Code Of The Streets

The DEA has caused controversy after advertising nine positions looking for Ebonics translators. Ebonics comes from 'ebony' and 'phonics' that was coined by Oakland Unified School District in 1996 as a replacement for the traditional vernacular, 'black english'. Police are having dificulties in understanding the slang when using wiretaps on criminal investigations. 

"A maximum of nine Ebonics experts will work with the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Atlanta field division, where the linguists, after obtaining a “DEA Sensitive” security clearance, will help investigators decipher the results of “telephonic monitoring of court ordered nonconsensual intercepts, consensual listening devices, and other media....The DEA’s need for full-time linguists specializing in Ebonics is detailed in bid documents related to the agency’s mid-May issuance of a request for proposal (RFP) covering the provision of as many as 2100 linguists for the drug agency’s various field offices. Answers to the proposal were due from contractors on July 29."

See The Washington Post's Jonathan Capehart take the Ebonics translation test on The Dylan Ratiagan show.