Jordan Essay

Reading this essay made me think and feel a lot of different things. Most of all I felt sad especially near the end. In her essay she talks about black english which I just learned, through reading this, that it is a different language from white or standard english. As it says in Rule 2 "If it's wrong in standard english it's probably right in black english, or, at least, you're hot." June Jordan started teaching a black english course at the school she taught at not only for the language but to teach them their history. As a class they came up with rules to help with the speaking and writing of black english. It was also mentioned that spelling was not important with this language and you can see why. She met a boy named Willie Jordan who did an independent study with her on south africa. Suddenly Willie wasn't showing up for classes anymore or for their independent study. June Jordan found out that it was because his brother had been shot and killed by police. No logical reason was given by the police as to why they killed him and the press wasn't interested in it either. They were poor and had no way to bring the cops to court. The students decided to write individual letters and also a class paragraph to the police written in black english. In the end Willie Jordan himself wrote a letter written in standard english and it was published. The letterbrought tears to my eyes and really made me think about what our world is like today and what it was like then and many years ago. Race has always been a touchy subject here and I think this essay proves that we have grown since it was written but we still have similar problems today that could be changed, if we take the initiative to do so.