Download or read book The Negro Speaks of Rivers written by Langston Hughes and published by Jump At The Sun. This book was released on 2009-01-06 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Langston Hughes has long been acknowledged as the voice, and his poem, The Negro Speaks of Rivers, the song, of the Harlem Renaissance. Although he was only seventeen when he composed it, Hughes already had the insight to capture in words the strength and courage of black people in America. /DIVDIV Artist E.B. Lewis acts as interpreter and visionary, using watercolor to pay tribute to Hughes’s timeless poem, a poem that every child deserves to know.

Download or read book Talking Back Talking Black written by John H. McWhorter and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An authoritative, impassioned celebration of Black English, how it works, and why it matters

Download or read book Africa Speaks America Answers written by Robin D. G. Kelley and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2012-03-13 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, pianist Randy Weston and bassist Ahmed Abdul-Malik celebrated with song the revolutions spreading across Africa. In Ghana and South Africa, drummer Guy Warren and vocalist Sathima Bea Benjamin fused local musical forms with the dizzying innovations of modern jazz. These four were among hundreds of musicians in the 1950's and '60's who forged connections between jazz and Africa that definitively reshaped both their music and the world. Each artist identified in particular ways with Africa's struggle for liberation and made music dedicated to, or inspired by, demands for independence and self-determination. That music was the wild, boundary-breaking exultation of modern jazz. The result was an abundance of conversation, collaboration, and tension between African and African American musicians during the era of decolonization. This collective biography demonstrates how modern Africa reshaped jazz, how modern jazz helped form a new African identity, and how musical convergences and crossings altered politics and culture on both continents. In a crucial moment when freedom electrified the African diaspora, these black artists sought one another out to create new modes of expression. Documenting individuals and places, from Lagos to Chicago, from New York to Cape Town, Robin Kelley gives us a meditation on modernity: we see innovation not as an imposition from the West but rather as indigenous, multilingual, and messy, the result of innumerable exchanges across a breadth of cultures.

Download or read book The Talking Book written by Allen Dwight Callahan and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2008-10-01 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Talking Book casts the Bible as the central character in a vivid portrait of black America, tracing the origins of African-American culture from slavery’s secluded forest prayer meetings to the bright lights and bold style of today’s hip-hop artists. The Bible has profoundly influenced African Americans throughout history. From a variety of perspectives this wide-ranging book is the first to explore the Bible’s role in the triumph of the black experience. Using the Bible as a foundation, African Americans shared religious beliefs, created their own music, and shaped the ultimate key to their freedom—literacy. Allen Callahan highlights the intersection of biblical images with African-American music, politics, religion, art, and literature. The author tells a moving story of a biblically informed African-American culture, identifying four major biblical images—Exile, Exodus, Ethiopia, and Emmanuel. He brings these themes to life in a unique African-American history that grows from the harsh experience of slavery into a rich culture that endures as one of the most important forces of twenty-first-century America.

Download or read book African American Vernacular English written by John Russell Rickford and published by Wiley-Blackwell. This book was released on 1999-07-16 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In response to the flood of interest in African American Vernacular English (AAVE) following the recent controversy over "Ebonics," this book brings together sixteen essays on the subject by a leading expert in the field, one who has been researching and writing on it for a quarter of a century.

Download or read book You Re an African American so Why Are You Talking Like a White Person written by Dr. Jeffery L. Walker and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2019-01-16 with total page 77 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, I will show African Americans how and why they speak the way they do. Many cultural factors play a significant role in how African Americans develop their linguistic patterns. I am more concerned with the way African Americans speak today. Although the histories of African American linguistic patterns are essential, I am more focused on the here and now. Therefore, I will direct my attention toward the nest (family system) because here is where the development of linguistic patterns starts. I also want my brothers and sisters to understand that they live in a linguistically prejudiced society that only accepts Standard American English as the official tongue that represents the United States of America. The bottom line is, for African Americans to become successful in today’s society, they must become a code-switching culture, for they are not and will never be considered a bilingual group since their native linguistic tongue is linguistically defunct. And so, African Americans, you need to know that throughout your life, you will experience linguistic prejudice if you continue to speak only AAVE.

Download or read book Black Talk written by Geneva Smitherman and published by Mariner Books. This book was released on 1994 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fully revised and updated -- the ultimate guide to black talk from all segments of the African American community.Do you want to be down with the latest hype terms from the Hip Hop world? Black Talk is the perfect source. "Even if you think you're hip, you'd better look up kitchen, got her nose open, jump salty, and hundreds of other sayings, former or current, that testify to the linguistic originality of Black speakers," said Frederic G. Cassidy, chief editor of the Dictionary of American Regional English. This new edition of Black Talk includes more than 300 new words and phrases and, now more than ever, reflects the ever-changing meanings and uses of this vital and rich part of our language. In a style that is always informative and always entertaining, Geneva Smitherman takes this dictionary far beyond a list of words. Black Talk is a cultural map that charts word meanings along the highways and byways of African American life.

