āItās Givingā AAVE, and the Denied Yet Undeniable Impact of Black Culture
I grew up knowing it as Ebonics; I didnāt hear 'AAVE' until I was an adult. Apparently itās used derogatorily- I did not know. But when Robert Williams coined the term in the 70s, its meaning was:
āā¦the linguistic and paralinguistic features which on a concentric continuum represents the communicative compentence of the West African, Caribbean, and United States idioms, patois, argots, ideolects, and social forces of black peopleā¦Ebonics derives its form from ebony (black) and phonics (sound, study of sound) and refers to the study of the language of black people in all its cultural uniqueness.ā
Familiar Examples include but are not limited to:
It was unbelievably difficult to find a solely Black perspective on the subject. Iām gonna need everyone to let Black linguists talk, itās literally their job. Anyway, I need yāall to actually WATCH this video. Donāt skip it thinking Iāll summarize. Watch it. Actually listen. Thatās part of the problem to begin with, is not listening. Even if you have to read this lesson later, so be it.
One of the points emphasized in this video was that AAVE was formed of the need to communicate, and specifically to communicate in a way that hid what we were saying and thinking from antagonistic white society.
āā¦āthe disguise language used by enslaved Africans to conceal their conversations from their white slave masters to the lyrics of todayās rap music, [the magical power of] the word has been shaped by a time when, as observed by Harlem newspaper writer Earl Conrad, āit was necessary for the Negro to speak and sing and even think in a kind of code.āāā
Because it was in a form that white people could not understand, as well as already existing racist biases against the humanity and intelligence of Black people, naturally it was assumed that our way of communicating was ignorant and āfalseā. Even acknowledging it as a valid language was seen as abhorrent, by nonblack and certain Black people.
āFor decades, linguists and other educators, pointing to the logic and science of language, have tried to convince people that Black English exists, that isnāt just a politically correct label for a poor version of English but is a valid system of language, with its own consistent grammar. In 1996, with the unanimous support of linguists, the Oakland School Board voted to recognize AAVE, or the more politicized term āEbonicsā (a portmanteau of āEbonyā and āphonicsā), as a community language for African American students, a decision which might have opened up much needed additional funding for education.
Instead it resulted in intense public backlash and derision due to the still widespread, incorrect belief that Black English was an inferior, uneducated form of English associated with illiteracy, poverty, and crime. Itās hard for a language to get ahead when it keeps getting put down. Some linguists, such as John Russell Rickford, have noted how even sympathetic linguistic research, which has derived a lot of benefit and understanding from Black English grammar, can unknowingly focus on data that represents African American communities negatively, giving āthe impression that black speech was the lingo of criminals, dope pushers, teenage hoodlums, and various and sundry hustlers, who spoke only in āmuthafuckasā and āpussy-copping raps.āā The term āEbonicsā even now is used mockingly by some as a byword for broken English.ā"
AAVE is a full dialect with grammar and social rules. But the ones most people are familiar with include:
Th becoming D (ādatsā)
Double Negative (āI aināt see nobodyā)
Habitual Be (āItās cuz he be on that phoneā)
Possessive s absence (āIām going to my grandaddy houseā)
Question word order (āwho that is with the ice cream and cake?ā)
Zero copula (āwho that?ā)
"Why do you talk like that" Would you rather I code switch?
āCode switching, or adjusting oneās normal behavior to fit into an environment, has long been a strategy for BlPOC individuals to navigate interracial interactions successfully. Code switching often occurs in spaces where negative stereotypes of Black individuals run counter to what are considered appropriate or professional behaviors and norms in a specific environment, and regularly happen in work settings.ā
In this context, you might recognize it better as āusing your white people voiceā.
Some Black Americans, for varying reasons including internalized antiblackness and a desire for assimilation, hate AAVE! Some people will hate that you donāt use AAVE! Never assume weāre all on the same page about its use! My own mother used to be big on speaking āproper Englishā.
