Oral and Literate Traditions among Black Americans Living in Poverty.

Verbal skills traditional in many Black communities were acquired by a pattern of socialization that emphasized children’s participation in community interaction, their adaptability to changing circumstances and their individual interpretive talents. These skills, including the oral negotiation of written materials in family and social context, were largely adaptive to community needs but his pattern of language socialization was not as congruent with school use of oral and written language as the mainstream socialization pattern. Current changes in the needs for language use in the workplace call for greater adaptability, collaborative skills and individual responsibility and commitment. Aspects of traditional Black language socialization could make a contribution here, but current changes in Black family and community structures in inner-city life are rapidly eroding the earlier pattern. The changing workplace needs raise educational problems for both mainstream and minority populations. Within the past decade, scholars from a wide variety of disciplines have given considerable attention to the oral and literate traditions of Black Americans, especially in an attempt to compare their family and community patterns with those of school and other mainstream institutions. Anthropologists, social historians and folklorist have detailed the longstanding rich verbal forms of Afro-American rhymes, stories, music, sermons and joking and their interdependence with Black-White relations as well as male-female and cross-age interactions within Black communities (Folb, 1980; Hannerz, 1969; Levine, 1977; Smitherman, 1977; Whitten & Szwed, 1970). Yet, schools and employers have repeatedly pictured a majority of Black students and workers as victims of language poverty and called for increased emphasis on literacy skills for Black Americans—young and old. It is important to bring together these divergent views about language abilities, especially as they relate to oral and written language uses, and to compare family and community language socialization, on the one hand, with the expectations and practices of schools and workplaces, on the other. When children learn language, they take in more than forms of grammar. They learn to make sense of social world in which they live and how to adapt to its dynamic social interactions and role relations. Through the reciprocal processes of family and community life that flow through communication, children develop a system of cognitive structures as interpretive frameworks and come to share to greater or lesser degrees the common value system and sets of behavioral norms of their sociocultural group (Schieffelin & Ochs, 1986). These frameworks and ways of expressing knowledge in a variety of styles and through different symbolic systems will vary in their congruence with those of the school and other mainstream institutions. Similarly, those of the school may differ from those of employers. It is important, idealized—degrees of congruence from home and community to school and workplace. In all these settings, judgments about language use extend to evaluations of character, intelligence, and ways to thinking, thus, negative assessments of language abilities often underlie expressions of sweeping prejudicial characterizations of Black Americans, especially those living of poverty. We consider first the primary uses of language in family and community life and poor and Black Americans, rural and urban and then those of the school and the workplace, taking a comparative view across these varied contexts. Family and Community Language Socialization Families socialize their children so that they will learn the forms and functions of language that will help them achieve some self-identity as group members and also meet the needs of everyday interactions. Americans Black families during slavery and subsequently in the often tumultuous and ever-changing circumstances of their daily lives socialized their young to respond to change, to adapt their communicative behaviors, and to define family in terms that extended beyond kin to neighbor, church, and community (Sobel, 1988; Wood, 1974). In response to the perils and pressures of White society, Black communities formed independent organizations—from schools and churches to mutual aid societies –that embodied their sense of being “a people within a people,” capable of relying on their own resources and responding to the ever-shifting circumstances of their society (Nash, 1988). Children had to learn from an every-shifting network, continuously adapting through considering when to apply, discard, reform, and supplement facts and skills that others transmitted to them. Standing behind this self-reliance were an array of literate behaviors—interpreting oral and written texts, preparing and practicing oral performances and written summations of them, feeding texts through the tests of individual experience, and remaking texts conceived by other groups in other times and places into confirmation of current group identities and purposes. In traditional patterns of rural life, especially in the southeastern part of the United States, open spaces and climate conditions have favored a considerable amount of outdoor public life that, in turn, ensured that youngsters heard and participated in a great variety or oral language performances (Levine, 1977). Children inherited and ethics of group involvement in oral decision making. These public occasions for oral performances helped sustain certain other characteristics such as persistence, assertive problem-solving and adaptability in role-playing (Spencer, Brookins & Allen, 1985). Family members and trusted community members assumed child-rearing responsibilities and demanded numerous kinds of role-playing from the young apparently in the belief that children learn best that which is not directly taught (Barnes, 1972; Hill, 1972; Stack, 1970; Ward, 1971; Wilson, 1971; Young, 1970). Looking, playing, imitating, listening and learning when to be silent complemented children’s learning of oral language skills for negotiating, interpreting and adapting information. These abilities transferred well into individual and group survival in adult life. Since the 1960s, numerous demographic and socio-economic changes have affected Black Americans. Many have entered the middle and upper classes; yet, many remain in poverty, primarily in the rural Southeast or in the inner-cities of many parts of the country where their parents or grandparents migrated in the early decades of the 20 century. Then ghettos consisted primarily of two-family dwellings or small apartment houses; with the 1096s came high-rise, high-density projects, where people took residence not through individual and free choice of neighbor and community, but through bureaucratic placement. In the late 980s, nearly half of all Black children live in poverty, and most of these, especially in urban areas, grow up in households headed by a mother unde3r 25 years of age who is a school dropout. Between 1970 and 1980, the proportion of young Black families with fathers fell drastically; the Children’ s Defense Fund estimates that approximately 210,000 Black men in their 20s are not accounted for in the 1980 census (Edelman, 1987, p:11). Multiple explanation s are offered of account for the “hidden” Black men and the relatively low Black marital rates for men in their 20s (Wilson, 1987). However, in over half of the states, children— regardless of how low the family’s income is –are not eligible for Aid for Families with Dependent Children if an unemployed father resides in the household (Edelman, 1987). Furthermore, housing rules restrict the number of occupants of a single apartment, and assignments of apartments can rarely take into account the needs or expressed desires of members of extended families to live close to each other. Regardless of the theories—economic and social—for these changed family circumstances, the effects on language socialization of the young are undeniable. Differences in the space and time of interactions in rural and urban Black communities of poverty greatly influence both the degree of their divergence from earlier patterns of language socialization and the increased extent of disparity between rural and urban child-rearing patterns. The picture that most closely resembles that of earlier years comes from those areas in which either agricultural or mill work remain viable options and a majority of families still live in single or dual-family dwellings. Much of the social life is out-of-doors, and times of employment, especially for men, vary with seasonal and daily shift patterns. Both male and female adults of several ages are often available i n the neighborhood to watch over children who play outside and to supplement the parenting role of young mothers. Caregivers ask children only “real” questions—those to which the adults do not know the answers. They accept from children and issue to them direct commands and reprimands. To the grandmother who has just started to iron, the toddler says “stop that now; stop it,” or “Ma, sit down. ” To the toddler who has removed the top from a perfume bottle, the grandmother says “Put that top back on and come on” as she starts out the door. Adults tease children, asking them questions and often threatening to take away possessions, getting them to show their ready wits in front of an audience (Ward, 1971; cf. Miller, 1986). In the following interactions between two-year old Tyrone and his grandmother, his biological mother and an aunt and uncle sit on the porch talking. Several conversations take place at the same time, but all participants are mindful of the drama between younger and older combatants. Grandmother: “That your hat? Can I have it? [she is sitting on the porch in a low chair with a lap full of beans to shell, and Tyrone plays nearby with an old hat] Tyrone: “Huh? ” Grandmother: