The "Ebonics" Plague
When America actually had to decide whether or not they were going to make "Ebonics" an actual language, I didn't know whether to laugh, be scared or just plain ticked off! Well, I chose to be ticked off. What were the people in charge of education thinking?! Did they not get the memo that English was the national language of America? I guess somewhere along the way, somebody must have told them, because Ebonics never made it into the school curriculum. However, I find myself being almost as ticked off today anyway, because although it never made it into the classrooms as a subject, it still seems to be an acceptable way of speaking.
"Yo, Yo, Dude, Wazup? Gunna chill in da pad wiz da homies an' tag on the blizzies! Yeaaah, gonna tap dat snizzle". Can anyone translate that for me? Unfortunately, I'm sure there are at least a hundred elementary through high school age kids that can. When did this become acceptable? Had my parents ever heard something like that come out of my mouth growing up, they probably would have paid big bucks to send me to a professional speech therapist. And I wouldn't have blamed them one bit.
When I hear children of any age speaking in such a manner it actually makes my skin crawl. English has been the language of this country since its founding. When I grew up it was a subject in school that needed to be passed in order to be promoted to the next grade. We weren't allowed to speak improper English and if we did, we were corrected by the nearest standing adult.
I'm not sure who made all the rules of the English language. What I do know is that we learned them at an early age and we stuck to those rules.It's not to say that we don't still make mistakes when trying to speak proper English, we do. However, even when those mistakes are made, whether in speaking or writing, the majority of people with even half of a decent education understand what is being said and doesn't need an illiterate person to translate for them.
Ebonics, as far as my opinion goes, isn't a sign of expression. It's a sign of an uneducated generation.We need to stop dumbing down America and go back to the ways of old.
