Linguistics of Liberation: Black Males, Language, and Education

• In Event: 29.090 - Roundtable Session 9
  In Roundtable Session: 29.090-1 - Expanding the Conversation on African American Literacies and Language

Abstract

This paper explores the intersection of language and masculinity in the education of Black males. Based on extensive archival research in Black Linguistics and Black male educational studies, the paper takes data from over 50 years of socio- and critical linguistic scholarship and the most recent education scholarship on Black males to answer the question: How might understanding Black Masculine Language as a legitimate linguistic resource be key to freeing Black people from the tangles of linguistic racism and the traps of deficit logics? In answering this question, this paper describes in rich detail the indistinguishable purposes and patterns of usage that behave according to fixed sets of rules to code and govern BML.

Author

• David E. Kirkland, New York University