yes. applause.
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Many people who posted in this thread to criticize Ebonics are European, a continent half the size of North America with over 50 official languages, it only takes a few hours (even a few minutes for some of us) to go to a neighboring country where people speak a different language, in the EU parliament the deputies can speak in 20 different languages, so i think we are quite aware of and open to cultural differences.
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the origin of africans in this country is an unnatural one. the first americans brought them over out of desire to make profit. most were brought against their will or tricked to be used as living tools in a foreign land that could be discarded. they weren't treated as human beings (and far from it). the nature of african americans and the way they speak has alot to do wtih slavery because of a few things. the africans who first came over differed in culture and language. there was a diverse range of them, as they came from different tribes and areas in africa. since they did not speak the same language, they had to come up with a common way of speaking so they can communicate. because they spoke different things, they derived a common linguistic medium for communication by deriving it from english, the only thing spoken around them. culturally, what emerged had much influence from the different cultures and peoples speaking it.
on a larger spectrum, with language on one end and slang on the other, dialect falls somewhere in the middle. language has an official written form, while dialect is not. neither is slang. but take cantonese for example. it is a dialect, despite its complexities. it is derived from chinese and is spoken by a large group of people. ebonics is similar but not quite as established because people confuse it with slang specific to a culture. also, since is it is looked down on, it lacks legitimacy that would otherwise solidify it as an actual dialect.