by Bayard Rustin
Mr. Shanker is on a short vacation. His guest columnist today, a leader in the fight for racial equality, is Executive Director of the A. Philip Randolph Institute.
Considering the history of the separation of the races in American, and considering also the mutual misunderstanding and fear that has accompanied such separation, it is not surprising that the gross distortions of the past are carried into the present even by some of those who claim to be committed to racial justice and reconciliation.
In keeping with the mood of the times, the updating of old racial myths has taken the form of cults of one sort or another. There is always some "new" angle to the race problem, or some new gimmick that people latch onto in the hope of finding a short-cut solution. But easy answers always indulge in racial mythology because they must -- if they are to be easy answers -- obscure the depth of the race problem.
Today's cultists are the natural descendents of the procreators of all our racial stereotypes. One of the new cults is "black English." Recently, some 250 linguistics experts, teachers and students (most of them white) met to discuss "Black English: Myth or Reality?" According to a New York Times report, the "experts" seemed convinced that "black English" is very much a reality. ("Black English," according to these "experts" is saying "where Charlie?" instead of "where is Charlie?") "Experts," the report noted, "now say that black English has an identity independent of white dialects of English." They also feel that it might be best to teach black children in their native tongue rather than force them into the difficult situation of using English.
There are already courses in "black English" being taught at a number of centers and colleges. Some are financed by foundation grants.
No doubt the motives of some of the new "black linguistics experts" are sincere. They want to see black children learn, but do they want to prepare them for life outside the ghetto? Do they want to see them become first-class citizens? "Black English," after all, has nothing to do with blackness but derives from the conditions of lower-class life in the South (poor Southern whites also speak "black English"). Reinforcing this consequence of poverty will only perpetuate poverty since it will prevent black children from mastering the means of communication in an advanced technological society with a highly educated population.
False Issue
I am sure there are some black proponents of "black English" who feel that we must retain our racial distinctiveness and avoid the self-negating process of assimilation. But this is really a false issue.
Immigrants who were much more foreign to American culture than Negroes realized when they arrived in America that in order to succeed they had to master certain skills, and they did so while retaining their ethnic distinctiveness.
The lesson of the last decade is that the "melting pot" is a myth, not because some ethnic groups have made it while other have not, but because even those at the same economic level retain distinctive characteristics.
The problem with many "black cultists" is that they are willing to sacrifice economic advancement in the name of separate peoplehood without realizing that the unique history and character of black Americans will survive economic assimilation and the achievement of first class citizenship.
Our long experience with Jim Crow should have told us by now that there are many people in America who are not sympathetic to our struggle for racial equality. The new coalition of "liberals" who romanticize the characteristics of black poverty and foundation executives who are looking for a cheap solution to racial injustice is just one more obstacle that we will have to fight.
A recent editorial in The Crisis, the publication of the NAACP, spoke forcefully and to the point about the cult of "black English."
"Black parents throughout this nation should rise up in unanimous condemnation of this insidious conspiracy to cripple their children permanently ...
"Let the black voice of protest resound thunderously throughout the land!"