Ebonics is misunderstood

Alex, you're right about the aim of the Oakland program...it wasn't to teach Ebonics, because the kids already knew it, having grown up speaking that variety of English. It was about helping them master more standard English in order to succeed in the future. However, I'm gonna pull out my linguistic bag of pickiness and insist that no natively spoken varieties of ANY human language are substandard, as if they somehow didn't function as valid forms of communication amongst speakers. Standard American English is not inherently more "proper" nor is Ebonics "substandard" even tho it is socially stigmatized while SAE is prestigious.

Will the world ever realize that it is, by definition, impossible for native speakers of a language to speak a "substandard" variety?

Kirk:

You are spot on. The term "substandard" has no place in serious language studies. It is not far removed from that other overused slur: "grammatical laziness."