Before entering 7th grade, my perspective on grammar and the way people communicated was very indifferent. I often spoke lazily and didn’t notice much difference between what’s considered standard english and what’s considered slang. One very strict teacher implanted the idea in my head that the level of grammar that you use determines your intelligence level. One day, a classmate of mine asked her why she was so aggressive over grammar and writing. She replied with, “Well, how do you want people to view you? Educated or illiterate?” Ever since then, I couldn’t get that idea out of my head.

This mindset that I’m in is starting to affect my relationships with people. When I start talking to a boy, I always analyze how they talk while texting or by things they post on the internet. I think to myself, “Okay, well if they have good grammar then they’re educated and smart. If not, then they aren’t worth my time.” That right there is horrible to think. Who am I to judge who a person is by the way they talk? I’m always fighting an inner battle to remind myself that it’s more about what they have to say, rather than how they say it. My friend Joe recognized this, and since then he’s been using close-to-perfect grammar to impress me. When people use good grammar, I automatically feel much more comfortable talking to them. Needless to say, Joe’s been one of the top people I talk to on a daily basis for a while now.

To this day I catch myself noticing other people’s grammar mistakes and thinking “Wow, do they even know what they’re saying?” without taking into mind that everyone makes mistakes. One of the biggest places that this happens is the internet. When people post things for everyone to see and it’s illiterate, it makes me wonder how they’re doing in school. All these thoughts are extremely judgemental of me to even think of. You could be extremely intelligent in some subjects, but not so smart in others. The realization moment for me was reading the essay, ‘If Black English Isn’t a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is?’. That essay opened up my mind to a whole new perspective. One quote that stood out to me was “It goes without saying, then, that language is also a political instrument, means, and proof of power. It is the most vivid and crucial key to identify: It reveals the private identity, and connects one with, or divorces one from, the larger, public, or communal identity.” The way people speak comes from their culture, and who they are as a person. They grow up in houses and have history, they aren’t perfect grammatical robots. You don’t need to use standard english to be intelligent. Standard english is what’s commonly seen as ‘correct english’, but in today’s language, I don’t think there’s a right or wrong language. For me or anybody else to say that the way somebody speaks is wrong,  would be wrong of us.

I grew up in a home of verbal intellect and verbal ignorance. The mixture was very well blended, but very hard to manage. I was taught many ways of expression. I was taught that when speaking to someone of importance or older age you address them as Ms., Mrs., or Mr. to show respect. I was taught black dialect and how to use it in my everyday life... but only with the people who looked like me. I was taught when it was and wasn’t the right time to express my feelings. I also learned very early on that the way you say something no matter your tone of voice or creative way you put words together, meant everything. Those words build you. They hurt you and help you. They cause you to judge and are the first way for someone to judge you.

I’ve come to realize that yes, the language we speak is one part of our communication, but there are other things that compliment it as well. We’ve got the power to determine how people judge us, but for people my color, I feel as if we don’t. I feel that when we’re talking to white people we completely change ourselves. Our bodies may be loose when we talk to our friends because we’re comfortable, but when that moment comes that we have to talk to someone who’ll judge and prevent our futures, we might stiffen up and become dull. I’ve seen it happen with my mother. She’s one of the most energetic people you’ll meet, but when the times comes for her to consult with someone who lacks color, her voice changes to one of profession and her body is up tight in person.

It’s like you either have to become part of the oppression or stay ignorant to society. I don’t like the idea of being oppressed or having to prove myself to other people. If I want to say “ain’t” instead of “didn’t” then let me be. It isn’t fair that I have to fix the way I speak to meet someone’s expectations. I don’t want to be judged. I don’t want to betray myself or my ancestors by becoming into this “white speaking” robot that society tried to mold me into. But the reality of the situation is that I HAVE to. If I want to be successful and be able to provide for my family, i’ll just have to adjust to this miscarriage of fairness and continue living my life but speaking the way they want me to. But in that same breath I’ll always remind myself that no one else is like me and that I design myself. I’ll forever have a choice in what I want to say and how I have to say it, but given certain situations I may have to adjust. I love the way I speak and I love the way I can diversitize my language to benefit myself.

