The Connection Between Black English and Memes
How African American Vernacular English made it to the internet
If you are an African American who grew up in integrated spaces, you may have had the not-so-pleasant experience of others calling African American Vernacular English (AAVE) “bad grammar” or “talking ghetto.” For some, speaking with the habitual “be” (“they be…”) or not conjugating a verb (“He crazy”) is associated with negative stigmas like being unprofessional or having poor communication skills. But contrary to mainstream understanding, this way of speaking has its own rules and syntax structures and comes from a particular experience of Black folk in America.
AAVE has a long history — largely rooted in the earliest generations of enslaved Africans that arrived on America’s shores. Black English was birthed from people who were forced to learn a second language (English) almost exclusively through oral means and without formal instruction (since it was illegal to teach a slave how to read). This experience produced a vernacular that reconciled both the differences between English and the different African mother tongues.
This dialect has been passed on from generation to generation and is an important part of African American culture. Writer Alice Walker says that when you consider the amount of time Black…
