If Black English Isn't a Language, Then Tell Me What Is?

         James Baldwin asserts in his article "If Black English Isn't a Language, Then Tell Me What Is?" that the English language as a contemporary system of racism and marginalization. Language is power because it establishes and imposes whiteness to create ways of identifying and objecting the other. The author challenged in his article a long-standing argument concerning black English. "The argument has nothing to do with language itself but with the role of language"(Baldwin 110).   Black English is a "bona fide" language. It is a language on its on, not a "dialect" as many people claim. Baldwin asks his readers to think about the evolution of black English and to consider "what definition of languages is to be trysted"(111).