Generations of Black children grew up learning that their home language isn’t acceptable in school or the workplace. A movement is underway in California to change that.
Whether at home or at work as a policy strategist and university lecturer, Ashley Williams said she feels relaxed sliding between Black English and standard English.
She didn’t feel comfortable communicating this way growing up in South Los Angeles.
Williams said that when she was 3 or 4 years old, her grandmother would correct the way she pronounced words like “napkin” whenever she dropped the “p” sound. Her older sister and cousin also told her the way she spoke: “amongst our community wasn’t OK at the schoolhouse.”…