"We Jih Like Sick of This S?!t Moe, Kill": Toward the Emancipation of Black Education (Commentary).

COVID-19 changed the landscape of American public education, especially during mandated stay-at-home orders, when student learning shifted from classrooms to living rooms. Certainly, Black youth were learning where they lived, and many were speaking in their first language, African American Vernacular English (AAVE), more often and with greater fluency than the American standard. I wondered then, what would become the metanarrative about Black youth performance on standardized English assessments in comparison with White youth in a post-pandemic era? To inform scholarship that engages this question, I offer a narrative-style review of literature from the 50-year academic discourse about Black language within the context of racial opportunity gaps in American public education. In addition, I explore the possibilities for Hip Hop to create educational conditions conducive for Black folks' linguistic and intellectual emancipation from racism and white supremacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]