NATASHA AARONS: For those
who are not familiar
with you, or even with
the notion of Ebonics
and where it came from,
you made your public debut
about 20 years ago during
the uproar around the Oakland
public school
district wanting to--
a proposal to teach Ebonics
to black children in school.
Can you take us back,
and give, for those
who are not aware, more
information about the proposal,
and how you kind of rose
as the thought leader
on Black English or Ebonics?
JOHN MCWHORTER: No.
I'm not the thought
leader on it.
But it's interesting that you
trace like whatever reason
I'm sitting here back to
that, because you're correct.
But it's not something that many
people have any reason to know.
Basically, it was--
I can't believe that
it was 20 years ago
now that the Oakland
school board--
and this was a
primarily black school
board with a largely black
and brown public school
population-- were alarmed
that children in the school
system who were black were
failing so much, particularly
in reading.
So they were operating
on a hypothesis that
had gotten around in
some parts of the country
here and there before that
perhaps part of black kids'
problem in school was that
their home dialect was
Black English, which you can
think of as a separate system
from standard English.
And so when they were
encountering standard English
on the page, they
were encountering
basically a different
language, and it
was hard to make the switch.
So the idea was not to teach
them a dialect they already
spoke, but to use the
dialect in teaching materials
and to call special
attention to the fact
that there are two different
ways for them of speaking
English.
So the idea was to use it as
kind of a translation tool.
Now, the media
just jumped on this
and completely
misunderstood what
was meant by dialect,
what was meant
by using it in the classroom.
And so the big joke was that
basically Ebonics, which
is a name for Black English no
one had heard of until then,
except for a few education
scholars in about
1973, that this Ebonics was
going to be taught in class
as opposed to standard English.
And this was right around when
'round the clock cable news
started.
It was Christmas, and so
it was a slow news cycle.
Fox News was new.
And so there was a reason why
this became such a big deal
at that time.
So the whole country is
laughing at this idea
that there is something
called Ebonics
that is actually language, or
a language, as people put it.
And I was in a weird position,
because to tell you the truth,
I came out of that despised
by the Black English
establishment.
To this day, there are
people of that sort
who will walk by
me at a conference
and not say a word, literally.
That's how mean
people get about it.
Because I said Black English
is legitimate speech,
but it's not why these kids
are having problems in school.
And I talked about problems
I'm sure we've all heard,
about inner city schools.
I said, that's the problem.
It's not the dialect.
We don't need to give it special
attention in the classroom.
I think I was misunderstood.
And I didn't have
the experience then
that I do now in trying
to get out of my own head.
So really, it was, if I
may, the expression today
is a shit show.
The whole thing in the
media was a shit show.
My life was a shit show.
But that is how it
started, because that's
when people got the
idea that I was,
quote, unquote, "interesting."
So that's what happened.
NATASHA AARONS: So where did
the term Ebonics actually
come from?
JOHN MCWHORTER: It was
something somebody made up
in good faith in about 1973.
There was a psychologist,
a black psychologist,
who was concerned with
the same sorts of things
that we're talking about.
He didn't happen
to be a linguist.
And so he wanted to make up
a name for Black English that
didn't sound like
"Negro English," which
is what it was called.
Ebony was a hot
term at the time.
It didn't sound as
dated as it does now.
And if you're talking
about phonics,
well, he figured since
this is about reading,
we'll call it Ebonics.
It's a moment
that's so long ago.
And I mean, I was only
a small kid myself,
but I can just smell.
Ebonics must have felt
really cool at the time.
That felt modern.
It felt like people
with big afros.
I mean, that made sense.
But it was only something used,
really, at one conference.
And there was one volume
that called it that.
But there's this one guy.
And if you want to imagine
this guy, basically, take--
imagine Al Sharpton right now.
You have him in your head?
Now, imagine Al Sharpton
20 years ago as opposed
to the sort of statesman
that he's become now.
That, now change the
hair, put him in a suit,
and there was this guy
who was kind of a linguist
and kind of a doctor at the
same time named Ernie Smith, who
was really big on arguing
that Black English is
a separate language
from English,
and that anybody
who says otherwise
is a kente cloth
wearing poverty pimp.
That's what-- he used
to call people names.
He actually sent me
long screeds telling me
that I must have a subdural
hematoma, because I don't think
that Black English is Hebrew.
It was scary.
He had a major influence
on a lot of schoolteachers.
He picked up that Ebonics term.
He had given it to
the Oakland people.
And so they were using it.
And that's the only reason
that we now say Ebonics.
For about 10 years, I said,
I'm not using that term.
And then I realized,
everybody-- it's set.
And so you just
have to accept it.
So Ebonics.
But it's chance that you
and I are calling it that.
NATASHA AARONS: And so
what is your definition
of Black English and it's
distinction from slang?
JOHN MCWHORTER: You mean
you want like one thing?
NATASHA AARONS: Or many.
JOHN MCWHORTER: Well, we
boring people, like linguists,
think of Black English as a set
of grammatical constructions,
which if I may, many of
you until, of course,
you read my book, which is the
only source that's ever been
written on it, many of you
will think of as "the mistakes
black people make
when they talk."
All of those things, if
you put them together,
they're not mistakes.
They're just differences
from standard English.
And so when we say Black
English, what we really mean
is that alternate grammar.
That's not really going
to help for the public.
And so I'm going
to use something
that I think is more useful.
Whether you want to
admit it or not--
I have a whole
chapter in the book
about why we need to get over
pretending this isn't true.
Whether you want
to admit it or not,
when you hear somebody
talk on the phone,
or if you're on the train
and you don't see them,
you know in an
instant whether or not
they're black 99.5% of the time.
We all do.
To grow up in the United
States is to know that.
And it's not just a matter
of this, quote, unquote,
"bad grammar."
The person may not be
using any Black slang.
You know in an instant.
And if you're white,
you've brought it up
with some of your
nearest and dearest,
and wondered whether it
was racist to say anything
about it.
