A Sympathetic Reading on Jordan's Entry

As I began reading this, I not only began to truly sympathize with Jordan, but also began thinking about other 'forms of English', that may have slipped into the cracks of our own culture. This thought process began with, ' " What we causually call ''English'', less and less defers to England and its ''gentlemen''..." ' Considering how many people, how many nations use English in their culture, it is no wonder that the language has changed vastly from that which was used by its predecessors. In fact, one could almost broaden this essay by moving beyond 'Black English', into specific dialects of English in countries like Australia, Canada, South Africa, where their forms of English are more colonial based. However, what I find absolutely fascinating is that we all are taught the same basic form of English in school. It's when we leave the school grounds that we use this language however we see fit. Yet if we were to write out the words we say in their true phonetics, we would hard pressed to understand what was written. Such was the case when the Black students began to read 'Black English', out of the book, 'the Color Purple', by an accomplished author Alice Walker. This book was written purposely using 'Black English', yet because the students were taught, or beaten into, Standard English they found reading the novel quite challenging. Though it took some time to understand and learn Black English, it was used more frequently in writing by the students, most notably after their classmate Willie Jordan lost his brother Reggie in a brutal police murder.
Further reading shows that like any other language, custom, religion, or form of culture, it cannot be put into a stereotypical box. This doesn't mean there aren't borders and rules; simply put any aspect in a culture has many more elements to it than at first glance. "There's a whole lot more to Black English than mothafuckin'.'' This can also be true with religion, there's a lot more to them than the rituals themselves. There is a reason why we speak how we do, why we worship who we worship, so on and so forth. I believe that is the point Jordan is trying to make, at least on some level.