Black Writers, Don’t Be Afraid to Embrace ‘Anti-Standard English’
Language can be a battleground — and I choose to wage war on the confines of convention
Let me state, emphatically, that I do not hate White people. Quite to the contrary, I love White people. I just hate what some have done and continue to do to Black words, thoughts, appeals, and feelings. Let me also state, with the same enthusiasm, that the United States has never liked me. With the constant erasure of Black culture, White America still makes it inherently clear that the color, gloss, and hue of my skin unsettle the puppeteers of the nation’s power structures.
Race can be considered many things. One thing it is not is real. “White” and “Black” are social constructs, much like the English language is a borrowed thing used to ensure that some Americans are perhaps better cared for than another. That disparity exists in many places, and then it permeates everything we see.
These obstacles make it very hard to be Black in the world.
As reparations seem to be nowhere in sight, writing is the most suitable means by which to reclaim my history’s glory — to take the language whipped into our bones and…
