some thoughts if i may...
- ebonics is a sick joke being played on the black community, which is increasingly characterized by a growing middle class and a "left-out" bottom class.
sadly, that poor class is not engaging in self-destructive behavior as bill cosby incorrectly alleges, but its trapped in bad socioeconomic conditions and the new dillemma of holding multiple jobs with a decreasing amount of take-home pay.
i serve with a lot of these young black men bill cosby and others have slandered, and it sickens me that many of the officers and senior enlisted act no better than cosby and his ilk have towards them. a young black man can be dual-warfare qualed (a big deal in the navy), quite up to snuff on his job and extra duties, and have a sharp uniform, but the moment he opens his mouth or expresses his youthful enthusiasm for 50 cent or a flashy new "ride", he gets judged to be a shitbag of some sort by the leadership. or worse, the fact he may have fathered a child before he came in the navy has some sort of bearing on what kind of person he is "now", in much the same way other young black men are judged for past mistakes even though they have made good on their responsibilities or are cleaning their act up.
- racism is alive and well, not as prolific as it was before, but its still very much there. as a white boy in college taking my three black friends to work every afternoon (on my own way to work), i was pulled over every other day by police officers, who treated me with respect but seemed ready to spit, kick or shoot the black passengers for no good reason other than the color of their skin.
- i was a white boy at a historically black college. in my year there, i had ONE racial incident. that was a lesbian black female who didn't appreciate the fact her roommate had a crush on me and tried to provoke a racial fight over it. otherwise, i was respected and had and still have many great friends from there. i have known many blacks who have been the only black (or a small minority of blacks) at a white school and they have gone through hell. i don't know how to explain it, i am certainly not proud of it.
got a question for ya... what did 2pac and jack johnson have in common?
both were very famous black men in their day, who could be as crude as could be but also enjoyed (and held extensive knowledge and understanding of) sophisticated pursuits, like classical music, philosophy, painting, theater, opera (jack johnson) and classic cinema, political and social idealogies, poetry, micro/macroeconomics (2pac)
yet the mainstream (white) media and leaders never understood this, and persecuted and prosecuted them at the drop of a hat.
100 years later, some people still do not get it.