Ebonics, or in its anglicized form, African-American Vernacular English (AAVE), AAE (African-American English), or more recently AAL (African-American Language) the terms themselves hotly contested in academia across linguistic disciplines, emerged from myriad diverse African languages and language groups that survived the transatlantic slave trade, genocide, erasure, voyeurism and colonization from white scholars.
Owing to the Black genius of both its creators and descendants, AAE has continually evolved over the course of centuries and still developing a lot faster than the pace at which a voracious global appetite for Black culture can keep up with. AAVE has gone from being widely regarded as “improper” or an “inferior” way of speaking English to everybody and they mama who is NOT Black groveling to learn the latest “internet slang” or google searching, chat GPT’ing, “how to speak like Black people” or “what does the word ‘trifling’ Black people mean?” (these are actual popular searches on Google)—why is that?
Join us as we celebrate, delve into the rich linguistic, phonological, tonal and syntactical aspects of AAE, its regional and hyperlocal subdialects, learn its histories/origins and to do a deep dive into some of the grave economic and sociopolitical consequences of an era of unprecedented co-optation and appropriation of Black language, art, music, thought and speech into white mainstream “American culture” and steps to gatekeep our mouthpiece as corporate forces and non Black celebrities alike fight to the finish to turn immense Black social and cultural capital into actual capital for non-Black communities to the tune of billions. The protection of Black language is truly a matter of life and death, autonomy and the future of Black people—and for those invested in the continued preservation, educating each other is one of the most useful endeavors and an excellent use of our language’s power and meaning. If you want them people to turn it loose and be theyself, join us. If you codeswitch but got a feeling it’s not really necessary or it don’t feel good, join us. If you want to learn more or unlearn even more, join us.
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Ebony P. Donnley (he/him)
Ebony Donnley (he/him) is an NYC based audio engineer, DJ, amateur bassist and writer born and raised in Deep East Oakland, CA. Graduating from UCLA with a Bachelor of Arts in English at the very middle of his class in 2013, he is committed to ushering in the radical redistribution of wealth in the United States in the form of reparations for Black people, an avid lover and listener of Blackness and a dad. Ebony is also one half of the widely acclaimed podcast, Hoodrat to Headwrap. An avowed luddite with an admittedly small digital footprint he’s working to change that: find him on his partner's Instagram from time to time because they live together @ihartericka or newly, on TikTok @lovetoballsholedo or subscribe to his substack on Black cultural preservation: CDs, DVDs. Holler.