ENGL 102-AS21
29 September 2017
ENGL 102-AS21
29 September 2017
Summary of “Talkin Black in a White Man’s World” by Samy H. Alim
In the chapter, “Talkin Black in this White Man’s World,” from Samy H. Alim’s scholarly monograph Roc the Mic Right, Alim argues for “linguistic equanimity- the structural and social equality of languages-”(51) and how racial tensions and linguistic supremacy currently exist between Black Language (BL) and White Mainstream English (WME).
Alim discusses how the gentrification of the community is correlated with the demolition of the only high school in Sunnyside, CA. Gentrification is the assimilation of Black People to the White middle-class taste as the population gained more Whites. In particular, Alim discusses how speakers of BL experience discrimination regularly compared to those of WME and that BL is used cautiously in “White public spaces”(56), especially in schools. He defines this “white public space,” a term that he borrows from Page and Thomas, as any place in which Black and White people interact and where there is a visible and emotional ideology of linguistic white supremacy. This causes the White style English to become the norm that is inadvertently racist and unrecognized by public.
Alim presents linguistic supremacy being most prominent in public schools. As a teacher-researcher, he conducts a research at Haven High where he interviews a teacher about her thoughts and attitudes towards BL. He infers that her negative views of Black style langu...
