask Chad GBT what is black English and what the activists are saying?

**Tom** (3:23)
Was it also called Ebonics?

**SPEAKER_1** (3:24)
Here's what it says. Black English is a variety of English that developed with African-American communities over hundreds of years. Linguists generally describe it as rule-governed dialect with its own grammatical vocabulary pronunciation patterns and history. So for example, examples of features often associated with AAE. You know what AAE is. AAE is African-American Vernacular English. Okay, here we go. He be working.
Now, that's what it says. This is Chad GBT saying it. Don't get upset at me.

**Tom** (3:54)
Double negative.

**SPEAKER_1** (3:54)
In AAE, B can indicate a repeated or habitual action, like he regularly works. Number two, she been finished.

**Tom** (4:03)
I love Fina.

**SPEAKER_1** (4:04)
That's what Chad GBT is telling me. She been finished.
Can mean she finished something a long time ago and results still matters. They my friends.

**SPEAKER_3** (4:14)
Commit to the shot. Tempo, hold your finish.
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