Table of Contents

What's Going On? "THIS PASSION, THIS SKILL, THIS INCREDIBLE MUSIC". Writers. Preachers and Pray-ers. Comedians and Actors. Singers, Toasters, and Rappers. THE LIVING LANGUAGE. Vocabulary and Pronunciation. Grammar. History. THE EBONICS FIRESTORM. Education. The Media. Ebonics "Humor". THE DOUBLE SELF. The Crucible of Identity. Notes. Index. Permissions.

About the Author

JOHN R. RICFORD is Martin Luther King Jr. Centennial Professor of Linguistics at Stanford University. An internationally recognized authority on African American Vernacular English, he has published several books, scores of articles in scholarly journals, and articles in Discover magazine, among others. He has been quoted in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Atlantic Monthly, the Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, Jet, and USA Today and on ABC, NPR, and other television and radio stations. RUSSEL J. RICKFORDussell is a freelance journalist and formerly a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer.