Black people contribute significantly to the American lexicon, though this is rarely acknowledged outside of their community. To illustrate this point, a recent Morning Consult survey suggested that 29% of Gen Alpha parents say their youngest child "uses slang they don't understand, especially those with a child who uses the internet to socialize." Despite their emphasis on linguistic differences among generational cohorts, the words most heavily cited, such as "cap," "bet," and "sus," all derive from the black community. None of them are new in the sense of being fresh words. Yet, some mistake them as such due to their limited exposure. This race-neutral explanation overlooks the critical role Black Americans played in creating and popularizing these terms.
If "bet" were Gen Alpha vocabulary, for instance, how could you explain Spike Lee using the word while greeting Bill Nunn, who played Radio Raheem in his 1989 movie Do The Right Thing? While "bet" is traditionally used in standardized English to describe a wager for money, this term is a euphemism in the black community that can represent an affirmation or approval. This example, a scene from the film presented by the artist Chris "Colossus" Millentree on social media, demonstrates that Black people have been using this term for generations. While some White and non-Black people are unwilling to acknowledge black cultural contributions to the American vernacular, some remain culturally isolated and genuinely believe these terms are new.
In a 1962 article in the New York Times entitled "If You're Woke You Dig It," William Melvin Kelley suggested that while terms like "dig" and "woke" were often accredited to beatnik culture, a predominately white subculture of non-conformists who centered on artistic expression, they were not the originators of such terms. Indeed, the terminology "now part of the common vocabulary of Americans is not original with the beatnik." Indeed their "language is a borrowed one" that could be observed in "any place where two Negroes pass the time of day." The journalist spoke to the irony that to many Black people, "the words and phrases borrowed from them by beatniks or other white Americans are hopelessly out of date" by the time they became mainstream. Kelley suggested terminology "varies from year to year, day to day, city to city, group to group, individual to individual" and that it "is not only a language of vocabulary, but of context and inflection."
The popularity of terminology deriving from the black community is not new, but it is ironic, given how Black people have been stigmatized for using non-standardized variants of English. Walter Edwards, an English professor at Wayne State University, noted, "African American Vernacular English is a dialect born from conflict and creativity." Anti-literacy laws prohibited Black people from reading and writing, a condition that fostered the development of a variant that relied heavily upon the spoken word. As Mary Jane Bezark wrote in a 1971 article published in the Courier Post, "Black in-group talk began as a code used by slaves. The song, 'Steal Away to Jesus,' for instance, sounds like a spiritual to the uninitiated but was really a signal that an escape by underground railroad was about to take place." Within the article, Mrs. Hermese Roberts, the author of The Third Ear: A Black Glossary, spotlighted the racial gap in communicative styles that can be traced to the nation's original sin, slavery.
In an interview with The Conversation, Edwards noted, "The biggest misconception…is that this form of everyday speech is just broken English; that people who speak it are unable to speak standard English or too lazy to do it." Many fail to appreciate various patterns and characteristics of African American Vernacular English. They often assume that the speaker is less intelligent or capable than someone else, overlooking the thoughtful, nuanced form of communication. Context becomes the hidden gem that those on the outside cannot grasp. It's why terms like "woke," originating in the black community, baffle and frustrate many white Americans, as evidenced by efforts to politicize the term, contorting it far beyond its original purpose.
The problem is that far too many people refuse to acknowledge the legitimacy of Black people's communication, hence the prevalence of code-switching. Some miscredit contributions they've made to others, such as the Beatnik community of the 1960s, Gen Z, or, more recently, Gen Alpha. Others seek to change its meaning entirely, such as the conservative effort to rebrand "woke," erasing the community-driven definition of terms and reducing it to a pejorative term. Scholars are creating the Oxford Dictionary of African American English, which will "document the lexicon of African American English (AAE) in a dictionary based on historical principles." Their efforts will help document the vocabulary created and popularized by the black community. Hopefully, its release will quell efforts to overlook their contributions to the lexicon.
The findings of the Morning Consult survey show that social media platforms have fundamentally shaken the racial segregation of language in American society. This isn't the first time that White people have heard Black people use phrases that seem foreign to them. But, these digital venues have given millions unfettered access to black lingo. And since black history is scarcely taught in America's schools, most do not develop a full appreciation of the contributions Black Americans have made, such as terms that expand our ability to express ourselves. This is why many young white children, who spend a considerable amount of time online, as the study suggested, are more likely to use these terms than students who do not. Parents should know it's not random words they're repeating but those rooted in black culture.
Despite living in predominately white communities, some pick up terms from the black community online and incorporate them into their discourse without understanding where these terms and phrases come from. As a result, many misuse these terms or inappropriately apply them.
Taylen Biggs, a child social media influencer, was critiqued after seemingly changing her accent when speaking to Cynthia Erivo, the Black woman playing Elphaba in Wicked. Many dismissed the notion that a child could be guilty of appropriation. Nevertheless, her performance raises questions about the way younger white children are granted access to black culture without any of the context and socialization that ensures they don't misuse their language. While this increased exposure to interracial communication online may increase the use and familiarity of black dialect in the general public, it leaves their verbiage vulnerable. Many Black people, for instance, have expressed dismay that the word "woke" has become a pejorative term to denigrate anti-racism efforts when it was initially used as an in-group term to raise awareness.
Calling terms Black people use in the black community for generations new is equivalent to an English-speaking American moving to Great Britain and describing their variant as new or slang instead of acknowledging that these differences in spelling, pronunciation, and emphasis reflect meaningful cultural differences. For instance, Charles Dickens, an English novelist, utilized various dialects of working-class people to reflect the differences between characters, helping to provide a much more realistic portrayal. When needed, he spelled "wittles" for "victuals" or "partickler" for "particular" to help the reader understand that speakers placed different emphasis on various terms, reflecting their communities' unique dialect. However, when Black people employ variations in the dialect, they are not treated as charming additions to the lexicon but rather as illegitimate. Until that stigma changes, many will continue to overlook the contributions of Black Americans and instead accredit newer generations with terms indentured in the lexicon.
This post originally appeared on Medium and is edited and republished with author's permission. Read more of Dr. Allison Gaines' work on Medium.