A lot of black people
know it, and aren't
quite sure what to do with it.
And so we tell ourselves that
there are white people who
sound just like black people,
which they're almost never are.
And we say, well,
black people just
have southern accents,
as if black people talk
like Roy Moore.
And we know that there
is a huge difference.
That's Black English.
Why can you tell?
It's partly the sound system.
It's partly
grammatical features.
And to tell you the truth,
the slang is the least of it.
That changes every 10 minutes.
But there's a different system
that is a legitimate alternate.
That's what Black English is.
NATASHA AARONS: And is Black
English different from Ebonics?
JOHN MCWHORTER: No.
Ebonics refers to
the exact same thing.
NATASHA AARONS: Got it.
JOHN MCWHORTER: And so
let's not use that word.
NATASHA AARONS: Let's
call it Black English.
JOHN MCWHORTER: Black English.
NATASHA AARONS: Let's
call it Black English.
JOHN MCWHORTER: No,
Ebonics is stuck in.
And so yeah, Ebonics.
NATASHA AARONS: So I find this
very fascinating after reading
the book, because I'm Jamaican
and grew up in America,
so at home, I spoke Patois.
JOHN MCWHORTER: Jealous.
NATASHA AARONS: And in the
streets, I still speak Patois.
And growing up in
a predominantly
black and Hispanic neighborhood,
I guess I spoke Black English.
JOHN MCWHORTER: You did.
NATASHA AARONS: Yeah.
But at school and now at work,
I speak standard English.
So I think there's
something really
to be said about your argument
that it's actually a dialect.
And it's accepted in other--
well, let's talk about
the word accepted, right?
It's accepted in
Jamaica or in Haiti.
JOHN MCWHORTER:
But there's still--
NATASHA AARONS:
But still, like you
can't go to work or to
school speaking Patois.
So talk about, why do you think
it's not accepted in the US?
And what role does racism have
in that lack of acceptance?
JOHN MCWHORTER: Well, one
thing that you get at usefully
is that in Jamaica,
there are terrible things
said about Patois.
There are people who
disavow using it.
I had neighbors, for example,
very educated neighbors
from Jamaica who
said when I said
I have studied creole languages
that they don't speak it.
I don't know how
often I would hear
them going up and down the steps
speaking something I couldn't
understand a word of.
NATASHA AARONS: We call
those people stush.
JOHN MCWHORTER: Is
there a word for that?
NATASHA AARONS: There's
a word for that, stush.
It means uppity.
JOHN MCWHORTER:
They did speak it.
NATASHA AARONS: Yeah.
JOHN MCWHORTER: They were.
They really-- and
that's coming from me.
And I'm kind of uppity.
But yeah, they were.
And so they did speak it.
And that's very common.
That's true of
Black English, too.
People who would
say, I would never
speak that way to my
kids, and turn around
and speak exactly that way.
That's how it goes with
varieties that are vernacular,
basically, around the world.
With Patois, part of why maybe
it has a slightly easier time
is that it's more different.
So if you speak
Patois, you speak
something where,
unless I listen closely
and I have a little
bit of training,
I don't know what you're saying.
And so that's really something
that's a different language.
I'd have to wrap
my ear around it.
Your syntax, the
prefixes and suffixes
that you use are really,
really different from anything
that I would say most
people in this room
are likely to be familiar
with from English.
But yeah, racism is part of it.
And this book got ripped
in "The New York Times"
by some individual who
was mad at me-- gosh,
no one's ever mad at me--
mad at me because I
didn't stress racism
enough in the book.
And I didn't.
And I wouldn't do
it now, because I
don't think it's constructive
to tell America's readers,
if you don't like the
way black people talk,
and if you think it's
wrong, you're a racist.
And the reason that I
don't think it's effective
is because I've seen
that it isn't effective.
For 20 years, I have watched
people read that argument
and kind of pretend to agree.
But they think to
themselves, no, I'd
be a racist not to call
them on their bad grammar.
That's perfectly reasonable.
But is the reason that
people think of it
as such trash talk partly
because people are black?
Certainly.
Definitely.
But we also have to
remember, suppose
it wasn't Ebonics that came out
in 1997 in that controversy.
Suppose it was, well,
to use Roy Moore.
Let's say that it
was uneducated--
not Alabama-- let's say
Mississippians, and so
poor white trash
Southern English.
And suppose some
people said, our kids
don't do well in
school, maybe it's
because the speech that we
use at home is so different.
Let's use it in the classroom.
I don't think anybody would
have thought that was wonderful.
Everybody would have
laughed at them, too.
Now, would they have
laughed as hard?
Would they have laughed
in exactly the same way?
No.
But I think part of it is
that we, as Americans, have
a relatively uniform dialect.
We have a relatively
uniform English.
There are people who
speak differently.
Black people, especially.
That's about as
different as it gets,
unless you go to the Sea
Islands and hear Gullah
or if you go to Hawaii
and hear Hawaiian Pidgin.
Other than that,
everybody speaks
variations on this one
sort of the way people talk
on "The Office."
That's just all it is.
And so when we hear
vernacular, when
we hear something different,
it's easier for Americans
to think, that's wrong.
And we need to learn
that there have always
been different ways
of speaking English
and that the reason that
the one used in "The Office"
is considered the best
one, it's just chance.
And so we can't help
hearing that as the default.
We're human beings,
but it's just chance.
So yeah, race plays a part.
And there are books
about Black English.
I would recommend
"Spoken Soul," which
has a better title than
mine by John Rickford, which
he wrote after the
Ebonics crisis,
where he gets across
the racist aspect of it
better than I ever could.
But I figured
that's been written.
And with all due respect
for John Rickford,
who was my dissertation
advisor, that argument
only works with us.
It doesn't spread.
And so I wanted something that
would have a wider suasional
impact.
So that's my sloppy
answer to that question.
NATASHA AARONS: So in your
chapter "It's Complicated,"
part of your defense of Black
English being a dialect,
it's rooted in its complexities.
I'll highlight a few examples.