Being a kid was rough for me. I never knew the way I talked could be so humorous. It all started in 2nd grade, Ms. Brown’s class. It was the 1st day of school, the first day of being a second grader, I was excited. The sun was shining bright and blazing merrily, the sky was blue, and the wind was whistling a light tune. I was too fresh I had on my cripst new white uniform shirt with the three flower buttons at the top,my navy blue french toast dress, my sockings and my navy shoe shoes from payless. I spent the whole summer in Atlanta with my aunt. As I was getting out of my aunt’s shining bright like a diamond black maxima she said “See ya lata,honey bumkins” the kids laughed.“Bye auntie” they laughed again. I never caught on to why they were laughing about until I got to class and I began to speak once more.

As I walked into room 204, Ms. Brown’s 2nd grade class, I sat next to Brianna , who I thought was one of my close friends. I knew her since kindergarten.
“Hello class,  welcome back! How was your summer? Anybody want to share your  exciting stories you may have with the class?” Ms. Brown said. Brianna raised her hand “Over the summer I went to disney world” I raised my hand next.” Go head , state your name and what you did over the summer” Ms Brown said. “ Hey,my name is Ashley and over da summa I went to Atlanta Georgia with my auntie Tisha” The whole class started laughing , even Brianna. I guess being in Atlanta with my aunt for 3 months really had an impact on me! I started to talk like how them southern people talked. I didn’t hear it at first, but i knew something was up when every time I spoke my classmates would laugh. I didn’t catch the joke. Did I have food in my teeth? Did I not smell good? Did someone stick something on my back, that was suppose to be funny? All those thoughts rushed to my head.I couldn’t and didn’t understand why the hell I was so funny.

It was only 10:00 and already I didn’t want to be there anymore. I stopped raising my hand. I was ashamed, I was embarrassed I was the laughing stock of the class.People who I thought were my friends were laughing at me. That didn’t make me seem good. I didn’t wanna go back to ms. Brown’s class again,I wanted to go home and go to sleep and pretend nothing ever happened. The day went on and I was still in school. It was lunch time now. “Why do you talk so weird now Ashley?” said Nashae. “Weird, what are you talkin bout’ girl?” “You’re talking weird that’s not how you talked last year.” she started to laugh. “What’s so funny, I’m finna punch you in the face!” “See!” said Nashae “Like that what does finna mean? do you mean you’re going to?” Right then and there I noticed I was talking differently! When Nashae finally broke it down, thats when I realized I was talking like my aunt!
Rather than playing in the schoolyard with the other kids I sat by myself on the wall. On the wall I was thinking about everything that happened today , I thought of ways I could change how I talked back so I wouldn’t have to get laughed at anymore. I just wanted to fit in. Isn’t that what every child wants to do? Nobody wants to be left out or an outsider because of the way they dress or from the way they talked. Then some girl named mya came over. “what are you doing over here by yourself” “finna change my talk” “finna?” mya said. “ I mean “I’m going to” change my way of speaking” “ooooohhh, need help?” Mya helped me all lunch period with my speaking. “Now, we don’t use the word “finna” thats so weird just say i’m going to. I heard you say in class the word “da” and “summa” da is not a word just say the and summer say it with me ssuuummmeeerr. there you go you got it!” we worked on my speech for the whole lunch period. From that day one Mya was my best friend and we still remain close till today. Back to the story the bell had just rung and it was time to go in and get back to class.

When we got back to class Jennifer,who I haven’t liked since 1st grade tried to imitate me and tried to hurt me more because she thought the class was finna laugh oops I mean going to laugh. “Ms. Brown i’m finna use the bathroom” she got no laughs before Ms.Brown could say anything I laughed I didn’t let it hurt me one bit. “Jennifer you mean you’re going to use the bathroom” She was salty, embarrassed, surprised and annoyed. The class was amazed, I did a whole 360 before school was even over. I was determined to not be the laughing stock of the class. The school bell rang the day was over. I couldn’t wait to see my mom to tell her all about my day and how crazy it was. Till this day I still reminisce on this topic with Mya we always laugh and joke about it. I’m glad now I can sit back and laugh.