The same way regional differences affect standard pronunciation, itāll affect the AAVE used. Culture in the area as well will affect the words that come from it. So someone Black using a phrase in Philadelphia might not automatically know what someone Black from Compton is saying.
Someone did their dissertation on this topic, and while Iām going to link the summary for yall to give it a shot, Imma be honest- I do not understand this. I tried. Itās interesting how something that comes so innately, once written out like this is like WHAT. But the research has been done!
"Aaron earned an iron urn"- Baltimore
GloRilla and "Mursic"- Memphis
A lot of AAVE from New York City is popularized; so you might hear words from anywhere that originated from Harlem or Queens, or New York Ballroom culture
One major source of misunderstanding AAVE is people not understanding tonality. AAVE is often tonal, similar to many African languages, languages in general- meaning that unless you hear it or are innately familiar with how itās spoken, you might not know HOW Iām saying something and therefore will not understand what Iām trying to convey. Given the history, this was on purpose!
Black language- Black culture in general, really- is often conveyed orally. Everything we say and do is not going to be written down for someone else to study. Doesnāt mean we werenāt saying or doing it. If you want to understand, you have to listen!
āLinguist Margaret G. Lee notes how black speech and verbal expressions have often been found crossing over into mainstream prestige speech, such as in the news, when journalists talk about politicians ādissingā each other, or the New York Times puts out punchy headlines like āGrifters Gonna Griftā. These many borrowings have occurred across major historical eras of African American linguistic creativity. Now-common terms like āyouāre the man,ā ābrother,ā ācool,ā and āhigh fiveā extend from the period of slavery to civil rights, from the Jazz Age to hip-hop: the poetry of the people. This phenomenon reflects how central language and the oral tradition are to the black experience.ā
1) "You Good" can mean, depending on how it is said and the context in which it is spoken:
You donāt want these problems so chill.
Do you have enough money/resource?
Itās fine! Donāt worry about it.
2) This was an interesting experience, watching the misunderstanding of AAVE occur live. Itās the realization that people read this as āThis is something Bugs Bunny would wearā versus āBugs Bunny would wear the fuck outta that outfitā. But if you didnāt know that, if you arenāt familiar with the tonality of AAVE, of course youād think the first one is what it meant! And it's not wrong-wrong - he would wear it, but that's not necessarily all it meant.
3) āChill-ayā versus āChileā. Yeah, we didnāt forget that. This is often why AAVE is used to sound āaggressiveā on the internet- if you perceive (however subconsciously) how Black people speak is aggressive, then when you decide to emulate my speech in your moment of aggression, it is because you think my Blackness will make you seem more intimidating! You find Blacknessā¦ intimidating. Same reason you think it makes you funnier than if you were to deliver the same joke using your own dialect. It means the jokes not funny; my language is whatās funny.
Black American Sign Language
We even communicate differently in sign language; thereās an entire history and culture behind the Black deaf experience.
āIn April 2020, Nakia Smith, aka Charmay, created a TikTok account introducing five generations of her Black Deaf family and how they communicate in Black ASL. As a social media influencer of Black ASL content, Charmay made a series of educational and informative videos on the history and practice of Black ASL. Charmayās video went viral, landing in a New York Times article, Black, Deaf and Extremely Online, and Blavity: TikToker Has Gone Viral For Putting The Culture On To Black American Sign Language. Additionally, Netflix requested Charmay to explain the difference between Black ASL and ASL.ā
Everyone doesnāt speak AAVE!
If your Black character is not Black American, and has never once been connected with Black American culture or people, they are probably NOT going to speak AAVE! Theyāre going to speak whatever dialect THEY have! And that doesnāt make it any less āBlackā of them!
Different dialects and languages across the diaspora include but are certainly not limited to:
Jamaican and Caribbean Patois
Everyone Owes Rihanna an Apology
Yāall remember the song Work. I know you do. It was mainstreamās love and joy when this song dropped to be overtly racist about it, Black Americans included. Everyone claimed it was āgibberishā, that she was just mimicking language on a song and āit would be popularā.