And I think everyone here
will be familiar with them.
So the word up, and how
the word up is used.
Like DMX, "Y'all going to make
me lose my mind up in here."
JOHN MCWHORTER: See?
What's up about it?
NATASHA AARONS: What's
up about it, right?
Done.
He done lost his mind.
Right?
And had, which everyone--
what had happened was.
So can you dissect that a
little bit further and talk
about the complexities
of Black English
and why that makes it a dialect?
JOHN MCWHORTER: Those
things are so important,
because it's easy to miss it.
Somebody will often tell
you about Black English.
And they'll say, well, this is
a different system, because you
can drop off these consonants.
It's a different system,
because you don't have
to use this word for to be.
It's different.
It's not worse.
It's just different.
It's different in that you can
leave this out and chop this
off and drop this off.
And then everybody wonders
why people still don't
think that it's sophisticated.
You have to talk about
how it's more complicated.
And it tends to be in the
ways, which when we hear them,
we think, well,
that's just slang,
when really it's complicated.
And so for example, the done.
It's not just the past.
So for example, yesterday,
what did I drink?
A really bad glass of wine.
So yesterday, I drank
a glass of rosé.
OK.
That's standard English.
"Yesterday, I done
drunk a glass of rosé,"
would not be how somebody who
was speaking Black English
would say it.
It's not past tense.
The done is used in
a very specific way.
It indicates that something's
counter-expectational.
And so "You done
growed up," is what
you would say to somebody who
is one of those people who is
too tall to be 13 or something.
It's counter-expectational.
"You done ate it," doesn't
mean, "Yesterday, you
consumed some food."
It means, "I was going to
find it in the refrigerator,
and you ate it.
You done ate it."
That's what it means.
Now, no one knows that,
outside of somebody
who has too much time on their
hands and becomes an academic,
basically.
But that's what it is.
And standard English
doesn't have a way
to indicate that in
such an economic way.
And so done is complicated.
Up sounds like slang.
You think of Will Smith, or
DMX, or something like that.
It really indicates intimacy.
So you would never say, "up at
the dentist's," because you're
not happy there.
Unless it was on a hill,
or something like that.
But you would never say
"up at the dentist's."
You could give away an
infidelity by accident
by saying, "Oh, I was
up at Clarissa's."
Well, if Clarissa just
lives flat on the street,
and you're talking
about it being up,
how often are you there?
That's what up means.
And so you hear it.
And usually, you're dancing
or something, and you think,
oh, up.
Black people say up too much.
It means something
very specific.
There are a bunch of those.
And so I won't take
up time with what's
called the narrative had.
But it means that Black
English has a separate tense
from standard English.
And so it's not just,
what had happened was.
You can listen to people
speaking the dialect using
had in a way where
it's natural to think,
they use the
pluperfect too much.
But no, it's actually very
specific how that had is used.
So the book has a
list of those things.
And that list could go longer.
But Black English has
complicated in the same ways
as it is simplified
from the standard.
And it's not a forced point.
It's not a matter of
me sitting and trying
to squeeze the
last drops of water
out of that washcloth
thinking, well,
how is it sort of complicated?
It just falls out.
It's just something
that most people haven't
had any reason to write about.
So that's part of why
I wrote that book.
NATASHA AARONS: So
there's an objection,
and then you speak
about this in the book,
"But they can't talk that
way at a job interview."
And again, being
Jamaican, I could never
go anywhere and speak--
my mother would
slap me, literally--
Patois, because
it's embarrassing.
You come off as uneducated.
So when people say, you
can't speak that way
at a job interview, and that
indicates that Black English
is not acceptable.
It's not a dialect.
Let's talk about that.
That means they missed
the entire point of--
JOHN MCWHORTER: Just missed it.
NATASHA AARONS: --what
Black English is.
So can you talk
about that some more?
JOHN MCWHORTER: Who would talk
that way at a job interview?
And so basically, people
speak different ways
in different places
more than many Americans
have any reason to know,
for the reason I mentioned.
But if somebody's response
to all of this is,
well, they can't talk that
way at a job interview, often
that seems to indicate that
somehow it refutes whatever
the person said before.
But no, you wouldn't talk
that way at a job interview.
But that doesn't mean that
you can't, or that you
shouldn't talk that way during
the other 98.5% of your life.
So at a job interview,
yeah, you have
to learn how to speak
in what is arbitrarily
considered the standard way.
But that doesn't mean
that you shouldn't
have these alternate
ways of speaking.
So I have that chapter.
That was something
I used as a lead-in
to explaining how many people
around the world, such as you,
have two very different
ways of speaking
that you toggle between, and
that that's how Arabs live.
That is how most people in
India and Sri Lanka live.
More people in China live
that way than are often
willing to admit it,
but that is very true.
Mandarin is one thing.
Step two feet
outside of Beijing,
and often, people
are speaking what
might as well be Vietnamese.
There are different levels
of Chinese in that way.
So it's just ordinary.
And in most of those
places, nobody would say,
well, you can't talk that
way at a job interview,
and therefore, there
should be no such thing
as Egyptian Arabic.
Nobody would say that.
There is standard Arabic,
and there's Egyptian Arabic.
Max, because I always call
you out when I'm on a stage,
and you're in the audience.
Hi, Max.
And so Egyptian Arabic
and standard Arabic.
So the idea, well, you
can't talk that way
at a job interview,
that's a nice statement.
But nobody said that
anybody wanted to.
And so I bristle, I
bridle at that statement,
because it kind
of gets in the way
of getting across fun
things like up, and the had,
and everything else.
NATASHA AARONS: And
there are people
in the black community
that actually
say these type of things.
JOHN MCWHORTER: Yeah, can't talk
that way at a job interview,
they say, having spoken
that way their entire lives.
It's just we need to cut
through these sorts of biases.
NATASHA AARONS: And
so that brings me
to this notion of
code switching.
So we talk about that a
lot here as black Googlers,
because we oscillate between--
we're a minority.
