Summary Of If Black English Isn T A Language

Throughout history differences have created wars. We form us versus them categories. People who aren’t like us get placed in this them category. Fights, even wars, have been a product of these differences. These differences can range from just the college you attend to how you speak and look. In the essay, “It Takes a Tribe,” Berreby goes into depth about the hierarchy in college campuses. In a different essay, “If Black English Isn’t a Language,” Baldwin goes into detail about how we group others based on their language, specifically in black culture. Both authors discuss how humans are identified by what tribes they are associated with. Berreby discusses how we subconsciously put ourselves and others into groups, while Baldwin claims that

He mentions “People need to belong, to feel a part of ‘us.’ Yet a sense of ‘us’ brings a sense of ‘them’” (Berreby). Berreby backs this up by describing how we see this everywhere on college campuses. Students will cheer and stand up for their school, giving it a sense of ‘us.’ By doing this, they also put other schools below them, giving it sense of ‘them.’ Berreby describes how humans “identify with the groups in which we are accidently placed.” This implies that it is our human nature to identify ourselves and others into certain

By using personal experiences, this makes his tone sound more personal and subjective. He says, “I say that present skirmish is rooted in American history” (Baldwin). This shows his personal beliefs, but then sets up an explanation using history to better support his belief. Baldwin discusses a few events in history that formed black English and explain how black English was used. He illustrates that the beginning of black English was created during slavery times. During these times, “the slave began the formation of the black church, and it is within this unprecedented tabernacle that the black English began to be formed” (Baldwin). He further explains that the reasoning for black English was from the White man. They only used and taught blacks when it was only beneficial for them. Baldwin also includes information from the Jazz Age. He wonders “what white Americans would sound like if there had never been and black people in the United States” (Baldwin). He states this because the dialect used by white Americans in the Jazz Age was stolen by the