A nonprofit called the Black English Language Workgroup is trying to normalize bad English for Black children specifically. As if educational outcomes weren’t abysmal enough.

The group has partnered with other organizations to ensure that when children mispronounce words, or use language incorrectly, they are not told how to speak properly. 

According to its website, the Black English Language Workgroup is “a collaborative partnership of organizations committed to advancing language justice for Black children in early childhood education.” 

But instead of working on improving language literacy for black children in California, they are focusing on permanently handicapping these kids by normalizing bad English — only for black children.

Aren’t black children Americans? Isn’t proper English culturally normative for all kids regardless of race? Why are black kids the only ones who do not need to have a proper grip on their mother tongue? Will this standard also apply to English as a Second Language learners? 

Public school children in California have abysmal achievement levels on the 2025 Smarter Balance Assessments, with just 49% scoring proficient or advanced in English, and 37% meeting or exceeding the standard in math.

Dig into the data, and you see where black children need correction and remedial efforts far more than any other group, with scores that should drive firings and reform in every public-school building in the state. Just 33% of black children are proficient or advanced in English, and 20% in math. 

Meanwhile, in nonprofit la-la land, the Black English Language Workgroup collaborates with other organizations they claim are “committed to advancing” something they call “language justice” for black children. Their partners in this attack on education are Californians Together, Catalyst California and Early Edge.

BlackECE, their preferred moniker, boasts of its effort to “Challenge harmful language hierarchies and affirm Black English as a legitimate, rule-governed language rooted in Black history, culture, and community.” This is a ludicrous attempt to “do something” for blacks with no thought given to the future ramifications if they were to succeed.

Older black Americans would riot if they ever thought speaking poorly would become an intentional activity that wealthy white liberals would attempt to enshrine in the national body politic on behalf of black kids.

The stated goal here is pure, unadulterated nonsense — to put it kindly — and will result in a permanent underclass of people who are angry at everyone else for their inability to speak their mother tongue with efficiency. 

I remember my parents rigidly enforcing the use of proper English at home and in public, pointing out that you only have one chance to make a first impression, and that speaking well could open many doors!

When my younger sister and I spent the summer in Tennessee with our extended family and returned home with adorably unintelligible southern accents, our mom ordered us to snap out of it. When we did not, she simply refused to understand us until we used proper English. 

This resembles quite strongly the educational double standards that once prompted future president and then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush to say, “Some say it is unfair to hold disadvantaged children to rigorous standards. I say it is discrimination to require anything less — the soft bigotry of low expectations. Some say that schools can’t be expected to teach, because there are too many broken families, too many immigrants, too much diversity. I say that pigment and poverty need not determine performance. That myth is disproved by good schools every day. Excuse-making must end before learning can begin.”

Was he looking into the future? These activist nonprofits are working to enshrine bigotry instead of banishing it.

We should give children — all of them, regardless of race — the high standard of speaking English well. We should urge them to achieve their very best, because they can — and ultimately because without a clear, well-enforced standard, many of them never will.

Stacy Washington is a decorated Air Force veteran, an Emmy-nominated TV personality and the host of “Stacy on the Right,” which airs nightly 9 p.m. to midnight ET on SiriusXM Patriot Channel 125.

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