But when you see
your people, you then
switch into Black English.
JOHN MCWHORTER: Subconsciously.
NATASHA AARONS: Right.
Subconsciously.
So how does like
code switching play
into this overall
construct of Black English?
JOHN MCWHORTER:
Natasha, I'm going
to give you the real
answer on code switching.
Code switching, you
described what it is.
It is subconscious.
Nobody was talking about it with
a name until roughly the 1970s.
And one is expected
to talk about it.
And you know, I'm not being a
smarty pants in saying this,
but I think this is
really where it fits in.
Code switching-- and
I mean this lightly--
code switching, as a
topic, bores me to tears.
Whenever a student
wants to write about it,
whenever I have to
give a lecture on it,
I just have to take a
deep breath and pretend--
you know, that's what we all do
for about half of our lives--
code switching,
Spanish and English.
And wow, people
in Spanish Harlem,
they switch between
English and Spanish.
Who'd have thunk it?
You know, of course, they do!
It's basically, people
live between languages
and between dialects,
frankly, in most of the world.
Bi or multilingualism
is probably the norm.
Nobody's ever done an exact
count, but probably the norm.
And so if people
speak two things,
then chances are
that the two things
are going to mix together to
an extent as part of identity.
Part of you is
formal, and so you're
going to speak your Mandarin.
Part of you is normal
life, and so you're
going to speak the local dialect
that's completely different.
And of course, you're going
to toggle between the two.
So Black English usage is a
matter of code switching, too.
But it also confuses the
matter, because somebody
who studies the
dialect will put up
all these constructions
on the board,
and say, well, here it is.
And understandably,
even a speaker thinks,
that's not how I talk, because
I don't talk that way all day.
And so they're
thinking, well, it's
really just something
that you sprinkle in.
What they mean is
that we code switch.
But it's a very ordinary thing.
To see somebody who goes
through all of their life
speaking more or less the
same way as in, frankly,
most educated white or
blue American people,
that's unusual.
That's not the norm, as
we naturally think it is.
The speech repertoire
of somebody
who grows up in
Greenwich, Connecticut
is not the norm in terms of how
most people negotiate language
around the world.
So you with Jamaican,
Black English, and English,
I look at you, and I
think, you're better.
You know, you have
a wider English.
I tried to call one book
I wrote "A Wider English,"
and they thought
that wouldn't sell.
And they were right.
But you have a
broader repertoire.
Then there are people who
have standard and black,
then there are people who
only have that one thing.
And you know, life goes on.
But that's unusual.
And so you're better, and
you're normal is the thing.
You having all of
that is normal.
It doesn't make you exotic.
Greenwich,
Connecticut is exotic.
NATASHA AARONS: So as
an example, so white
Southern Americans, they
code switch between--
JOHN MCWHORTER: They don't
think of it that way.
They say, well, I slip
a little something in.
No, you code switch.
You have two things.
But people don't get
told that enough.
That's part of why I wrote
this, because everybody
is going to read it, the
whole, whole country.
NATASHA AARONS: So
as black culture
starts to permeate
mainstream culture,
do you foresee Black English
becoming more accepted?
JOHN MCWHORTER: Yes.
It's happening right
now right here.
You just see it outside
in these hallways.
Something has changed
profoundly in the past 20 years
in particular in the way
that-- not the stereotype,
but this Greenwich,
Connecticut person, or somebody
who grows up in Scarsdale,
the way that person speaks
is influenced by
Black English in ways
that nobody would have
predicted before about 1995.
And I think it's a good thing.
It certainly doesn't mean that
we're anything like past race,
but in that superficial
way, there's
a coming together that,
for example, hadn't
happened when I was in college.
Up at Columbia, I will see
white men, in particular,
greeting each other and
talking to each other in ways
that they're not thinking
of as black at all.
But in terms of the sound
system, in terms of the slang,
in terms of even a lot of the
gestures and the body language
and subtle aspects
of facial demeanor,
they're acting black in a
way that their parents, which
I hate to admit it's at
the point where I went
to college with their
parents, their parents, who
were very cool guys, cooler than
me, they didn't talk like that.
They didn't move like that.
They couldn't dance like that.
They didn't act like that.
It was a different time.
And it wasn't 1927.
This was like 1987.
Those people's kids now are
influenced by this new--
does it say-- did I
call it lingua franca?
Lingua franca in
a way that nobody
would have dreamed before.
So yeah, it's really changing.
Watch any stand-up
comedian at this point
and listen to a lot of
the things that they do.
Watch "Broad City" and
watch Abbi and Ilana,
and whenever they say something
that's meant to be funny,
about 50% of the time, they're
saying it in a black way.
I doubt if they're
thinking of it that way,
but that's certainly
what they do.
That's new.
Their mothers didn't
talk that way,
and their mothers were not
wearing crinoline skirts.
It's just that
something has happened
over the past generation.
NATASHA AARONS: What
do you think that is?
Is it hip hop music?
JOHN MCWHORTER: Yes.
NATASHA AARONS: Really?
JOHN MCWHORTER: Yes.
NATASHA AARONS: Great.
JOHN MCWHORTER:
The mainstreaming
of rap in the late '90s created
a whole new consciousness,
which shows that
this is superficial.
But I do think
that's what did it.
Yeah, definitely.
NATASHA AARONS: So
furthering that point
of black culture becoming
mainstream culture,
this is a tough one.
As people start to become more
comfortable with Black English,
particularly--
JOHN MCWHORTER: I
know what you're--
I know what--
NATASHA AARONS: And
I get this question
from a ton of my white
friends from college
and from graduate school.
JOHN MCWHORTER: It's
because it's two words.
NATASHA AARONS: Why can't we--
JOHN MCWHORTER: Go ahead.
NATASHA AARONS: --say
the word, the N-word.
JOHN MCWHORTER: Yes.
It's very common.
NATASHA AARONS: Because it's--
particularly, hip hop culture
is mainstream culture,
and the word is used numerous--
all the time, every other word.
