Opinion Column: You're an Oreo

I was 11 years old when I left the country, only to be thrown into a country halfway across the globe. I was in a definite state of culture shock. The country was filled with expensive cars, beautiful houses and luxury brands, instead of 7/elevens, launder mats, and thrift stores.   The language spoken here was nothing like home. My English changed, allowing me to fit in smoothly with my new 5th-grade class.

“Girl, you turned into a damn Oreo over there” are the exact words that I heard when I went back to visit my old friends for the first time 3 years later. “An Oreo?” I asked, completely oblivious to the new slang and hidden meanings in words. An Oreo is a cookie for most; but here and now, it meant, being black on the outside, but white on the inside.

Feeling hurt, that the way I spoke was a means of crediting my blackness, I would then say, “Hol’up, me, and Oreo, girl don’t get it twisted” consciously code-switching instantly.  And then it just comes naturally. My English completely changing into what people call “Street or Black Talk”

“Black Talk” has been considered historically and today to be bad English. It’s not. trust me. As a matter of fact, “studies done from the 1970’s to the present have classified AAVE as a DIALECT of English. Its own language resulting from a combination of English words and African rooted grammar.

AAVE is independent, having its own words, and rules. “More importantly, IT IS PART OF AN EXTREMELY RICH BLACK CULTURE… louder for the people at the back.

The stigma against black talk (AAVE), and it's association with low education, gangs, violence, and brutality is rooted in media. The media depicts black talk as poor, associated with being dependent on welfare, single mothers, and consistently overhyping the link between black talk and criminality, gangs, and violence.

These stereotypes are not staying in the world of fake media; instead, it has leaked out into the real world, creating an expectation of what black talk is, and an assumption on the people who speak it.  

There is no problem with people speaking “proper”, in fact, every person should be able to. However, it should not come at the price of losing our language. It’s alright if you don’t “speak black”, it doesn’t make you any less black than those who do.