The Skin That We Speak: An Exploration Of Language Discrimination And Its Impact On Early Childhood

The Harmful Effects of Language on Children’s Learning

In its various chapters the book “The Skin That We Speak” explains how language and behavior in the early childhood may have direct impact on the future learning, cognition, and behavior of a child (Delpit and Dowdy). This has been especially emphasized in an African American context, where the Afro-American people face a lot of discrimination, and racial treatment for the way they speak their language. The tongue and the dialect of the Afro-Americans or the “blacks” are quite different from the language and accent of the native Americans. Hence they have to go through discrimination and racial slurs (Hall:40). This has been explained in an earnest and disgruntled way through various accounts by authors Dowdy and Delpit, which often also had satirical elements.

The thesis statement of this essay is that the students from the African American community often face discrimination because of their linguistic and accentual difference with their American counterpart, and the language teaching of a person in the childhood plays an important part in their intellectual growth.

The overall tone that has been used in the literature has contributed towards maintaining the overall narrative of explaining how “language supremacy” of the “whites”, has played a role in degrading and making the Afro American “Blacks” in feeling a much lower group. The language of the “blacks” called the ebonics is often aimed to be “fixed” so that the language comes closer to the standard American English (Ahearn).

In the following quote by Dowdy it can be understood that being “good girl” was defined as being a speaker of the language of the colonizers in the way that the colonizers wanted, “Through my mother’s and grandmother’s tutelage I was on a journey to becoming the ‘good girl’ according to the colonizer’s belief system. The more I succeeded in this role, the more I felt segregated from my peers.”

Also Delpit mentions about her daughter who was admitted to a school mainly dominated by “whites”, “…Although the instruction was excellent, she seemed to be sinking into some sort of emotional abyss…She was often excluded by the other girls…As she developed new friends, her self-esteem soared and once more she became the funny, creative, self-assured kid I recognized.” When she was admitted in the school dominated by “whites” she was excluded by other girls of the school, and she often talked about trying to be more beautiful somehow, and also thinking about the possibility of doing a lip surgery. However, when she was then put into a school where the majority was “African American”, she was becoming a “self-assured kid” with higher self-esteem.

Discrimination against African American Community

The book as a whole throw much light on the potential harmful effects that language can have on children in their learning phase. Language is the basic tool with which a person takes forward all other social and academic endeavors. Even if a person wants to communicate, language is the prime medium. It is very important for the guardians of a child to take care that proper language education is induced into the children so that their future growth is secured. However, in the beginning if there is a degrading impact of language on the children it can hamper their natural cognitive growth. In the book there are accounts of children of African American origin who are discriminated on the accounts of their language and accent. In some cases, even the parents of the children were unhappy about the ebonic accent of their offspring. In the case of Dowdy she felt she was forced to speak the language of the colonizers and that was not her natural tendency. In the classrooms the students having different accents are often cornered and excluded. Although it is true that there must be a standard language that would be used for official and academic communication and writing, however that does not imply that the other languages of different origins must be degraded or excluded.

The different narratives of the book intersect at the single point that the different people associated with the incidents faced or experienced in their lifetime some kind of racial discrimination based on their language and dialect which changed the course of their lives in various ways. The young girl who was admitted in the school dominated by the “white Americans” was discriminated in such a way that she started feeling that she was not beautiful enough and that went to the extreme of making her consider lip surgery. This reflects the deep impact that the language discrimination poses on a young person. There are various peripheral impacts such as depression, feeling separated and subjected to problems like anxiety of social interaction and discourse. The colonial regimes made the system of colonization in a way that anyone who speaks differently is automatically termed as “inferior”. It is fed in the mind of the colonized powers that their way of speaking or way of life is inferior, in way that their own parents want their offspring to not speak in the “ebonic language” and prefer them to adopt to the foreign lifestyle. Delpit’s daughter when was admitted to the school majorly dominated by Afro-American’s she felt comfortable with her body, however she also picked up the ebonic language and behavior which made the mother unhappy and worried, therefore the colonized brainwashing is such that the language evolved from the mixture of old Bantu language group and English is seemed to be derogatory by those people themselves what to speak of the “whites”.