And it seems like we've taken
the sting out of the N-word.
And now that they feel like
they're part of the culture,
many feel like they
can say the word.
JOHN MCWHORTER: It's
very, very complicated.
I am asked about
that in some venue
probably three or four times
a week, including yesterday.
And the first answer is
anyone who says, well,
if we're not supposed
to use the word nigger,
then it's wrong for black
people to use it, too.
That completely misses the boat,
because the black usage of it
isn't the usage of it that
Roy Moore's father used.
I don't know
anything about his--
you can tell.
So not that.
It became a different
word, which means buddy.
So when you're listening, we
don't have to exoticize it.
Go to the subway today
when you go home.
All you have to do
is go like this,
and you will hear some
black boys using it.
They don't mean what
Bull Connor meant.
It means buddy.
NATASHA AARONS:
But not only-- you
won't not only-- you
not-- you will also
hear Hispanic kids
saying it, Chinese kids.
I've heard white kids
saying it on the subway.
JOHN MCWHORTER:
That's complicated.
I remember when I first heard
actually a white guy use it.
And I thought, wait a minute.
Because I had seen him.
I was in a 7-Eleven
or something.
And I thought,
wait, he was white.
Did he change?
And I turned around.
It was about 10 years ago.
And I thought, I can tell he
didn't mean that in a bad way.
And I thought, this
is going to continue.
And it has.
It's subtle, because
that boy thinks
that because he
listens to the music,
because he dresses in a certain
way, moves a certain way,
has had relationships
with probably
a couple of black girls.
He lives in a very
different way.
He thinks he can use
it to mean buddy,
because he thinks of
himself as that buddy
in the same positive
way that black kids do.
You and I see it,
and we think, no, you
have to understand the
history of the word.
You know something,
Natasha, I don't
think we can control that.
You know, I want to say,
well, that shouldn't be.
And there are whole books
that are written about it.
And we are going to
go in the subway,
and we're going to keep
hearing those Filipino boys,
those Asian boys.
I'm now hearing Asian--
Chinese-American kids doing it.
Can we fix that?
I don't think so.
They're not listening.
And if any of them
learn to listen,
then the younger ones coming up.
I think we have to
get used to that.
And I'm not saying that it
doesn't make me bristle, too.
But there are some
things you can't fix.
I don't think you can fix that
Chinese couple of guys saying
that any more than you could
stop black guys from saying
it or black women.
So it's a weird thing,
but the response to it--
it's just like, they can't
talk that way at a job
interview-- the response to it
is not simply, we can't use it,
so how come those
black men can use it?
It's two words, but the
question is, what do you
do about that second version
when other people start
taking it up?
It's hard.
It's a hard one.
It's a tough one.
NATASHA AARONS:
It's a tough one.
I still don't accept that
I always say something.
And I have to--
but I guess as Black English
becomes more acceptable,
that's probably one of
the downsides of it,
is that we're going to have to--
JOHN MCWHORTER: I
would have to agree.
And there are people who are
going to go to their graves
not liking what they hear.
That's hard.
I don't intend to die, but most
people seem to just accept it.
And they are going
to go underground.
And that's just-- that's it.
NATASHA AARONS:
So I think we have
some questions in the audience.
Thank you.
Hi.
AUDIENCE: Hey, Hey.
So I'm looking forward
to reading your book.
JOHN MCWHORTER: Thank you.
AUDIENCE: I moved to this
country when I was 16.
My sister was three
years younger than me,
and I noticed she picked up
a lot of what you describe,
Black English, and I didn't.
I think there was this
slight difference in where
we were in our formative years
that allowed her to pick up
parts of this language that
I never ended up doing, even
though we lived in
the same household.
And it's interesting
when you talk
about how it's been spreading.
Something was in
the back of my mind.
I hear a lot about this idea
of cultural misappropriation.
But it feels like it's a
slightly different power
dynamic at work here.
And I'm curious about what
that is, because I can't quite
put my finger on it.
JOHN MCWHORTER: Well, see?
That's one of those
things, because your sister
would have been picking
up these ways of speaking,
and probably moving and joking,
without thinking about it.
It's not like she
did it on purpose.
She just-- that happened
because of who she was around.
And it may not have even
been from black girls.
She could have gotten it
from other girls of whatever.
And so that's her reality.
And some people would say that
that's cultural appropriation.
But I don't know.
I don't know your sister,
but I've got a picture.
And I'm not sure that I
would accuse her of anything
in terms of cultural
appropriation.
She was busy studying
and watching TV.
So she didn't know.
And I don't think that
I could condemn her
for whatever she's saying and
doing and however she's moving.
So there is a such thing
as cultural appropriation.
But I am unpopular
in some circles
in saying that, no, it's
not appropriation for people
to start talking more
like black people simply
because I am not aware--
I'm also not an anthropologist.
But I play one on TV--
I am not aware of any
world historical situation
where people came together
and didn't start sharing.
I don't know where that was.
People from above take
from people below.
People from below take
from people above.
I don't know how
you would stop that.
And so for cultural
appropriation,
the argument sounds
to me like people
are saying in particularly the
situation of the descendants
of African slaves in a
misbegotten country called
the United States of
America in the beginning
of the 21st century, and only
then, only in that situation,
people are going to come
together and not mix.
It doesn't strike
me as something that
has any chance of happening.
And so I'd rather be unhappy
about things that I can change.
That's my personal view.
Most advocates of
Black English would not
have given you that answer.
Don't take me as representative,
but I've got to be me.
NATASHA AARONS: Thanks.
I think we have
another question here.
AUDIENCE: Thanks for
coming, first of all.
You mentioned that rap
was a huge influence
in the rise of Black English
outside the African-American
community.
In my recollection,
gangsta rap seemed
like one of the things that
really helped bring this on.
And it was a very aggressive,
angry message that they had.
And it resonated
with a lot of people,
but it also came from a
place of street toughness.
And I'm wondering if that became
part of the modern association
of that kind of language
with these guys who were mad,
who were poor, who weren't
going to take it anymore.