Sometimes, I want to speak about something very important to my parents. For example, when I was around twelve years old, I remember being in school and my classmates always joked and talked about sex. Little did I know, I barely knew anything about sex. It confused me and I would sit around my friends laughing along as if I knew what they were talking about. I went home and as I opened my door, I went straight upstairs. I was still feeling confused and curious. I really wanted to learn more about how sex works. As I laid in bed, still in my school uniform, I assumed maybe my parents would know but I wondered who even asks their parents about sex? But I didn’t care because I feel like as a kid turning into a teenager, I have the right to know how sex works. I hopped off my bed and started walking downstairs. As my hand touched the railing, I stopped after I remembered how my parents won’t even understand me even if I attempt to talk about it to them about that. My mom has a very hard time speaking english. She understands more than she can speak. My dad can pronounce fluently in english but he does not understand the type of vocabulary that I use. I slowly felt a bit gloomy that I am not able to communicate to my parents as much as I would like. I turned around on the steps and walk backed into my room. As I walked back up, I also thought to myself “How can I ever open up to mom and dad if they won’t even understand me? What if I need to speak to them about something really important but they won’t understand me...?”

My younger cousin goes through a very similar problem that I do. His name is Cody, he is four years old. He visited me during winter break. It was 10:00 PM, my dad was driving my family in the car to the restaurant we were meeting up with Cody’s family. I felt the excitement of just seeing my dearest little guy that I miss so much. I stared out of the window, it was dark and cold but I was daydreaming about all things I want to do with Cody and how much I want to hear him talk to me. When I arrived, I saw Cody running towards me. I knelt down and we embraced. Reunited after two years, I was the happiest cousin ever. He was a bit heavier, a little taller, his face looked slimmer but he was still that sunshine I always loved. The first thing I asked him was “có đói em?” I asked him if he was hungry in Vietnamese. Cody gave me a clueless look as if I was speaking in a completely different language that he was never exposed to. I was very confused and Cody just stared at me. I repeated the question again, but in English this time. He answered ‘yes’ and ran off to his dad. I was concerned, so I walked over to Cody’s mom. She was sitting nearby the dinner table chatting with my mom. I asked her “Does Cody know how to speak Vietnamese?” Cody’s mom answered, “No, he doesn’t. He’s been spending too much time at the daycare, they only speak English there, he totally forgot how to speak Vietnamese at home” I was shocked. I looked over at him, I saw him sitting on my Grandmother’s lap, and she had a confused look. I figured that Cody was talking to her in English but she did not understand him at all. This is going to affect his relationship with my grandparents because they won’t be able to understand each other since my Grandmother only speaks and understands Vietnamese. This matters because bonding is when you spend a lot of time with someone and try to learn to attach with each other. But how can they both grow together when they won’t be able to properly communicate to each other?

What I speak is who I am. Everyone has a different point of view no language and how much it matters to that person. There is so much to language. Language is a big part of this world.

My cousin from Washington D.C. and I have two different vocabularies that we use. Here in Philly, our city-wide word is “jawn,” which is pretty much our version of a noun because it can be anything or anyone. In Washington, they have no idea what that word means and have never heard it used in a sentence unless they spent time here. When my cousin was staying with me and my family for a funeral, we were sitting in my room watching sportscenter when his friend called. He started talking on the phone with him and after about 5 minutes of talking he yelled, “Yo I’m so clutch.” I said “What?” He explained that when he said that he was expressing that since he was right about a bet and he won he was now considered “Clutch.” This confused me because this was the first time I’ve heard this. So later that day we went to the basketball court behind my house. I said during a game of basketball that I was “frying him” and that “my jumpshot was chicken”.

He looked at me with a confused look and then he asked, "Ya jumpshot what?”

I said "My jumper chicken. That’s the word we use here. What do yall use in DC?"

He said, "We just say our jumpshot butta."

“Oh okay, we used to say that but then we started using different words like cheese, and chicken, and how when you make a jumpshot in someone face you say “Facial” because it’s funny and it makes sense in this situation.”