Meanwhile, it was her singing in her native island patois! The people who spoke her language understood it! Anybody who actually tried to understand it, understood it! Another popular song, Sean Paulās Temperature, is also in patois! And I thought we loved that song!
So next time Black people speak and you find yourself thinking- āwow, this makes no senseā, I want you to think to yourself: ādoes it make no sense, or do I just lack the context/knowledge/language to understand it?ā
NOW THAT WEāVE HAD SOME EXPLANATION BEHIND THE LANGUAGE!
Me personally, I admit I donāt like it being used in stories where it is clear the author doesnāt understand the dialect, or where itās clear the only person who speaks it is the āBlack character who OMG DID I TELL YOU THEY WERE BLACKā. Iād rather it be the regular Queenās English. We speak that too. Iām not going to decry your fanfiction or your regular modern-day original story as ābadā if you choose to use whatever language your region commonly uses. We know how to speak it. We will be okay. Using AAVE is not going to sell me that this character is āBlackā if the rest of the character writing is still bad.
If it means that much to you, because it is important to the character, then you as the writer need to commit to learning proper AAVE! This isnāt going to be a ālook up every turn of phrase on googleā or āask Ice what every single thing meansā. Youāre going to have to do what everyone who learns a language does- immerse yourself in it! If you canāt be bothered to learn my language, Iām going to know that when I read your work.
Obviously if thereās a context where the Black people involved do not know how to speak a language, it is perfectly fine to show that, as long as you are showing that itās not due to some innate stupidity or other stereotype that this person cannot communicate the same way others communicate around them.
I know someoneās thinking it, so letās address it. Thereās a translation for this word in damn near every language thatās ever come across Black people. So donāt go āoh we donāt have that word in my language-ā I bet money you do.
Yes, it could be used in historical context- the āhard -erā. Yes, it could be used in social context- the ā-aā. It follows the tonality rules I discussed earlier; that is, the way itās used and who is using it makes ALL the difference in how it will be received.
Everyone is not on the same page about the use of this word within our community. Some Black people think it should never be used, period, even by us! Some Black people think that it should be reclaimed and use it as such! The only thing weāre on the same page about is that YOU should not be using it.
I say this to say to nonblack writers: put the pen down.
My stance is, if you canāt understand AAVE, you CERTAINLY arenāt going to be able to incorporate the social use of this word. Period. If you scared of the potential smoke incurred if you fuck it up- and if we see it, you will catch it- donāt bother. Trying to āwrite realisticallyā does not cut it. You should be doing everything in your power to understand and write a great Black character in all ways before ever thinking this is something you should do. In fact, if you're that thirsty to use this word, you have some other things you need to consider.
In the historical context, just watch yourself. If youāre gonna drop that word, you need to be damn well-researched on every other aspect of Black life and oppression in whatever era youāre writing. Just dropping this word to say ālife is racistā shows a lazy lack of understanding of antiblackness. You donāt even have to drop the whole word. A āni-ā at the end of the sentence is enough for me to know exactly where weāre going! But if you not gone do the rest of the workā¦ you know what they say about stupid games.
The Fundamental Disrespect
If you watched the prior videos (and you should have) and paid attention up to this point, you have already heard the struggles that both AAVE as a dialect and those that speak it go through.
Thereās a societal connotation of stupidity, aggression, and silliness behind the way I speak. None of those things are true, and itās hard to be told that even the way you communicate with others is bad.
But the other reason itās so hard is because we spend our lives hearing that those are the connotationsā¦ when WE speak it. It is not the language- itās ME that makes it so! And that gets into the other part of this lesson, something that AAVE is oft victim to.
This part is a little scarier for me to write, because people donāt like it when you talk about Black Americans as a separate entity from the US of A as it is known. Iām gonna put on my political hat for a second, but I promise this ties into my overall point so stick with me!