Language Supremacy and Its Degradation Effect on Afro-American People

The authors explore the links between language and various other factors through different narratives in the books. The book comprises of various accounts in its different chapters which explore the kinks of language and various other social aspects. Language forms a very important part of individual identity of a person. A person grows up speaking and hearing a particular language, and that language becomes an identity of their existence. Now when suddenly in some different cultural settings there may be discrimination because of the language spoken it would be difficult for the person to survive in the new social setting. Language also has close links with political hierarchy. The Afro-Americans who had been historically brought to the Americas forcefully to be utilized as slaves, were originally speakers of African native languages (Williams-Farrier: 230). The Bantu language group consists of a number of languages that are spoken all over Africa, and the Afro-Americans have strong influence of Bantu language group in their dialect or accent (Guthrie). Now politically people speaking such language has been cornered and the supremacy of the colonial accent has been historically upheld. In the book in Chapter 5 states “A study in Canada showed that many teachers will evaluate their students on the basis of their voices and physical appearance, even when they have academics work such as written compositions or art work on which to appraise students”. Stubbs mentions “The higher up the social class scale one goes, the less one encounters regional variation in speech”. Often there are cultural conflicts happening due to the situation where one culture tries to overpower the other. In chapter 6, educational psychologist and historian Asa Hilliard III explains that there is a strong connection between “historically oppressed” Afro-American children and the present situation of their education, and discrimination surrounding their language. He states “African American children need to learn languages and content other than that which they may have learned up until now. The teaching practice and the assessment process needs to reflect the historical and cultural legacy of what African American students bring to the classroom.”

The book is very systematically divided into several sections which ultimately concludes the importance of language and early education in a child’s growth, and in understanding the concept the ongoing debate regarding the Ebonic language and the education of “African Americans” has been referred to through various accounts and narratives.  The book starts with narrative of people from different backgrounds but all of whom have experienced the discrimination surrounding the Afro-Americans and their ebonic language, after this section about the personal accounts, comes the next section of linguistic analysis. Here the origins of the various African languages and their influence on the present ebonic dialect is analyzed. It is understood by examples how the present “ebonic” tongue has been developed tracking through time. In the last section policy implementation of various agencies has been analyzed. Example is the policy of accepting ebonic as a separate language. This decision has been contested by various entities citing that this will further increase discrimination, however many have welcomed the move on the grounds that with the new complete language status they can speak the language proudly and use it in various purposes without being discriminated.

The book in its narration has “encouraged educators to analyze their own linguistic blind spots and see language as an ongoing process of discovery”, by establishing that language cannot be a static and unchangeable subject. With intermingling of various cultures, and new trends emerging, language is a dynamic subject that picks up many new things with time. The teachers must be cooperative with the students who are from different linguistic backgrounds and equality must be established in the classrooms among all students from all cultures.

Reference and Bibliography:

Ahearn, Laura M. Living language: An introduction to linguistic anthropology. Vol. 2. John Wiley & Sons, 2016.
Price, Richard, and Sidney W. Mintz. “The birth of African-American culture.” African-American Religion. Routledge, 2013. 46-62.

Baker Jr, Houston A. Blues, ideology, and Afro-American literature: A vernacular theory. University of Chicago Press, 2013.

Delpit, Lisa, and Joanne Kilgour Dowdy, eds. The skin that we speak: Thoughts on language and culture in the classroom. The New Press, 2008.

Guthrie, Malcolm. The Classification of the Bantu Languages Bound with Bantu Word Division. Vol. 11. Routledge, 2017.

Hall, Stuart. “Cultural identity and diaspora.” Diaspora and visual culture. Routledge, 2014. 35-47.

Williams-Farrier, Bonnie J. “Signifying, Narrativizing, and Repetition: Radical Approaches to Theorizing African American Language.” Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism 15.1 (2016): 218-242.