A Discussion of Ebonics

The blog that I found which was a group of teachers discussing when Black English should be used opposed to when it should not be used. Some of the teachers thought that the use of Black English was really to add into the class room and that it needs to be done. Others discussed that they have no idea when Black English should be appropriated. The way that they discussed this was similar to how a few of the readers that we read for class and discussed.
Nakamura wrote a book about the challenges that Blacks are facing on the web. She discusses how even on the web it is really hard to completely hide your race. Even though my reading was not on how to talk on the web that is a problem for students and one place that they can use Black English. Nakamura talks about how on the internet people can be their “fluid selves”. On this topic she makes a very interesting point in the following quote. “These kinds of racial identity plays stand as a critique of the notion of the digital citizen as an ideal cogito whose subjectivity is liberated by cyberspace. On the contrary, only too often does one person’s ‘liberation’ constitute another’s recontainment with the realm of racialized discourse.” (PG 398, A Reader for Writers) This quote goes along with what the teachers were saying because the teachers know that they need to know when the right and wrong time is to let Ebonics be used in their class, and this is explaining when it is right to use Ebonics on the internet. The teachers all agreed that there is a right and a wrong time and place to use Black English and I believe that in this quote that is what Nakamura is trying to get across.
The blog posting that the teachers wrote that I chose to analysis in my DW2a is a lot of discussion of Black English and not a lot of talk about the appropriation of it. The teachers agree with all of the readers that we have read thus far in the fact that they believe that Black English should be used. The question that just keeps being brought up is when is it appropriate to use Black English. In the first reading we read by Adam Banks he talks about the popular Black Site BlackPlanet.com. In his essay he talks about how in sites like Black Planet Black English is not only allowed it is expected. This is the norm on this site and he explains this. While talking about the name of the website on page 99 of a “Reader for Writer’s” he says “the name announces that it is not any other hybrid, fluid space online. But rather a separate space; a space where all are welcome to cist or become members, but distinctively Black space nonetheless.” This shows that Blacks can have their own sites where their language can be used and is very welcome. I think that the way that Banks talks about the use of Ebonics and how they have their own site really adds to what the teachers have to say about using Ebonics and in what situations they should use Ebonics.