Regarding Johanna Rubba's recent comments: I can confirm the Sunday Times
article was by a staff reporter and therefore represents the paper's view.
Here in the U.K. we are required to teach Standard English as part of the
National Curriculum and this may account for the "ignorant" views expressed
in this article.  I have taught "the Color Purple" to students at A level
and have been moderately successful.  Certainly they appreciate the language
that Johanna describes as "very moving and artful".  The point of the
article was, I believe, that somehow the Oakland students were being
disadvantaged if it was not pointed out to them that the rest of the English
speaking world may not view their particular usage as standard - with
consequences which may outweigh their cultural traditions.  The article goes
on to make some fairly strong criticisms of American Universities.  This
paragraph is typical:
"The snickering at Ebonics in America these last few wekks has had more than
a whiff of the sickening presumption that black Americans are stupid and
illiterate anyway and this merely proves it.    What Ebonics and critical
race theory really prove is that, unless you challenge them at their source
- in the fashionable nihilism that pervades American universities - you will
always be fighting a rearguard action when their influence spreads into
broader American society."
Malcolm R. Kauffman