'Ghetto Handbook' Causes Stir in Houston Public Schools

Houston public school officials are in hot water after distributing a "Ghetto Handbook". An officer handed out the booklet during a roll call meeting on May 23, but school officials were unaware of the literature until a complaint this month.

The booklet, officially named “Ghetto Handbook”, a guide to ‘Ebonics’ and subtitled “Wucha Dun Did Now?”, is a dictionary for Ebonics, a collection of African-American slang.

In 1996, the term became widely known in the U.S. thanks to its use by the Oakland School Board to denote and recognize the primary language of African American children attending school, and thereby to facilitate the teaching of Standard English. Thereafter, Ebonics seems to have become little more than an alternative term for African American vernacular.

The eight-page handout, which includes a few grainy photographs, purports to offer definitions that will enable the reader to speak Ebonics "as if you just came out of the hood."

Some Ebonics definitions in the handbook include: "foty: a 40-ounce bottle of beer", "aks: to ask a question", and "hoodrat: scummy girl".

The identity of the officer who distributed this booklet has been suspended one week without pay. Although the Houston Independent School District has not publicly given his identity, they have said that he was ordered to undergo diversity training.

Although the booklet was first distributed in May, the HISD officials were unaware of its existence until an oral complaint was made to the district's Equal Employment Opportunity Office on Aug. 13.

School board President Manuel Rodriguez Jr. said, "I'm completely surprised and overwhelmed that it took us so long to find out about it. In today's age and time, there should be no room for that type."

Carol Mims Galloway, president of Houston's NAACP chapter and a candidate for the school board, said the officer who created the document should be severely reprimanded, if not fired.

"It was really a slap in the African-American community's face," she said, adding that she believes black students in the district already are being shortchanged academically.

Last year, almost 30% of the district's 202,000 students were black and almost 60% were Hispanic.

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