He answered back that they say that back home also because it’s pretty much a universal basketball slang term. We continued our one on one game and I posted him up and scored on him. I said “I just took you to the weight room, get your weight up youngboul.“ He laughed because of my statement. I kept forgetting he was from Washington D.C. and they don’t have the same vocab we have. I explained that taking someone to the weight room is just posting someone up and scoring on them and that youngboul is a word we use for someone younger than us or just a word to make fun of someone. Language can help you get a better understanding of people, so you can befriend them and won’t be left out in the dark in a conversation. In the past I believed that language was just something we spoke and was exclusive to a certain race and could be taught to another if willing or forced. I didn’t think it had any meaning behind it or could be looked at with a deeper view.

Over the weekend we continued to have conversations and discovered a few more new words from each other’s vocab. One word he used that wasn’t new to me, but isn’t used in Philly, was “partna.”

I’ve heard that word used before in other states, such as the southern states, and when I visited Washington D.C., but other people have not heard this word before. “Partna” is just another word for friend. When I want to say something like this, I say “mans.” Language is very different and similar in certain places as I’ve stated above. The point I’m trying to make is that language helps people fit into a certain group. Language can help define who we are as person or race.

People will judge you by the language you speak or learned to speak. Last year, One of my friends who attended a different school asked me, “How you black speaking spanish?” He was judging me by my race and the fact that I’m speaking another race’s language. Over the years I’ve heard a good number of languages spoken and I, for one, can say that I’ve judged people on the race and language they’ve spoken. I’ve often caught myself judging someone who is a foreigner living here in America and who refuses to speak English.The environment around me influenced and taught me that foreigners were bad because they “invaded our country, but don’t want to speak our language.” The environment around us can  be a big influence on our language and how we react to other languages. A quote from Sandra Romo, “The verbal environment influences language learning. From ages one to three, children from highly verbal 'professional' families heard nearly three times as many words per week as children from low verbal 'welfare' families.” I hope to influence other people on finding their own language and don’t allow bad influences to make you believe another language is bad. When it all boils down, we need each other to prosper.

Society gives grammar the power to control us. It wants us to be pressured into having excellent spoken grammar and speech. If we do not have that, then we are criticized. Marilyn vos Savant says, “Be able to correctly pronounce the words you would like to speak and have excellent spoken grammar.” This is the way society wants us to speak. It’s because of this that I ruminate a lot on what I say, what I’m going to say, and how I say it. “Grammar is a piano I play by ear. All I know about grammar is its power.”(Joan Didion). Grammar has power over a lot. It can affect the way people look at you. If you’re interviewing for a job, and you don’t have the best grammar chances are you won’t get hired. Grammar gives you power also. It can give you the power to attract people when you’re giving a speech. It can get you to higher places especially if your grammar is what society expects of you. Although these quotes are true, the only reason grammar has power and the ability to control us, is because we let it.

“Grammar, which knows how to control even kings.”(Moliere). What Moliere is saying is that grammar controls everything. It controls the way some of us think and the way some of us speak. I can attest to this because it has definitely controlled my thought process. Occasionally, I make mental notes about what to say in the correct grammar the next time I speak to someone when I don’t say it correctly the first time. I even correct myself out loud. For example, one day in spanish class I was confused on how to conjugate a certain word. So, I got up out of my seat to go and ask my spanish teacher. He was sitting at his desk, talking to a student teacher when he looked up at me. “Yes dear?” He said with a welcoming smile. “Um...” I started to say. I wasn’t sure how to ask him the question. I wasn’t sure how to start it off, and I was afraid that I wouldn’t use the proper grammar. “Don’t you drop the ‘e’, and add the ‘i’?” I asked. “Yes.” He nodded and turned to continue his previous conversation. Walking back to my seat I thought, “Shoot! I wasn’t supposed to say ‘don’t you’. I was supposed to say ‘wouldn’t you’.” After realizing that I said the improper use of  grammar, I began to feel embarrassed and ashamed. Sitting back down I corrected myself again. This time out loud. “I wasn’t supposed to say ‘Don’t you’. I was supposed to say ‘Wouldn’t you”. Oh my gosh!” I let the use of grammar control me so much, that when I say something incorrectly I automatically feel ashamed. I get embarrassed and I come down even harder on myself. At other times I’m afraid to speak up because I’m afraid of how I will sound, that I may not sound right, or that I won’t make sense. I’m also afraid that will affect how people look at me. I get this way because I don’t want people to look at me as “the girl who doesn’t have correct grammar” or “the girl who doesn’t speak right”. I want them to look at me as “the girl with perfect grammar”, “the girl who has no flaws in her speech”. So, I make it an effort to make sure that my grammar is perfect. And no, it’s still not perfect but I still try. Although I consider my grammar pretty well,  I do make mistakes sometimes. “Look at them people.” I pointed to a group of kids doing silly stunts and tricks. I was walking down the street with my friend when we saw them. “I mean look at those people.” She looked at them and laughed.