The reality is that the United States of America has forced a cultural hegemony upon the planet (amongst other forms). Yes. That is due to the capitalism, colonialism, imperialism and damn near just about every other -ism at the US government and militaryās disposal. I am not saying that part somehow changes, of course not. Thatās just facts. There are people far smarter than I (Edward Said, take the wheel) who could explain this far better. But Iām only here to explain this one point.
What DOESNāT get acknowledged is how much of what is deemed American pop culture across the world is both 1) stolen 2) Black culture! We do not have equivalent political power despite what our hypervisibility would suggest, but our social currency is raw diamond- so naturally, it has to be plundered! The white American dollar might mean far more than my life, but itāll pay for my creations- even more so when Iām not involved!
The issue is that if your society says that I am less than, how can you justify how you covet everything I create? If Iām supposed to be so much less than you, why do you seek my language, my fashion, my music, my body? Why do you feel entitled to my creation, but you think you should have itā¦ Without me?
Sit on that one for a second!
Let's refer back to that chart at the beginning. How many of these have you seen or even used before? How long did it take for you to know it was AAVE? Donāt get me started on the influence of AAVE in queer spaces!
Of course Iām going to get started. Ballroom culture, created by Black and Latino people in New York City in the 80s (Paris is Burning, anyone?), has spawned so much popular āgayā lingo, and itās not even just āgayā- itās of color! Black English in particular is the source of many of the words that queer people use now in casual conversation, brought into the ballrooms, normalized, and then proliferated with other communities.
I can always tell when a new phrase from AAVE has hit nonblack audiences because itāll suddenly be in every sentence I see, often butchered. Remember that historical context- of having to speak in code. Have you ever considered why AAVE is always evolving? Why we have to find new ways to communicate with each other? Have you considered that when people are constantly taking and misplacing your words, they may lose meaning or value, and so you have to come up with something else?
Appropriation of Black Music
Jazz, swing, the blues, disco, rock and roll, pop, even rap and hiphop have all been subject to appropriation- intentional or not. Far more intentional than you might want to believe. And it all comes back to money!
White audiences in the 1900s loved Black music- as long as they didnāt know Black people were singing it! Often, songs would be completely lifted and given to white bands to re-record. When Frankie Lymon first came on stage to perform, some of the audience was stunned! Even you know Itty Bitty Pretty One!
A more modern-day example: not to pick on the K-Poppies, but unfortunately itās a low hanging branch example.
What K-Pop groups are doing now is heavily influenced what Black pop, rap, and R&B artists were doing from the late 90s to this very day. Part of the reason I enjoy K-Pop is because it reminds me of the stuff I used to listen to growing up. How many times have you heard someone think a Korean rapper in a K-Pop group is āfineā, but ādonāt likeā rap otherwise? Or will listen to K-Pop groups, but have very few to no one Black of the same sound on their playlists?
Rover by Kai (2023) vs Swalla by Jason Derulo (2017)- Idk how popular Kai is outside of EXO, but I do know that some influence was had. And I like the song, btw! I prefer the music video! Itās just not the first time itās been done!
Sweet Juice by Purple Kiss (2023) vs Say It Right by Nelly Furtado on a Timbaland beat (2006)
Taemin and Michael Jackson, period. Taemin having a song called The Rizzness. How did ārizzā get to him? How did he know? More relevantly, how did the people who wrote his music know? How did something that started with Black people in Baltimore get all the way to Taemin in South Korea without influence?
Iāll use another example, so it doesnāt feel like Iām picking on K-Pop. Iām currently listening to CÄN NHĆ TRANH MĆI LĆ (Vietnamese, if you couldnāt tell) and as much of a banger as it is, with its own amazing cultural spin on the deliveryā¦ it is CLEARLY influenced by Black American rap. He nicknamed himself Vietgunna. Yall.
A non-American musical example: Afrobeats has taken the music industry by stormā¦ How many of those people who enjoy an afrobeat from a nonblack artist will enjoy it from Wizkid or TEMS?
Those polls, where they ask how many Black artists you listen toā¦ try paying attention to see just how much of your music takes inspiration from Black creators, but thereās a non-equivalent amount of Black artists that you support!
