If Black English Isn't A Language, What is?

James Baldwin brings to light the fact that most people may speak the same NATIONAL language but can mean different things because they are from different areas. The example that he uses to explain this is people from Paris, Marseilles, Quebec, Guadeloupe, Manique and Senegal, Mr. Baldwin show that even though they all speak the same language, french, they could all mean something completely different then what the others have said. Even here in America, white citizens have changed the meaning of black words to suit their own purposes such as changing "jazz me, baby" to the Jazz Age. Even blacks that were forced to come over as slaves could bearly speak to each other because different tribes have different ways of talking and their words mean something different. It was in this time that blacks started to learn how t talk to eachother so the black church was started and so did "black english".

Mr. Baldwin also says "A language come into exstence by means of brutal necessity, and the rules of the language are dictated by what the language must convey." Through out history many things have been created out necessity, but nothing is more inportant then a language for you and others like you can speak. Mr. Baldwin makes a very good point at the end of this piece "it may very well be that both the child, and his elder, have concluded that they have nothing whatever to learn from people of a counrty that has managed to learn so little." This comment strikes true becuase since America says that it is diverse, then why don't we know more and know how to communicate with others from a different background.