Controversy Over Ebonics

Re “Educators Defend Use of Ebonics,” Jan. 3: I truly believe that the Los Angeles Unified School District is in poor hands. I am a 38-year-old African American male. I am offended by the school district’s proposal to include Ebonics (or bad English, hip-hop, street slang) to be a part of course curriculum to the tune of an additional $24 million. This is a poor use of limited resources.

This is another attempt from school officials to cover up their poor performance as school administrators. The district needs to go back to the basics and teach the three Rs, which are taught in most private schools. The school system needs help. But I truly feel Ebonics is not the solution.

LLOYD E. WATKINS

Los Angeles

* The great irony of the Ebonics flap emanating from Oakland is that the school board started it in an earnest effort to help children from poor, uneducated backgrounds learn standard English, but the board’s own ineptness with the language prevented it from properly and correctly explaining the situation. For confirmation, look at the explanation of “genetically based,” which officials now say refers to the fact that Ebonics had its “genesis” in the African languages (Dec. 31).

The action of the staff and board in Oakland has done profound damage to professional educators in this country.

SUSAN GUILFORD

Orange

* May cooler heads and hearts on both sides prevail. The problem lay in what the Oakland Ebonics advocates now lamely claim to have been a misunderstanding. Those who presume to teach English at any level, or to advise those who teach, may reasonably be expected to know that “genetic” is a loaded word, and that “Ebonics” itself is loaded coinage. Children must not be used as pawns in the furtherance of a racial or political agenda.

One of the main weapons of snobbery, up or down, is the quality of one’s English. Good English is that which is understood, whether it is “black” or “white,” rooted in Gullah or plummy Oxonian.

FRED SCIFERS

Downey