As a student, I read a lot. Out of all the books assigned for this week, one book especially stood out. It is not only a great read, but a crucial voice in the conversation about race in America. The book is Spoken Soul: The Story of Black English, written by John Russell Rickford and Russell John Rickford. Rickford and Rickford are father and son and together they present a text that draws forth facets of the black experience, the black identity and the black legacy through language. The authors, in their linguistic break down of Black English, which they also call African American Vernacular English (note the book was published in 2000), bring to life the language through narration of speech in every day contexts and through the testimony of black musicians, comedians, poets, writers, preachers and families. In this way, the text is more than just a linguistic guide, but also a guide to the lived and experienced history, struggle and resistance of being black in America.
Two themes the authors touched upon that I found particularly interesting was the use of quotations from various black people about Spoken Soul and its use, as well as the stout resistance the text itself has on the importance of Black English and its separation from “Standard English”.