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1. 

   Tue Elung-Jensen said, 5 months ago

   Looking the whole obsessiveness with being p.c. aside – if thats him isn´t he a bit “pale”?
2. 

   Gary McSpook said, 5 months ago

   Is it me, or is he dressed like Fred Flintstone?
3. 

   lisapaloma13 said, 5 months ago

   @Tue Elung-Jensen

   The guy pictured is not supposed to be Robert Williams. That’s why he says he prefers a different term.
4. 

   lisapaloma13 said, 5 months ago

   @Gary McSpook

   I think it’s a comment on the modern-ness of his thinking.
5. 

   Ms. Ima said, 5 months ago

   I always thought the term ‘ebonics’ was to insult an ethnic group.
6. 

   David Glover said, 5 months ago

   @Ms. Ima

   It is!
7. 

   wolfhoundblues1 said, 5 months ago

   Ebonics has nothing to do with slave trade recognition. It is all about the laziness involved with the pronunciation of the english language.
   Before you say it is hereditary, consider all the black news people who speak wonderfully.
8. 

   George Buce said, 5 months ago

   @Gary McSpook

   I thought the same thing – can’t be an accident…
9. 

   furnituremaker said, 5 months ago

   THANK YOU WOLFHOUND!!!!!!! The sloppy pronounciation and atrocious grammar is not hereditary…it can be fixed
   by decent schooling and the desire to improve.(sorry ’bouth
   the spelling)
10. 

    Respectful Troll said, 5 months ago

    @furnituremaker

    A recent news story spoke of the loss of regional dialects. The accents that revealed ppl from NY, or Joisey, or Nawlin’s, the southwest, and Dakotas are vanishing as tv and radio teach young children how to enunciate in a homogenous fashion. Sadly, in a few decades, nation specific accents will still exist, but in the US, there will be few places where a person can be identified by the way they speak. However, in places like nearby Norfolk, Va, that might be a good thing. A famous cheer goes…
    We don’t drink, we don’t smoke, Nofuk! Nofuk!
    I wonder if that will make it pass the censors.
    Respectfully,
    but amused,
    C.
11. 

    Radish said, 5 months ago

    In 1975, the term appeared in Ebonics: The True Language of Black Folks, a book edited and cowritten by Williams:
    A two-year-old term created by a group of black scholars, Ebonics may be defined as “the linguistic and paralinguistic features which on a concentric continuum represent the communicative competence of the West African, Caribbean, and United States slave descendant of African origin. It includes the various idioms, patois, argots, idiolects, and social dialects of black people” especially those who have adapted to colonial circumstances. Ebonics derives its form from ebony (black) and phonics (sound, the study of sound) and refers to the study of the language of black people in all its cultural uniqueness.
    The term became widely known in the United States due to a controversy over a decision by the Oakland School Board to denote and recognize the primary language (or sociolect or ethnolect) of African American children attending school, and to thereby facilitate the teaching of standard English. Thereafter, the term Ebonics became popularized, though as little more than a synonym for African American Vernacular English, perhaps differing in the emphasis on its claimed African roots and independence from English. The term is linked with the nationally discussed controversy over the decision by the Oakland School Board, which adopted a resolution to teach children “standard American English” through a specific program of respect for students’ home language and tutoring in the “code switching” required to use both standard English and Ebonics.
    .
    .
12. 

    Wabbit said, 5 months ago

    I enjoyed reading about the history of Ebonics, and how since the xenophobic masses have not liked Spanglish and want to make English the one true language.
    If more people have visited other countries and hear the babies talk perfect French or Chinese, , they n might learn that no language is superior, except maybe Korean whose symbols each has a function that can’t be confused.
13. 

    ReasonsVentriloquist said, 5 months ago

    Here’s an example…
    .
    During slavery the slaves would gather after work and entertain themselves. Like any “employee” class one of the favorite entertainments was making fun of the boss. Blacks would make fun of the way the “respectable” class would walk. This became a game with a prize. “The cake” as in “Now don’t that take the cake?” They also made fun of the way white people danced and the winner of the contest (making everybody laugh at the way white people danced) won the honor of the head seat at the table. That was the Chez, (as in Chaise lounge) and he was the Chez Bo (y)
    .
    As time went on, the Chez Bo was the man with the greatest skills on the musical instruments. The word morphed from chez bo to Jazz Bo. From which came the term for the music that was invented specifically to keep members of the public from asking could they sit in on a couple of numbers while the band was playing the clubs.
    .
    “Hey, could I sit in for a couple, impress my girl?”
    .
    “Can you play the Blue notes key, cause dat’s what we playin?”
    .
    ""Uh, no."
    .
    “Then, NO!”.
    .
    And all dat Jazz!
14. 

    masterskrain said, 5 months ago

    Hummm…Barbra Billingsly…“Airplane”…ring any bells??
    “Excuse me Stewardess, but I speak Jive…”
15. 

    mickey1339 said, 5 months ago

    Been in California lately and tried to speak “Spanglish?” It’s a linguistic challenge to say the least…
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