Reggie’s Story Lives On

June Jordan, the author of Nobody Mean More to Me than You and the Future Life of Willie Jordan (1988), was a teacher, poet, playwright and essayist who was known for her fierce commitment to human rights and political activism. She advocated for civil rights, women rights and sexual freedom. She taught at SUNY Stonybrook, Yale and UC Berkeley. This essay describes her experiences in an undergraduate course on Black English she taught at SUNY Stonybrook. She and her students decide to help another student whose brother was murdered by police in Brooklyn, New York 1984. The purpose of this essay is to expose issues of discrimination African Americans face, including Black English and police brutality. Jordan definitely used her platform to educate and call fellow Americans, specifically New Yorkers to action.

Jordan definitely emphasizes on being able to switch between dialects efficiently as she taught her students Black English, despite them forcing themselves to forget it and learn Standard English. In the first two pages, she explores the depths of whites having supremacy over the English language. She dives into the drastic difference of how people react depending on the English they speak. She compares the United States to other countries, such as India, where countless languages can coexist there effortlessly, yet in the US having a dialect is an issue. She uses ethos, showing her credibility and morals, since she is a Black educator in an undergraduate English course at SUNY Stonybrook. From this, Jordan makes the claim how if you don’t follow Standard English then you won’t get far in life. There’s constant discrimination throughout American society and your “English” being a major component.

By opening up about Black English, she uses this as the background to setup her teaching Black English to her undergraduate class. She was excited to have her class read The Color Purple, but to her surprise they didn’t enjoy it. The dialogue portion on page two definitely helped illustrate how, because of society they’ve fought so hard to go against their parents and grandparent’s language. This dialogue between Jordan and her students are quite ironic. She expected her (primarily African American) students to be appreciative of the text due to its Black English, but to her surprise were confused. She uses pathos, evoking emotion by starting off by contextualizing the topic because these students have fought so hard to un-learn Black English, but she teaches them Black English anyways. This portion makes me downhearted, as much as my parents would want me to be “Americanized” – I would feel like I’m betraying my culture. The question is, do you choose your culture or fitting into society? Then, Jordan takes it upon herself to teach her students Black English and even creates a list of dos and don’ts. Jordan humanizes knowing any dialect of English and to show that it’s okay to have a different dialect, despite societal standards showing otherwise. You still get the same point across no matter how it is said. Who gave white people the right to establish their English as being standard?

Also, to shed light on police brutality and how ironically a student’s [doing research on oppression and exploitation along racial lines in South America] brother was murdered by police. In the beginning of her essay she addresses Standard English’s establishment of white supremacy over the millions of English speakers. She dives into her encounter with Willie when he discusses his idea of having an independent study project on South Africa. Jordan was interested, but she knew he would have a difficult time because he learned proper/Standard English at a late age. Throughout the essay you can see Jordan’s concern as he doesn’t show up to their regular meetings. One day he explains why he hasn’t been attending: his brother, Willie, was brutally murdered in Brooklyn by police. His family has been trying their best to bring attention to this injustice and to get help from the courts, but it’s too much money. Jordan used her platform as an educator to inform her students and they all decided to help their fellow classmate. They all decided to write a letter and attempt to get it published so the public can see. The question was clearly shown in page 372 “should we use the language of the killer- Standard English-in order to make our ideas acceptable to those controlling the killers?”

Ultimately, they decided to write in Black English and unsurprisingly, nobody wanted to publish their letter. To top it all off, in the end of the essay Jordan includes Willie’s letter which was written in Standard English. He emphasizes this injustice and how even a third world country, like South Africa, these heinous acts of racism and police brutality go on. Ending the essay with Willie’s piece definitely helps establish the discrimination depending on the use of language and makes the story come full circle. It embodies the research he’s done on South Africa relating to discrimination, but then having the reminder due to his brother being killed. To top it all off, this piece was done in perfect Standard English, so hopefully his piece has received the attention it deserves. Once again Jordan utilizes pathos as the discrimination to kill on of a student’s brother. She uses this to not only make readers aware of these issues, but rather a call to action.

Jordan wrote in a way as if it was an eloquent diary, which was amazing. The way she developed the essay was almost like a story where she was teaching her students Black English, and then they used Black English to spread the word that a fellow African American was brutally killed by police. The story within the essay definitely comes full circle and unfortunately it was quite ironic. The students used the Black English to attempt to help Reggie’s case, but it didn’t do anything. The brother, Willie, whom was doing research about oppression of African Americans in South Africa by police used his research and wrote in Standard English to further shed light on Reggie’s unfortunate death. Logos, the usage of logic, facts and figures, ties everything together with Willie’s research since it was weaved in through the beginning. Jordan introduces the essay with statistics on discrimination (more specifically through languages) in other countries and it comes full circle when she includes Willie’s essay at the end, which goes back to how discrimination is everywhere and it’s implemented to maintain a white power structure.

All in all, Jordan does an amazing job of conveying her message regarding injustices African Americans face. She utilizes all of Aristotle’s modes for persuasion: ethos, pathos and logos. She establishes her credibility as a Black educator for ethos, uses facts and figures to show systemic oppression through language for logos and uses countless scenarios (ex: learning a language your parents worked hard to get rid of, or the death of a fellow classmate’s brother due to discrimination) for pathos. Jordan not only appeals to the three modes of persuasion, but she also uses multiple anecdotes to help the readers understand what she’s saying by involving her life experiences. This piece of literature is truly a masterpiece and I believe to be revolutionary. Jordan really puts you in her shoes and makes you be a witness of events that really hit home. For an issue that happened almost 50 years ago and this piece still be relevant is crazy. Jordan wrote this piece in such an articulate way that Reggie still lives on.