Download or read book Word from the Mother written by Geneva Smitherman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2006-04-18 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written by the hugely respected linguist, Geneva Smitherman, this book presents a definitive statement on African American English. Enriched by her evocative and inimitable prose style, the study presents an overview of past debates on the speech of African Americans, as well as providing a vision for the future. Featuring cartoons which demonstrate the relationship between language and race, as well as common perceptions of African American Language, she explores its contribution to mainstream American English and includes a summary of expressions as a suggested linguistic core of AAL. As global manifestations of Black Language increase, she argues that, through education, we must broaden our conception of AAL and its speakers, and further examine the implications of gender, age and class on AAL. Perhaps most of all we must appreciate the ‘artistic and linguistic genius’ of AAL, presented in this book through rap and Hip Hop lyrics and the explorations of rhyme and rhetoric in the Black speech community. Word from the Mother is an essential read for students of African American English, language, culture and sociolinguistics, as well as the general reader interested in the worldwide ‘crossover’ of black popular culture.

Download or read book Do You Speak American written by Robert Macneil and published by Nan A. Talese. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is American English in decline? Are regional dialects dying out? Is there a difference between men and women in how they adapt to linguistic variations? These questions, and more, about our language catapulted Robert MacNeil and William Cran—the authors (with Robert McCrum) of the language classic The Story of English—across the country in search of the answers. Do You Speak American? is the tale of their discoveries, which provocatively show how the standard for American English—if a standard exists—is changing quickly and dramatically. On a journey that takes them from the Northeast, through Appalachia and the Deep South, and west to California, the authors observe everyday verbal interactions and in a host of interviews with native speakers glean the linguistic quirks and traditions characteristic of each area. While examining the histories and controversies surrounding both written and spoken American English, they address anxieties and assumptions that, when explored, are highly emotional, such as the growing influence of Spanish as a threat to American English and the special treatment of African-American vernacular English. And, challenging the purists who think grammatical standards are in serious deterioration and that media saturation of our culture is homogenizing our speech, they surprise us with unpredictable responses. With insight and wit, MacNeil and Cran bring us a compelling book that is at once a celebration and a potent study of our singular language. Each wave of immigration has brought new words to enrich the American language. Do you recognize the origin of 1. blunderbuss, sleigh, stoop, coleslaw, boss, waffle? Or 2. dumb, ouch, shyster, check, kaput, scram, bummer? Or 3. phooey, pastrami, glitch, kibbitz, schnozzle? Or 4. broccoli, espresso, pizza, pasta, macaroni, radio? Or 5. smithereens, lollapalooza, speakeasy, hooligan? Or 6. vamoose, chaps, stampede, mustang, ranch, corral? 1. Dutch 2. German 3. Yiddish 4. Italian 5. Irish 6. Spanish

Download or read book Soul Talk written by Akasha Gloria Hull and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2001-04-01 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: • A celebration of the journey of African-American women toward a new spirituality grounded in social awareness, black American tradition, metaphysics, and heightened creativity. • Features illuminating insights from Alice Walker, Toni Cade Bambara, Lucille Clifton, Dolores Kendrick, Sonia Sanchez, Michele Gibbs, Geraldine McIntosh, Masani Alexis DeVeaux and Namonyah Soipan. • By a widely published scholar, poet, and activist who has been interviewed by the press, television, and National Public Radio's All Things Considered From the last part of the twentieth century through today, African-American women have experienced a revival of spirituality and creative force, fashioning a uniquely African-American way to connect with the divine. In Soul Talk, Akasha Gloria Hull examines this multifaceted spirituality that has both fostered personal healing and functioned as a formidable weapon against racism and social injustice. Through fascinating and heartfelt conversations with some of today's most creative and powerful women--women whose spirituality encompasses, among others, traditional Christianity, Tibetan Buddhism, Native American teachings, meditation, the I Ching, and African-derived ancestral reverence--the author explores how this new spiritual consciousness is manifested, how it affects the women who practice it, and how its effects can be carried to others. Using a unique and readable blend of interviews, storytelling, literary critique, and practical suggestions of ways readers can incorporate similar renewal into their daily lives, Soul Talk shows how personal and social change are possible through reconnection with the spirit.

Download or read book Talk That Talk written by Linda Goss and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 1989-11-15 with total page 532 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contains almost 100 stories by famous yarn-spinners from the United States, Africa, and the Caribbean, ranging from ghost stories to ghetto adventures.

Download or read book Talkin that Talk written by Geneva Smitherman and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of essays in which Geneva Smitherman, a native speaker of African American Language, presents her opinions about Ebonics and related issues.

