Language and Liberation

Abstract

It has now been over a generation since Rosa Parks' historic refusal to move to the back of the bus triggered one of the several cataclysmic forces that fundamentally altered Black-white political relations in our time. White America sought to deal with this newly released Black energy in several systematic ways. Key among them was the acceleration of research on Blacks and the implementation of various up-from-the-ghetto and Great Society type social action programs. The logic of this response was premised on the assumption that if the Black socio-cultural environment were enriched, Black energy would be channeled toward the goal of assimilation into America's mainstream. With the national spotlight on Black people, language scholars went to work. They re-examined those views that had characterized Black speech as impoverished. Generating new descriptions of Black English that demonstrated the systematic and rule-governed behavior of Black speakers, the investigators showed convincingly that Black language is not impoverished, i.e., it does not reflect cognitive deficiency, and it has the inherent capacity to communicate any message its speakers intend. This reexamination succeeded in increasing about Black speech and in challenging prevailing negative views about Black linguistic and cognitive ability. On July 12, 1979, this research formed the nucleus of the existing knowledge on which Federal Judge Charles W. Joiner based his decision in the King (Black English) case.1 That ruling

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