I’m so used to correcting myself that sometimes, when someone says something grammatically incorrect, I silently correct them myself. It’s not that I judge how people speak because I don’t at all. They are free to speak however they wish. Especially if that’s who they are. I just do it to help myself. Only so that I will know what to say when I speak to someone who has the mindset that you need to speak a certain way. Another example is when my mom and I were in the car, and she was talking about how much the damage to her car was. “Five hunned..” She said in a loud, silly voice. I automatically interrupted her, “Do you mean five hundred?” I made sure I emphasized the word “hundred”. She just looked at me and laughed. I only corrected her because I really dislike the word “hunned”.  Although grammar is something I strive to be perfect in, there is one type of language that I don’t have to be perfect in. It’s my own type of language. I use words or sentences like, “durp”, “salty grits”, and “you’re doing the most”, when I’m playing around and because it’s fun. I believe at some point anyone should have some type of fun with their language. Personally for me, fun with my language is making up words. What makes it fun is that I know people can’t criticize me with that.

There are two people that live inside of me but they come out at different times. They matter because they both play large parts of each other’s life. They both speak entirely different languages but they still would need each other to communicate with other groups of people. Their existence is because if they didn’t have each other, then they would be limited to not only the people they can talk to but also they are limited to what they can do. Their names are Justice and Jules. I first discovered Justice when I was in the closed box I called my bedroom. The blank paper and the sharp pencil sits there on my desk waiting to be used to write the English story that’s due the next day. First seconds went by... then minutes... and now a hour went by and still nothing. “Maybe eating will help.” I thought. But no. I was fuller than ever but still hungry for ideas. “Maybe sleeping will help.” I thought. But no. I slept for two hours and very well rested but still have no energy to get any thoughts in my head to write. As I get out of my bed and into the chair next to the desk that hold the empty paper I felt something inside me change. For that 30 minutes that I sat at the desk writing my descriptive story I felt like a writer. I had thoughts and ideas flowing out of me. These thoughts filled up 2 pages with at least 700 words. I was pleased with this story. But then I thought to myself, “What happened?” And still till this day i don’t know the answer to that simple question. But I do know that I wasn’t myself. And thus became Justice. I gave her that name because all of Justice’s writing requires some type of equality.

People have a different language from when they write and when they talk. For example, Justice talked more poetic when she wrote and Jules basically talked from her head (her opinions/ feelings). Jules can’t get as descriptive and poetic like Justice does very well. With Justice she really doesn't come out to talk to people she basically stays on paper where she can’t be judge by her thoughts. Before Justice was born, Jules writing was at a 5th grade level. Jules don’t know how to be as descriptive as Justice so Jules would basically go straight to the point with her stories other than breaking it down. Even though Justice don’t know Jules, Justice influence Jules to take action to what she feel is wrong and try to stop it from happening.

And then there’s Jules. She comes out when she have to talk to her family and friends. The first time I learned about this was when I wanted to talk to mom about a very important subject. Justice wrote down what she wanted me to say and I constantly read through it. But now it was time for me to read it to my mom.

As I walk through the small hallway, it seem like it was getting longer the closer I got to my mother’s bedroom. But finally I was in front of it looking right into it watching her watching TV. She didn’t notice I was watching her until I knocked on her wooden door and asked if I could come in. “Yes, What’s the problem?”, she said. As I look at the  paper that had what Justice wanted me to say everything looked wrong. Letters was everywhere. I didn’t make sense to me. I decided instead of trying to from the paper just tell her how I feel. “ Well, you know...”, began to say. What I said worked. She listened to me and she agreed with everything I said. But I realized there was a difference between the way Justice wrote and how Jules talked. They wasn’t using the same language.