teachers discriminate against speakers of stigmatized varieties of English;
second, it is agreed that in such an atmosphere of rejection, no child can
thrive. From these two facts come the conclusion that *SAE must be
acquired and the vernacular put aside. This may seem to be common sense
and logical, but it is in fact logical only in so far as one accepts the
underlying premise of linguistic superiority and the primacy of economic
motivations.
FACT: Language A and Language B are equal in linguistic and
cultural terms. →
FACT: Language B is rejected by teachers and employers. →
FACT: Rejection has a negative effect on the speakers of Language B.
↓
*CONCLUSION: Language B must be discarded in favor of
Language A.When successful middle-class African Americans argue that AAVE must
not be tolerated in public forums, the tone is often highly defensive, and
one reason for that must be the awareness of the undeniable conclusion
that to take such a stance is “surrendering to prejudice” (Young 2007: 108–
109).
The teacher discriminates because the employer does; the child pays the
price of that discrimination by accommodating and assimilating. The only
way to achieve pluralistic goals, we are told, is to make everyone alike. In
a confrontation between the powered and the disempowered, it is very
rarely the empowered who must give way in the resolution of conflict. It is
never suggested that speakers of language A stop and consider the nature
of their prejudice, and how to end it.
The results of appropriacy argumentation
By the time they finish their elementary education, most children are firm
believers in the appropriacy argument. If they are native speakers of a
language other than SAE, they will confess their uneasiness: “The more
you get into [learning SAE],” says a student in South Carolina, “the more
I realize not how bad I sound but how much better I could sound” (ABC
Evening News, December 15, 1991).