My mother said it was important that I learn English quickly.
Otherwise the American students would make fun of me or, even
worse, beat me. A lot of other mothers from the nursing home where
she worked had told her that their children were getting into fights in
school because they were accused of having “HBO” – Haitian Body
Odor. Many of the American kids even accused Haitians of having
AIDS because they had heard on television that only the four H’s got
AIDS – heroin addicts, hemophiliacs, homosexuals and Haitians. I
wanted to tell my mother that I didn’t want to go to school. Frankly, I
was afraid.
(NPR, All Things Considered, September 30, 1994)Her experiences (as well as documented experiences of other Haitian
immigrants) indicate that there is a hierarchy among immigrants who
come into the African American community, and the Haitians are very low
in the pecking order. How AAVE fits into the complex issue of acquisition
of English for native speakers of Haitian Creole and other Caribbean and
African languages is something which has not yet been explored in depth,
but which deserves to be studied both as a linguistic issue and a social one.
It would be useful, in this context, to look at the way prominent African
Americans deal with the conflict inherent to the choice between languages.
In the first edition of this book I provided a close reading of a 1987 Oprah
Winfrey taping entitled “Black English.” Much of that discussion had to be
left out of this second edition, because Harpo Productions (Winfrey’s
production company) decided to no longer allow me to use extended
examples. I have edited that discussion to stay within the bounds of fair
use, but for anyone who would like to read it in its entirety, I suggest
locating a copy of the first edition.
The second example I include here is an episode related by Shelby
Steele in his 1991 book The Content of Our Characters.^20 The Oprah
Winfrey taping was live, with an audience that was primarily African
American. The experts invited to contribute to the conversation were two
black women (Dr. Geneva Smithermann, a linguist specializing in AAVE)
and Dr. Bernadette Anderson, a professional accent reduction specialist.
The third guest was a white male, a professional radio news broadcaster.
It is important to remember that Oprah is not impartial on this subject.
She has demonstrated her comfort speaking AAVE in a number of