“African American Vernacular English and the White Weaponization of Speech” (2023-2024)
The prompt for this paper was essentially to choose a class reading and argue with it—a task which, considering the convincing readings I had been assigned, terrified me. I felt in no way qualified to debate with any of the available authors—least of all bell hooks in her essay “Language: Teaching New Worlds/New Words.” Yet, I could not help being drawn to hooks’s arguments. I wanted to think about her words more, and so it was that hooks is the author I chose.
In her essay, bell hooks defines standard English as “the mask which hides the loss of so many tongues” and examines the roots of AAVE as a form of resistance to racial oppression. She claims that nonstandard English is itself a political statement—one that must not be left behind as students pursue higher education. hooks thus advocates expanded use of vernaculars like AAVE in academic spaces; yet she simultaneously laments the loss of meaning in vernacular when subsumed into a new context. The question driving this paper was thus a weighing of these opposing concepts: How can vernacular languages be accepted into wider use without losing their historical and cultural value?
In the study of vernacular, my mind immediately turned to a high-school reading of abolitionist Sojourner Truth’s famous,and infamously misquoted,m “Ain’t I A Woman?” speech. This speech, which historians believe to have been transcribed in hyperbolic dialect by a white listener, adds a layer of complication to hooks’s argument. What happens, I began to ask myself, when a dialect is employed for the gain of those who did not grow up speaking it? And if there is a linguistic line between representation and appropriation, where then does it lie?
I do not think my writing intends to answer these questions per se. I would, in fact, be a poor candidate to do so, considering that I have little to no experience with any nonstandard form of English. Instead, this paper—labeled by my professor as a “critical analysis essay”—brings hooks’s work into conversation with a number of contemporary and historical examples. Through analysis of modern news articles, historical literature, and a second-grade classroom, I introduce hooks’s claims to increasingly complicated scenarios. I present no real solutions. I simply open a conversation, as much for myself as for any reader; and inviting conversation is, I think, what all writing ought to do.
Hana Greif, ’26, is a CAS sophomore planning to major in English literature and history. She grew up in a small Connecticut town, but has always loved to travel and is fascinated every day by New York City. From a young age, Hana has found solace in reading and writing, and she will be working as a writing tutor in NYU’s Writing Center in the hopes of sharing this passion with other students. She is particularly interested in feminism and gender studies in literature, art, and history; recently, her writing has examined social justice via a literary and linguistic perspective. In her free time, she loves exploring museums, perusing used bookstores, and wandering around New York City.