Download or read book The Uniqueness of African American Vernacular English written by Lea Lorena Jerns and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2014-06-13 with total page 20 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2014 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, Humboldt-University of Berlin, language: English, abstract: "The language, only the language...it is the thing that black people love so much – the saying of words, holding them on the tongue, experimenting with them, playing with them. It’s a love, a passion. Its function is like a preacher’s: to make you stand up out of your seat, make you lose yourself and ear yourself. The worst of all possible things that could happen is to lose that language. There are certain things I cannot say with-out recourse to my language." With these words Toni Morrison, an American professor and novelist, probably expressed exactly what many African American people felt and still feel. In her statement she refers to the so-called “African American Vernacular English”, abbreviated AAVE, which is “a variant of English spoken mostly by black people in the United States.” (Jokinen 2008: 1) It is also known as “African American English”, “Black English Vernacular”, “Black Vernacular Eng-lish”, “Black Vernacular”, “Black English” or “Ebonics”. It is important to point out that not all African Americans inevitably speak this ethnolect and that there are also people with a non-African American background who nonetheless may speak it. (cf. Patrick 2007: 1) Fur-thermore, it is hard to define who actually speaks AAVE as some speakers may only use some features, e.g. vocabulary or grammatical aspects, of this variant. (cf. Jokinen 2008: 1) AAVE is a variant of English that you can see and hear every day – it is present in the Internet and in many songs and that makes it so interesting to find out more about it and to get a better understanding of AAVE. In this paper, I will focus on different aspects. I will start dealing with the question “Where does AAVE come from?” under point two and will continue with a brief overview of some basic grammatical features of AAVE in point three. Under point four, I will present and discuss a concrete example of a text, in which AAVE plays an important role, namely in the short story The Gilded Six-Bits of Zora Neale Hurston, written in 1933. Afterwards, under point five, I am going to talk about AAVE in Rap and HipHop songs as there can be found a considerable number of this kind of music all around the world and, under point 6, I will deal with the controversial question whether AAVE should be taught in schools or not. Finally, in the conclusion of my paper, I would like to let the uniqueness of AAVE and the importance of recognizing...

Download or read book You Are an African American So Why Are You Talking Like a White Person written by Jeffery L. Walker and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2010-08-01 with total page 110 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many African Americans are faced with linguistic prejudice because of the way that they speak. They say that African Americans linguistic patterns are severely defunct. This is ludicious because African Americans speak a unique dialect that has it's cultural roots. Yesterday, they called it Ebonics but today, it is called African American Vernacular English (AAVE). Many African Americans are not aware of what or how they are speaking. Therefore, this book is a "must read" book for African Americans. This book will serve as a drum major to assist African Americans in navigating their linguistic patterns. They will understand the significance of "code switching".

Download or read book How to Make Black America Better written by and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2009-04-02 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Issuing a powerful call for constructive social action, the popular radio and television commentator Tavis Smiley has assembled the voices of leading African American artists, intellectuals, and politicians from Chuck D to Cornel West to Maxine Waters. How to Make Black America Better takes a pragmatic, solutions-oriented approach that includes Smiley’s own ten challenges to the African American community. Smiley and his contributors stress the family tie, the power of community networks, the promise of education, and the leverage of black economic and political strength in shaping a new vision of America. Encouraging African Americans to realize the potential of their own leadership and to work collectively from the bottom up, the selections offer new ideas for addressing vital issues facing black communities. Featuring original essays by some of our most important thinkers, How to Make Black America Better is an essential book for anyone concerned with the status of African Americans today.

Download or read book Linguistic Justice written by April Baker-Bell and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-04-28 with total page 129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bringing together theory, research, and practice to dismantle Anti-Black Linguistic Racism and white linguistic supremacy, this book provides ethnographic snapshots of how Black students navigate and negotiate their linguistic and racial identities across multiple contexts. By highlighting the counterstories of Black students, Baker-Bell demonstrates how traditional approaches to language education do not account for the emotional harm, internalized linguistic racism, or consequences these approaches have on Black students' sense of self and identity. This book presents Anti-Black Linguistic Racism as a framework that explicitly names and richly captures the linguistic violence, persecution, dehumanization, and marginalization Black Language-speakers endure when using their language in schools and in everyday life. To move toward Black linguistic liberation, Baker-Bell introduces a new way forward through Antiracist Black Language Pedagogy, a pedagogical approach that intentionally and unapologetically centers the linguistic, cultural, racial, intellectual, and self-confidence needs of Black students. This volume captures what Antiracist Black Language Pedagogy looks like in classrooms while simultaneously illustrating how theory, research, and practice can operate in tandem in pursuit of linguistic and racial justice. A crucial resource for educators, researchers, professors, and graduate students in language and literacy education, writing studies, sociology of education, sociolinguistics, and critical pedagogy, this book features a range of multimodal examples and practices through instructional maps, charts, artwork, and stories that reflect the urgent need for antiracist language pedagogies in our current social and political climate.

Download or read book Speak Brother written by Roland S. Martin and published by Romar Media Group. This book was released on 2002 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unrelenting, uncompromising and downright honest, Roland S. Martin offers a bold and fresh perspective for the st century. He tackles a variety of issues with passion, knowledge and spirituality. Whether its commentaries on sports, social justice or business, Martin isnt a conservative or a liberal Democrat or a Republican. He is simply a black man in America.