[Music] we're talking other people's English code meshing code switching and African-American literacy from the book of the same name with one of the authors Veron a young a professor of English and African-American studies at the University of Kentucky we'll talk about ebonics linguistic double Consciousness and if snubbing spoken soul is a vesage of racism Dr V which is the what you like to be called welcome to the show we appreciate you stopping by uh you're doing a lot of great things in the community you're working with the Carter G Woodson school which folks will learn more about when they watch the full program but we want to talk about this this book code meshing code switching what do those two things mean and which one do you prefer I prefer code meshing okay tell us tell us uh give us a definition and then tell us why uh code switching means in educational context using one language or dialect in one context so using Standard English at school and at work and using African-American English for instance with friends and family that's switching according to context I prefer code meshing bringing those two together bringing Standard English at home with friends and families but using African-American English as well and using African-American English and Standard English in school and in professional context even though it may not be widely accepted to be practicing Cod meshing you still think that it's one way to overcome that one of the hurdles existing still in in racism that this is an actual practice of racism not to allow and embrace code meshing is that correct yes I think code meshing will break down one of those last barriers of racism yeah and while we have you here we don't talk so much about it in the program but you've got an interesting work that you're doing now uh I guess comparing and contrasting the black experience of President Barack Obama August Wilson the playright and Tyler Perry that sounds like an interesting combination yeah actually I'm looking at the way in which they perform masculinity MH and an era where black men should be um exiling like what kind of um performances do they have to Dawn and put on in order to be successful why does Tyler Perry always wear a dress for instance why does August Wilson call himself a race man and challenge um white theatrical practices and then Barack Obama I mean he was called our first female president at the beginning of his 2008 campaign so why was it that Newsweek Kathleen Parker in the Washington post the columnist referred to Barack Obama as a female so those are the things that I'm investigating about black masculine performance in this new book yeah we can't wait for that to come out but we will be talking a lot about code matching and code switching on connections on Friday at 5:00 p.m. eastern time on ket2 Sunday at 1:30 on KET the main Network and you can watch online anytime at ket.org g/c connections hope to see you