ground zero

[Sonja L. Lanehart]

I recall reading an e-mail asking about 'ground zero.' Lo and behold,
I was reading Rickford and Rickford's _Spoken Soul_ (2000:186) and
read the following:

"Not surprisingly, the King case would roil Michigan and rattle the
presses for some time. Between July 1977 and February 1981, nearly
five hundred news stories on the case were published. The prim
community of Ann Arbor was not to become ground zero for Ebonics on
the scale of Oakland (the city where Black Panther radicalism
started, after all), but shock waves from the judgment would indeed
be felt throughout the county, with dozens of newspaper commentators
piling on to snuff out any sympathy for Black English."

--SL

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Sonja L. Lanehart
Department of English      706-542-2260 (office)
University of Georgia      706-542-1261 (messages)
300 Park Hall              706-542-2181 (fax)
Athens, GA 30605-6205      lanehart at arches.uga.edu
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