Beautifully Spoken

I went to church on Sunday and my overall standpoint was confusion. After studying and hearing many lectures on the black church last semester, I went with a new outlook and understanding. The black church was created during the era of slavery as a way to spread culture and social understanding throughout the enslaved Africans and the so-called new Americans. It was in these initial groups that blacks became socially and politically conscious. As time continued, the social gatherings became more than sneaking out at night to meet with others and developed into a more organized structure in which religion was practiced. As I sat in church, I could see how the origins of the black church are still practiced in the black church today. All types of black folk gathered in this church house to fellowship and share cultural and political ideas with one another. From talks to how to make cornbread fluffier to heated arguments about individual’s political fundamentals, I was amused and elated to see that in this structural compound our ancestors’ effort were not lost. Beautiful music was played as people rejoiced and praised the God they worshiped with no fear of prosecution or social judgment. The tears nearly came to my eyes when I realized that the ones that came before me were, at one point, happy because in this place, this house of worship, blacks could be themselves.

But on this Sunday, I heard a sermon that bothered me. The minister preached and made a point stating that blacks should change their language patterns in order to be more successful in the modern world. To me, this is a message of assimilation. Since I claim to be a free thinker, I sat down and thought about the minister’s point. In this world there are things that are socially acceptable and culturally acceptable. On the other side, there are things that are socially unacceptable and culturally unacceptable. All this meaning that there are certain things one can do it their culture that are not socially acceptable and there are things one can do in society and are not culturally acceptable. When pertaining to blacks, there are some things that blacks do within their culture that are not acceptable to American society's culture and there are things blacks can do in American society and is not accepted in their culture. One of those things is the use of broken English, slang, or Ebonics. According to society, by using this broken English you are lowering your standards and your social status. In essence, society's impression of you is low. This minster says blacks should change their culture from speaking broken English to speaking perfect English in order to fit in with the rest of society and be socially acceptable.

As my mother taught me a long time ago, in many situations, there is a time and a place for everything. When one wants to sound intelligent one speaks intelligently. Does this mean your English must be perfect? In my opinion, no. As a black, you have to know to play the game. The black culture does not hold the majority in American social culture. Therefore, we can not expect everyone to understand the English language we have adapted. When we go into different situations, we speak different ways. This does not mean we discard that part of ourselves entirety in order to fit in with he American society culture. This minister bothered me because he argued that in order for blacks to come off as intelligent to the majority, whites, we must change our language and assimilate it with the majority. The way blacks speak is full of passion and emotion and while it may not be textbook, it is beautiful. Take into consideration I am not talking about all blacks. I am merely speaking to the ones who defy society and choose to embrace ebony phonics.

In an intuition in which blacks, historically, can be themselves this minister tells me I should not. He tells me to conform and forget a part of who I am. He oughta be shamed of himself.