11/10/22. Rhetorical Analysis Essay:

There is a clear distinction between the way that different communities speak theEnglish language. English is the primary or only vessel of communication for most Americans. As a country home to many cultural communities, it is only natural that different forms of English would develop. White and Black Americans have developed very different styles of speaking, each style having distinct standards of articulation. Although these different English’s are mutually discernable, a part of society has chosenone to hold above the other. The downsides to this development outweigh the advantages as the benefit to the majority comes at the cost of the minority. Black Americans are harmed because White American English became considered the language’s standard to be pushed on all communities through mass media and especially education, and furthermore there should be no rigid definition of one supreme and proper “Standard English”.

American Poet and UC Berkely professor, June Jordan, in her political essay, “Nobody Mean More To Me Than You And The Future Life Of Willie Jordan”, narrates an eye opening account of her young African American students and their relationships with language at home and in the classroom. Jordan’s purpose is to propose that Black Americans are harmed because White American English became considered the language’s standard to be pushed on all communities through mass media and especially education, and that there should be no rigid definition of one supreme and proper “Standard English”. She adopts an informative tone in order to educate anyone interested in race theory or linguistic education so that they can view the subject matter in a new light. “Nobody Mean More To Me Than You And The Future Life Of Willie Jordan”, by June Jordan, is a short story about June Jordan teaching a new course that studied historical and current literature in light of race. In the story, Jordan and her primarily young black students are reflecting on and analyzing The Color Purple by AliceWalker. Before the account, the essay opens with an inference Jordan Makes on race and language in America within the context of the rest of the world. She states that although Black English is far from a rare thing, it is not supported or accepted by the rest of society. This puts Black Americans in a position where society major aspects of every role model or example that black communities provide black children to grow up with. It becomes engrained in the minds of African Americans that their speech is undesirable, which leads most to abandon that aspect of their identities to escape a life of unacceptance and social inferiority. This puts Black English, and all that it carries, in a state of endangerment. As English’s association moves farther away from being just England’s language, it is becoming a platform of communication used natively, or non-natively, by countries all over the world. She highlights that it makes no sense for there to be a supreme set of rules and standards of this language, especially determined by a singular group. She cites numbers to display the large population that depend on English as their native language, and how African Americans make up such a large part of that population. Just as different countries have different standards of English, Black and White Americans have different standards of English. As these White standards and Black standards grow even farther apart, White English has become an untouchable sole “Standard English” that black Americans are expected to assimilate to. Black Americans and their language proficiency are judged in terms of this White English. Unlike other countries, where multiple languages or dialects coexist well in education, all Americans are forced to education that accommodates solely White English. The Essay shifts focus to Jordan’s classroom, where she and her students are reflecting on their reading from The Color Purple. After Jordan asks her class to share their opinions on the text, the students are reluctant to respond. Eventually they all start to share the criticisms they had with the language of the text, saying that it did not “look right” (Jordan, pg. 2/364), or that the characters talked “funny” (Jordan, pg. 2/364). Jordan was shocked as her primarily black class used that very same language to say that they were not comfortable with those speech patterns being used in a prominent book. The class was unaware of the fact that this was indeed their own black language as Jordan had them translating the dialogue into “Standard English”. Eventually, the class was able to recognize that Walker was using the Black English dialogue to tell the readers the race and identities of the characters. Jordan and the students realized that they were just not used to seeing printed literature representing the way they speak. This made the class question why it was that they have never seen their own diction in written language and whether or not they could learn to read and write it. 

Jordan starts her composition painting the picture of the typical experience a young black man or woman would have growing up. This picture is best characterized by black youth developing a mindset of alienation, rejection, and otherness by learning that they are on track to follow in the footsteps of role models that society shuns for their black characteristics. Rather than directly making a claim on the effect that “Standard English” takes on Black Americans, Jordan tosses the reader into their shoes even before defining the term. She injects a taste of the experience to hook the reader and orient their gaze towards the topic at hand. Jordan uses terms like “us” and “our” (Jordan, pg. 1/363) to share the experience with her reader when she writes “But then we approach our maturity inside a larger social body that will not support our efforts to become anything other than the clones of those who are neither our mothers nor our fathers.”(Jordan, pg. 1/363) After Jordan prepares her readers, she describes how these maturing Black Americans are prompted to determine if they are willing to abandon their “proud, and singular, identity” “hoping to please those who will never accept anyone different from themselves” (Jordan, pg. 1/363). Jordan continues by referencing other English speaking countries in order to establish the idea that the language’s use is not centralized enough to rationally support one standard of rules or syntax. Jordan intends to dissolve the idea that any “Standard English” should exist because it is impractical and inviable to English speakers. She then swiftly shifts the readers focus towards white and black Americans both being held to White English as the standards, despite their clear differences in speech, so that the reader is most likely to recognize this situation as unwarranted. Jordan uses very lengthy, but digestible, phrases along with a streamline structure and meticulous diction to keep the readers momentum as she travels from idea to idea. The second half of this excerpt is a personal account that supports her conclusions. In the account she and her class are reflecting on an assigned reading, but nobody seems to volunteer their opinions. The reader is led to assume that the students simply neglected the assignments until they eventually start to share that they did not like the language used. Jordan then reveals to the reader that this book featured a depiction of the very language that the students themselves are using. This section does an excellent job of putting the reader on their toes and making them wonder just how these students could have a problem with their own language. It has them unknowingly searching for a solution that will end up being the main message she is attempting to showcase. Jordan goes on to present more plot that further explains to the reader just how close this dialogue is to the student’s syntax and just how ironic it is that they do not see it as natural. A showcase instance of the presentation of this irony is when she says “Black rejection was aimed at the one irreducibly Black element of Walker’s work: the language.” Jordan then provides her thoughts during the moment. These thoughts bring the text right back to her main point when she says “None of these students have ever learned how to read or write in their own verbal system of communication” and how this “infuriates” her class. 

The differences in the way that Black and White Americans use English are evident. White English became used as a standard that all communities are expected to meet. This is a negative development that has affected all people who are not brought up speaking White English. Black Americans are harmed because White American English became considered the language’s standard to be pushed on all communities through mass media and especially education, and furthermore there should be no rigid definition of one supreme and proper “Standard English”. June Jordan’s political essay, “Nobody Mean More To Me Than You And The Future Life Of Willie Jordan” gives a great account that supports the argument that “Standard English” is a detrimental occurrence. 

Jordan, June. “Nobody Mean More to Me than You and the Future Life of Willie Jordan.” Opencuny, 2014, https://opencuny.org/fall2014english150/files/2014/09/%E2%80%9CNobody-Mean-More-to-Me-than-You-and-the-Future-Life-of-Willie-Jordan%E2%80%9D.pdf.

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