And has that sort of had
like negative influence
or negative perceptions of
Black English even today?
JOHN MCWHORTER: It
helps, certainly.
I think that the association of
Black speech with this violence
and the street can be
taken a little further back
to the '60s.
I think that a lot
of that started
with what was called the long
hot summers, and the prelude
to it.
So there's this new idea
that Black speech is somehow
angry or menacing,
but certainly that was
focused by the tone
of the rap that
was most popular at that time.
And I think there's an extent to
which any teenager, and this is
almost gender neutral.
It's probably more among boys.
But there's a tendency to think
of aggression and sticking it
to the oppressor, or to the
man, or to your parents,
as authenticity, as something
that one does as a teen.
And so it played into that.
It's something that
white boys were doing
in different ways in 1973.
But it certainly
was a useful source
for striking those
sorts of poses.
And I think it still is,
in general, to the extent
that that black vibe is
associated with giving
the finger to the authorities.
People still use it in that way.
It can be a good thing and a
bad thing at the same time.
AUDIENCE: So I was
reading a while
back "1984," and in the
novel, Orwell kind of touches
upon how language can
inform consciousness.
And I had remembered, oh, also,
he's not a linguist, right?
And neither am I.
So like, this could
be like a stupid question.
JOHN MCWHORTER:
Orwell was brilliant.
You probably are, too.
AUDIENCE: So you had mentioned
before that there is probably
some superficiality in
how Black English has
spread through the
popularization of hip hop.
And I don't want to
like challenge that,
but I just want to
ask, if it is the case,
like if language does
inform consciousness,
then does the spread
of Black English
actually have some
sort of impact
that maybe we're not
probing in how we look at
and relate to each other?
It doesn't necessarily even
need to be on racial lines.
JOHN MCWHORTER: You know what?
I'm going to give you the
real answer for that instead
of the prepackaged one, because
the real one, predictably,
is more interesting.
But it's less certain.
This is something.
I haven't gotten to this yet.
There are people who are
studying what makes Black
English different all the time.
A lot of what I put
in books like this
is from watching the research
being done, and thinking,
oh, that's interesting.
For example, it was one person
only about eight years ago
who figured out done.
That had bested
everybody, including me.
I have one early book where
I made something up about it.
I had no idea, but I knew
nobody would catch me
on it, because nobody knew.
Somebody actually
figured it out.
And you know what
they're figuring out?
And I don't get the feeling
that the others are noticing
this pattern, but I've wondered
whether I should go public
with it.
And then I just--
I had a second child.
But a lot of Black
English's constructions
carry a certain indignation,
proportionally more
than I'm used to seeing in
other human speech varieties.
I don't want that to be true.
I find it peculiar, but
very often when you find,
actually, wait a minute.
That's grammar.
It's kind of an angry grammar.
And so for example,
there's a future perfect
in Black English, be
done, which I don't
think I mentioned in this book.
You know, I'd be done killed
him if he does that again.
The truth with be done is
that it's grammatically very
sophisticated, but it's
only used when you're angry.
You don't talk
about it when you're
talking about drinking juice
or something like that.
There are various
constructions where
I think, what is it
about culture, history,
and these constructions?
Is there a reason for that?
And linguists distrust
linking language and culture
too tightly.
And I also don't want to call
this wonderful dialect angry.
But on the other hand,
there are some reasons
that black people might
have for being angry.
And so I don't know,
and I really mean it.
I have meant to look into it,
and I keep getting sidetracked.
But--
AUDIENCE: My question--
JOHN MCWHORTER: --maybe.
AUDIENCE: I think more so
than culture is specifically
the behavior itself, right?
Like if I raise a
child and he was
inundated in an angry
grammar, would he
behave in an angrier way?
JOHN MCWHORTER: No.
That relationship, no.
If the child was raised
with angry grammar.
That is the title of
something I'm going to write.
If the child is raised
with angry grammar,
but the child is not
raised in an angry life,
that angry grammar will make
the child infinitesimally more
angry in ways that
you could isolate
in some silly
psychological experiment.
The grammar alone will
not have him walking out
of the house with a club.
No.
AUDIENCE: Right.
Right.
JOHN MCWHORTER: Grammar
does not do that.
It would be infinitesimal.
But culture and language do
have an influence on each other.
The angry culture is, I
think, of more concern
than the angry future perfect.
But one does wonder
about such things?
AUDIENCE: Thank you.
Sorry.
JOHN MCWHORTER: That's OK,
because you gave me a title.
NATASHA AARONS: We
have a question here.
AUDIENCE: Hi.
Thank you so much for coming.
JOHN MCWHORTER: Sure.
AUDIENCE: So my
question is actually
kind of going back to your
question about the N-word,
because I actually
disagree with the concept
of having to just accept it.
And the reason for
that is because I
feel as though there are
a lot of other communities
that also have similar words
that the general populace--
say, for example, in
the LGBTQ community,
the use of the F-word.
You know, like they may
use it interchange-- like
amongst their own community.
But at the end of
the day, I don't feel
compelled to call anyone that.
And so I guess I
feel as though there
are certain exceptions
that are made when it comes
to the N-word, when it comes to
other people wanting to use it
in our community, and sort of
like the acceptance of like,
hey, we just have to
deal with the fact
that it's going to happen,
and it's just going to happen.
What exactly about, sort
of, I guess, Black language,
or sort of black
culture, et cetera,
do you feel makes people
feel as though they have
to make that concession, A.
And B, are there
other types of, quote,
unquote, "concessions" that
we feel like we just have to--
it's going to happen.
We can't do anything about it.
And people are going
to want to participate
in a certain way, where
when you look at it
and transpose it into
other communities
in similar situations, you
can't really understand
why you would want to.
I know--
JOHN MCWHORTER: Yeah,
this is the viral clip
with Ta-Nehisi Coates
two or three weeks ago
where he makes a similar point.
And the response to it is this.
That is a rich question.
