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