Political Bastardization of Powerful Black Colloquialisms
The appropriation of Black English isnāt always for entertainment. Sometimes, itās a purposeful, malicious tactic to demean the words, and therefore the intent behind them.
āMichael Harriot, columnist at TheGrio and author of the upcoming book, Black AF History: The Unwhitewashed Story of America, explains that this kind of insidious takeover and flipping of Black vernacular to anti-Black pejorative has numerous parallels in Americaās past and runs all the way up to present day. āWhen you look at the long arc of history and Americaās reaction to the request for Black liberation ā every time Black people try to use a phrase or coin a phrase that symbolizes our desire for liberation, it will eventually become a cuss word to white people,ā Harriot says in an interview with [Legal Defense Fund].
Itās perhaps this very context ā Black peopleās awareness of their history and their power to resist injustice ā that made woke so ripe for the pernicious mutation it has now undergone. Indeed, the forced transformation of the colloquialism echoes how countless other Black ideas and intellectual contributions have been maligned.
āWhen people during the civil rights movement began saying āBlack power,ā all of a sudden it became a term that people equated with communism and anti-white sentiment ā and then it eventually gave birth to āwhite power,āā Harriot tells LDF. āThe ā1619 Projectā [which centers the ramifications of slavery and the contributions of Black people in American history] has become an insult. āBlack Lives Matterā became an āanti-white sentimentā that was banned in school and spawned āall lives matterā and āblue lives matter.āā
This discourse is happening again, it happens like every six months on here, and itās one of the things on here that fills me with a hatred that I struggle with every single time. It is hard, I literally feel that hatred in the pit of my chest right now as I type this.
Kimberle Crenshaw (Black woman and the originator of the legal term āintersectionalityā), the Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies, and African American Policy Forum coined the hashtag in 2014. TWENTY FOURTEEN.
It was meant to highlight the violent deaths of Black women and girls at the hands of police, which happens at a high rate like Black men and boys, but often goes far less acknowledged. By appropriating the hashtag, you are actively choosing to speak over the very names and deaths of Black women and girls we donāt know, because we are NOT SAYING THEM, and therefore are allowing those deaths to continue as though they do not matter.
Iām going to stop before I get more upset. But know what violence youāre contributing to in your negligence.
How to Avoid Cultural Appropriation while Showing Appreciation
Everything is obviously not appropriation. It is possible for people to appreciate, replicate, and take influence without being disrespectful! It happens! And because it is possible, is why itās so infuriating that it does not.
Itās frustrating that when something is on me, itās ghetto, ugly, ignorant. But when itās on the right stick thin pale girl, itās chic, itās fashionable, itās new. So if itās not the language, and itās not the fashion or music you donāt likeā¦ It must beā¦ Me. I am somehow not worthy of respect for the very culture I create.
Can you imagine being told that? That you are not worthy of beingā¦ you?
If you are worried about cultural appropriation, both in your writing and in your life, the easiest way to avoid that is to:
1) acknowledge and support the culture that created what youāre saying or doing and
2) actually treat them like human beings instead of zoo animals or a species to study. Show respect! Itās not hard!
This is my body, my language, my creation. Itās not just to entertain you! Itās my life! I talk like this because this is how I speak, not because I want to get Tiktok cool points. If Iām around people who treat the way I talk like childish babble, it makes me feel stupid and disrespected. We can see that, and we can read it in your writing.
And yes, you may be saying āwell none of that is unique to AAVE, thatās how other languages work!ā Okay then go speak those languages then lmao. But if youāre absolutely determined to understand and utilize mine, then you need to treat it with respect and not like the Gen Z slang babble (or worse- the threat) yāall treat it as. Itās a form of antiblackness that is so normalized that we donāt even think about itā¦ but now that youāve read this lesson, you can start! You can start taking the time to actively dedicate a thought to what youāre saying and doing and where it came from. You can take the time to notice when something isnāt right- and maybe even choose to speak up, because itās the thought that counts, but the action that delivers.
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