And that's a huge--
one must compare,
why is it that nobody
is walking around trying
to use the F-word?
And they're exactly
four answers--
and I'm going to
forget one of them--
is that there's a difference
between the word that
ends in the ER and the
word that ends in A.
So it's not that white boys
are trying to use the ER one.
It's the A one
where that word is
thought of as having a different
meaning than the nasty one.
That's one part.
Second is why is it
only black people?
And the thing is to
the extent that anybody
agrees that America
is all about race
and that that's the
substrate, that's
part of why it would be black
people rather than LGBT,
or whatever Indians call
each other, et cetera, that
would attract that
kind of attention,
especially because of--
third point-- the music.
And so the music becomes
America's mainstream music
in a way that nobody
would have expected.
And the music, especially a
lot of it in the recent past,
uses that buddy
word all the time.
So you've got that in your ears.
And especially with
modern technology,
you walk around with it.
It's in your ears all the time.
And so that, also.
It's not only that
America is all about race,
but America becomes
all about hip hop,
and that word is in it.
And then, finally, it's
because especially boys
like calling each other
salty affectionate names.
And so for example, there's
a "Seinfeld" episode
where George Costanza picks
up calling his friends bastard
from these white men.
It's like, hey, bastard.
Hey, bastard.
And that, or a certain
generation of white men,
ah, that son of a bitch,
and that's affectionate.
That word ending in A is that.
All of that, I
think, comes together
and means that that's why
people want it to be that word.
Whereas let's say that
gay men walked around
calling each other, if I may,
fag, faggot, affectionately,
all the time.
I don't know if they do.
That would be less
likely to jump the rails,
because there is no
gay hip hop that people
are listening to all the time.
It has a lot to do with
the centrality of blackness
in the culture.
That's my explanation.
And because I feel that all that
is so big, and I feel so weak,
I accept that the white
boy is going to say nigga.
People would disagree
with me on that.
I don't think that I have any
kind of word of God on that--
as opposed to so
many other things--
but on this question,
I just have an opinion.
But I think that's why.
I think that Ta-Nehisi
Coates's version of it,
with all due respect to him,
is a little oversimplified.
There's a reason
why the black word
would get so much attention.
One of them is that
black is everything,
and another is that there
are two of those words.
AUDIENCE: Thank you.
JOHN MCWHORTER: You're welcome.
AUDIENCE: Hi, you
talked about the "You
can't use that in a
job interview" line
as being not the point,
because like we all know that.
But would you say that it's
necessarily problematic
that we can't do that?
Because it means
that some people
have a much harder time in
that socially important area.
Like, should we be
able to tolerate
that in a job interview?
Or is that also not the point?
JOHN MCWHORTER: There
should be no such thing
as standard English.
It's an abomination.
We're stuck with it.
That's just the way
it's going to be.
I'm a fatalist.
But no, nobody would have any
trouble with comprehension
in any real way if everybody
could just talk and write
the way they wanted
to in this country.
It wouldn't work in
Italy or Germany,
where there's more
variation, but here, it's
an arbitrary thing.
So yes, I do think it's a shame.
A person who doesn't feel
comfortable in standard English
should be able to do an
interview the way they talk,
because it would affect
comprehension not at all,
and they'd be more articulate
talking the way they're
used to talking.
That day will never come.
But yes, if I could
wave a magic wand.
And really, it's true.
When I think about
waving that magic wand,
there are always three things.
And it's funny how it
changes throughout my life.
One of them now-- my three are
nobody would ever be hungry.
The idea that people are walking
around in the world sometimes
without enough to eat, that.
Two, love would be based on the
inside rather than the outside.
The idea that looks matter,
I think that's just horrible.
Third, no standard
language, really.
Everybody should just be able to
talk the way they want to talk,
and everything would be fine.
But we're just stuck with
the reality on all three
of those things.
NATASHA AARONS: A
question of here.
AUDIENCE: I'm hoping that
this isn't as open-ended
as I think it is.
A lot of what's changed in the
21st century versus the 20th
is that we have
online communication.
And specifically in
the last few years,
you have phones and
keyboards coercing you
towards standardized English.
So for instance, I will
type in on my phone,
and several of my
friends complain to me
about the ducking L
train this morning.
And you can--
JOHN MCWHORTER: I'm nodding
in complete ignorance.
The ducking what?
AUDIENCE: They wanted to type
a different word, but they've--
JOHN MCWHORTER: Oh, got it.
OK.
Continue, sorry.
AUDIENCE: And so this
happens on a spell check,
and this happens on
a grammatical sense.
And it happens a lot
in a coercive way
towards a standard
very polite English,
because a lot of
companies say, oh, we
shouldn't AutoCorrect
towards another word,
because that's a naughty word.
How do you feel that that will
change the way people speak?
And how should we
change that, if at all?
JOHN MCWHORTER: You are--
I'll put it this way.
There are two forms of language.
There's speaking, and
then there's writing.
And we write informally
today to an extent
that we didn't before.
But really, the two
things are very different.
And so the truth is that
whatever AutoCorrect
does or doesn't do has--
I don't mean this
in a flippant way,
but it has no significant
effect on the way people speak.
And we speak a lot more,
most of us, than we write.
However, in general,
people are spontaneously
bidialectal in writing,
as well as in speech.
So they're going
to be things that
go on on keyboards that really
in the grand scheme of things
mean that you can choose
to be or force yourself
to be informal or formal.
The decisions that
people make in terms
of how these things correct
or don't, they're interesting,
but I don't think
that they're going
to affect the basic
sense that, one, language
is speech, and two,
even when we're writing,
we'll always be able to
do it in different ways.
So for example, the word
ducking, so to speak,
it's not going
away no matter what
some program tries to do,
especially because that's
primarily a spoken word.
So we'll see, but
I take your point.
NATASHA AARONS: I think we
have one more question here.
AUDIENCE: Hey, good to see you.
JOHN MCWHORTER: Max is one
of my students from Columbia.
