Volume 15, Number 3, Winter 2020Addressing ASHA President’s Statement: An African American Perspective AUTHOR:
What is it to be a black Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP)? It is seeing curricula taught about equality and compassion for African Americans, but not seeing it applied in actuality. It is being perceived as “less of an SLP” when using native vernacular (African American English/AAE) instead of Mainstream American English (MAE) because an SLP’s diction should always resemble that of a white person’s. It is being told by your governing body that “All Lives Matter” in response to a “Black Lives Matter” movement. In a field in which I am already disproportionately represented as an African American woman, it was very disheartening to discover that I did not have the moral or emotional support of the American Speech-Language Hearing Association (ASHA). DOI: DOWNLOAD FULL ARTICLE |