Bertis English, an Assistant Professor of History at Alabama State University is displeased with my recent column, “Hooked on Ebonics.” He wrote the following to me just a few days ago:

Professor Adams, I just read your piece “Hooked on Ebonics” at Townhall.com, which I receive daily. Though I am, of course, familiar with the general platform of the site, as well as its contributors and readership, I was, frankly, taken aback by the seeming ignorance, rambling et cetera of you—a purported academician— in the referenced piece. One, are you familiar with the development of so-called Ebony Phonics, or Ebonics, particularly its 1970s roots and the acidic issues that were debates among certain Oakland school officials during the 1990s? Two, are you truly serious about having your inquiries answered?

Please, Sir, do the academic world a favor: let the tabloid writers, bigots, supremacists (of any “ethnicity”, nationality, religious denomination, “race”) handle the bias; concentrate on intellectual ideas. I am confident that your students and perhaps some University of North Carolina Wilmington faculty and administrators will be better served by the latter course of action.

Some people who read my humorous columns fail to see their humor. Others do but fail to see their seriousness. Professor English is one of those rare readers appearing to be both humorless and wholly unable to grasp the serious theme behind my sarcastic attack on the notion of ebonics scholarships. I’ve written this column today to Professor English (in English) in an effort to elaborate on the point he seems to have missed.

I begin with an example.

Years ago, in my department, there was a black secretary who simply could not write coherent letters. Of course, as a secretary she would have to write letters to parents, job applicants, and others – all on official university stationery. There were so many misspellings and other grammatical errors in her letters that we had to eventually try to get rid of her. We simply had no use for a semi-literate secretary.

But trying to fire a black secretary is about a hard as getting a gay activist to admit that impersonal sodomy contributes to the spread of AIDS. In fact, come to think of it, the Gay Plague of the 1980s and the Ebonic Plague of the 1990s both relied on enablers masquerading as civil rights leaders. But that’s probably another column altogether.

Our department’s lone enabler of the semi-literate secretary happened to be a white social worker. When asked how he could justify keeping the secretary on our staff he said that her grammar was simply a reflection of her culture and, hence, should not be used against her in making an employment decision.

In other words, she couldn’t do any better because she was black. Or, perhaps, the “liberal” social worker was thinking “That’s just how those people talk.”

It is difficult to hear such a comment coming from a white social worker and not cynically believe that he wants various social problems (like illiteracy or semi-literacy) to remain unsolved. Social workers need social problems because they need jobs. That is why they are so often opposed to simple, common sense solutions.

But it is also difficult to hear such a comment coming from a white man and believe that he is not a racist. I won’t complain if people give him the benefit of the doubt. After all, I used to think Elton John was straight.

Put simply, racism is the main reason why whites refuse to criticize the obvious absurdity of Ebonics. Continued...