Hi, Max.
AUDIENCE: Hey.
So with the
prevalence of American
pop culture and music
worldwide and its influence,
do you see any interesting
effects of Black English
on other Englishes worldwide
or even other languages?
JOHN MCWHORTER: I do,
because it's not only
here in the United States.
Because of the music, that
way of speaking English
is having an effect in
other parts of the world,
including among people who
have no sense of whatever
the social parameters are.
They just do it.
And also use the language
of that place in a way that
has a black effect.
I've heard rap in Germany
where I was thinking,
this is black German.
And most of these
people have never
met an American black
person in their lives.
And it's ironic.
Once I was in New Guinea.
I spent a short
week in New Guinea,
and everything was
completely different.
The food.
Indonesian is nothing like
any language any of us
have probably ever known.
It was about 200
degrees the whole time.
The whole sense of
where a bathroom is
and what it's like, even
in formal situations,
was something that one had to
learn as one went, so to speak.
It was absolutely amazing.
The one thing that
was the most familiar
was that the boys, including
many of them who compared
to Americans are much smaller.
I was so tall in this place.
The boys could rap in
English sounding exactly
like Jay-Z, even when they
didn't really speak English.
And they speak Indonesian, but
they could go right into it.
That, or Usher.
A lot of them could
just sing exactly
like Usher, when I could barely
have a conversation with them
otherwise.
That was something I
found very interesting
in terms of music making.
And so 10 minutes ago, somebody
in New Guinea making music,
god knows what they did.
I don't know.
Today, a young boy in New
Guinea who makes music
gets up with gestures,
and movements, and a sense
of accompaniment, and
a sense of attitude,
and that word we've
been talking about,
even if it's in some language
we've never heard of.
That's absolutely
fascinating to me.
It's everywhere.
No one would have expected
this 20 minutes ago.
And here we are in this minute.
It's the answer.
NATASHA AARONS: We have
a question from Jonathan.
AUDIENCE: Thank
you, Dr. McWhorter,
or Professor McWhorter.
I really appreciate all the
expertise that you've provided.
One question that
I have, though,
is when we talk about
language, at least
in the American context
and about Black English,
there seems to be
no way to separate
the etymology of the language
and the political nature
in the way that it's received,
in the way it's treated.
So when we talk about the
boring code switching papers
and things like that,
it seems like part
of that's connected
to the fact of there
is a weight to the
type of switching
that one particular part of
the community or the population
has versus others and
a question of power.
So when we talk about the
future of how Black English is
accepted academically, accepted
culturally, and accepted just
in general as a
language, how do you
think we have to come to terms
with the political and power
aspect?
Because it seems that, at least
within the American context,
it wasn't just by chance that
standard-- what we consider
standard English became
standard English,
but it was an act of
power, an act of politics.
And the way that Black English
has traditionally been treated
and code switching
has been treated
has been also an act
of political power,
political subjugation,
or the way
that certain communities
have embraced it has
been an counter-act of power.
So how, as an academic, as
someone who researches this,
how do you come to terms, and
how does the academic community
come to terms with that idea
of not only understanding
there is an aspect of language
that is organic and changing
and things like that,
but also that there
is a political and
power aspect as well?
JOHN MCWHORTER: That's
a very good question.
Most of the people who study
Black English-- and honestly,
what I do in linguistics is such
that I've got a couple of toes
in Black English study,
enough to write this,
but it's not my main thing.
So that community, I
know them, like them,
but that's not where I go
to five conferences a year.
Most of that community would
feel that what we need to do
is change those power
relations, that we need
to change the way people think.
And often, many of them
say that standard English
is a gatekeeper language
and it's not fair
that a black speaker should have
to learn that at all, which I
think, intellectually, is true.
So the idea is that we
need to change society.
That is a respectable view.
It is not my politics.
I'm just not that idealistic.
So they are leftists.
God bless the leftists.
I'm more liberal in this sense.
I just don't see
how society is going
to change the way
a lot of them do,
which puts me at odds
with some academics.
But I think this.
This is what I think we can get.
I don't think we're going
to change that there's
a degree of inequality.
I hope that in 100 years that
inequality is not so tracked
to skin color, but I
don't imagine that there
will be no inequality.
What I think is feasible is to
teach succeeding generations
of Americans--
seceding generations
of-- no-- succeeding
generations of Americans
that different forms of language
are different, but not worse.
So of course, people are
going to keep saying,
you can't use it
in a job interview.
And somebody like me will say,
you have spoken a true thing.
Yes.
But the point is if one
can hear Black English
and not hear junk, but can
just think, it's different,
the way somebody in
Milan hears somebody
speaking Milanese Italian
and thinks, it's different.
It's not junk.
That's as far as I
imagine it getting.
Now, are people who are hearing
that still probably going
to think of black people
as lesser human beings?
That's going to
be a harder fight.
My attempt to kind of pull a
few bricks out of that wall
is to try to make it clear
to people who will listen.
And I find that if you
put it the right way,
a critical mass do.
What you're hearing
as mistakes isn't.
And I definitely try to pull
the racism out of that equation,
because it makes
people feel threatened.
Should it?
Probably, yeah.
But still, you want to
keep their minds open.
So that's what I think.
Again, that's not
representative.
Many people who
study the dialect
would have a more revolutionary
approach than I do.
Maybe I'm a little
cynical, but I
think that we need
to be able to hear
all the nonstandard
speech, but especially
Black English, as interesting,
rather than broken down.
So that's my mission.
AUDIENCE: Thank you so much.
JOHN MCWHORTER: Sure.
NATASHA AARONS: Well, we're
unfortunately out of time.
But we just want to thank you
on behalf of everyone here.
JOHN MCWHORTER: Thank
you all for coming.
NATASHA AARONS:
Everyone here at Google.
JOHN MCWHORTER: Thank you.
NATASHA AARONS: This
has been awesome.
Thanks for dropping some
knowledge up in here.
JOHN MCWHORTER: Dropped it.
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you.
