Written by: J.C Elliott - Student Affairs Administration Master’s Student/Practicum Student
What does AAVE stand for? AAVE stands for African-American Vernacular English which can be defined as a variety of English spoken by African-American people. These can be terms such as “bruh” or “slay” or periodt”. However, there is a troubling trend of AAVE being misinterpreted as slang that Gen Z created through the internet. AAVE has been appropriated and been both misinterpreted and miscredited as something else entirely. What has been created by black people (specifically black women and black queer people) over the span of decades, is now thought of as a language Gen Z and the internet has created.
AAVE has traditionally been looked down upon due to its association with black people. Black people were and still are considered to be less intelligent by non-black people when they are using AAVE. Despite this, AAVE is considered to be its own language. In 1996, the Oakland Unified School District passed a resolution declaring that AAVE was its own language, separate from English, to help provide resources to help educators understand AAVE and use AAVE as a tool to teach standard english—causing national outrage due to incorrect racist ideas that AAVE is considered lazy or broken (Garfield Messenger, 2021). With mindsets like this still existing to this day, it has made it all the more frustrating to see non-black people not only popularize and normalize the use of AAVE, but also take credit for creating AAVE. Terms like “bruh” and “bet” have been around years before Gen Z was even born. For non-black Gen Z individuals to claim this is Gen Z slang is not only incorrect, but erases the history of words that have been used by black people for decades. In addition to the misuse of AAVE, many non-black people will adopt “blaccents” in order to use AAVE—which is unacceptable. It is not okay that black people have been mocked and belittled for the way they talk, whether that be the words they use or the accent they speak in, but non-black people can use blaccents and be praised for it.
You may be asking “can I use AAVE?” I am only one black person and can not speak for all black people. All I can say is to listen to the black people in your life about your AAVE use. Also, please do not use a blaccent.
Women*s Student Services will be hosting a program about AAVE later on in March. Stay tuned!
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