Podolsky’s Charge of ‘Race-Baiting’ Unfair

To the editors:

In responding to the column by Zachary S. Podolsky ’04 (“Quit the Race-Baiting, Kuumba,” Jan. 6), I will not discuss the op-ed by Savannah J. Frierson ’05 (“On Display With Kuumba,” Nov. 12). Podolsky’s initial assumptions about her piece—that it was a personal response which stood independent of any larger organizational attitudes—were entirely correct. Therefore, I want to focus solely on the issue concerning Associate Professor of Linguistics Bert Vaux.

As Podolsky may or may not have known, I too am Jewish and sang in the Jewish a cappella group Mizmor Shir. It is thus with a more personal touch that I find his parallel to be misinformed and unhelpful. Yiddish is undoubtedly recognized as an official language, spoken primarily by Jews for centuries. To assert that Ebonics is as widely accepted as an official language among African-Americans is a leap that one should be wary to make, regardless of what Vaux has to say in defense of its validity. The debate over Ebonics remains decidedly that—the assertion that Ebonics holds strong official status among African-Americans remains seriously in question. I have no doubt that Vaux seeks to strip Ebonics of whatever negative connotations it has had to bear, and I commend him for those efforts, but that should not lead students to assume that, even as Ebonics could be adopted in a positive light among linguists, its validity as an “African-American language” is not up for grabs.

The debate over the legitimacy of Ebonics as a language, however, was not why I approached Vaux. To call my discomfort with his comment “race-baiting” is indicative of Podolsky’s false assumptions. Our discussion with Vaux was respectful and well-intentioned. There was not, nor has there been since, any name-calling or race-baiting. There has been, however, disappointment. I was, and still am curious why the segue was made. The song we sang expressed no Ebonics terminology, and the racial diversity of the group did not reflect the standard African-American community as it might otherwise have had all of us been black. The segue was “clear” in its intention to connect our artistic work—one that seeks to break down traditional conceptions of race, ethnicity, religion, diversity and community—to a highly debated language that can only be safely discussed with required sensitivity and detail in linguistic circles. As much as students in Vaux’s class may be party to that academic arena, the performers who sang at the beginning of class did so outside of that context.

Neither I, nor those with whom I’ve discussed this issue, think Vaux is a racist. Throughout, he has defended his egalitarian values, especially with regards to race. What I was concerned about was an apparent lack of recognition on his part, to why making such a stark connection is in some ways unhelpful, dangerous even. To see no problem with the parallel is exactly the problem I wanted to bring to light. The color of one’s skin cannot continue to be grounds for assumptions about the languages they speak, understand or relate to. And if it does, it must be analyzed with concerted sensitivity to the larger racial issues that those assumptions reflect.

Vaux made his comment with nothing but good intentions, or at the least, decidedly neutral ones. But his remark reflected a blindness to the still unresolved tensions that surround us. I appreciate all parties’ attempts to discuss this issue. As we do, we find that an issue remains unresolved, and until it is, we must speak with a heightened sensitivity to and about one another.

Johanna N. Paretzky ’03

Jan. 6, 2003

The writer is president of the Kuumba Singers of Harvard College.