The Reality of Black English as Language

The Reality of Black English as Language

Language,

July 29, 1979

If Black English Isn’t a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is?

By JAMES BALDWIN

left000t. Paul de Vence, France–The argument concerning the use, or the status, or the reality, of black English is rooted in American history and has absolutely nothing to do with the question the argument supposes itself to be posing. The argument has nothing to do with language itself but with the role of language. Language, incontestably, reveals the speaker. Language, also, far more dubiously, is meant to define the other–and, in this case, the other is refusing to be defined by…