The Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. had barely finished addressing the Detroit branch of the NAACP’s Fight for Freedom Fund Dinner on Sunday when television pundits began criticizing his references to educational research showing differences in the ways Black and White children learn or use language.
He was somehow arguing, according to the analysts, that a different standard be applied for Black students, thus dooming them to disadvantage.
Those who follow education might recognize that the studies Wright cited by Dr. Geneva Smitherman and Dr. Janice E. Hale go back several decades, and they have been widely debated.
Nowhere was it clear, however, that any of the broadcasters and analysts had ever heard of these concepts or the research by the learned scholars whom the former pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago quoted, and much of the message was drowned out in the subsequent campaign spin after Wright spoke again on Monday.
Referring to Smitherman, who is a university distinguished professor of English at Michigan State University (MSU) and formerly of Wayne State University in Detroit, Wright cited her studies on linguistics.
According to a CNN transcript, he said:
“Dr. Smitherman compiled the findings of an interdisciplinary research along with her own brilliant findings to show us that the language of Black Americans was different, not deficient. She combined the findings of early childhood education, linguistics, socio-linguistics and the pedagogy of the oppressed to demonstrate most powerfully that different does not mean deficient. It simply means what? Different. I believe a change is going to come because many of us are committed to changing the way we see others who are different.”
Through her work, Smitherman defined Black English as a distinctive language with a grammar and lexicon of its own, a language as legitimate as any other variant of English — American, British, Australian, for example — not just a substandard version. She and others have argued that educators need to understand those differences to help Black children achieve.
