[Prudence]

To address Moonliner's last comments -- actually, I believe that you do appreciate literature better if you read it in the native language. Yes, you can appreciate the culture without it. But I know from experience that reading texts in French or Russian was not equivalent to reading them in English translation. Heck, reading Beowulf in Old English was very different from reading it in translation. Language brings with it baggage -- a set of "understoods" that aren't and don't need to be explicitly stated. Could be the rhythms, the types of descriptors used, the sounds the words make -- it all contributes to meaning. A good translation will do its best to incoporate those elements, but inevitably some things will be lost.

This applies to dialects as well. To bring Faulkner back into it -- dialect is infused within Faulkner. I don't know how you'd manage to translate Faulkner into, say, Chinese and not lose critical parts of meaning. I would assume that somewhere out there is literature written in Ebonics to which similar principles would apply.

But --there remains a wrinkle.

Astoundingly, no one has pointed out the glaring tractor-trailer-sized hole in my reasoning. Ebonics can be distinguished from other US dialects in that it reflects an insular culture, one that isn't open to other ethnicities. Now, I'm going on my own experience here, and perhaps my experience isn't reflective of the whole, but it's my experience that Ebonics would be by and for African-Americans. Whereas no one would question my enrollment in a Japanese language/culture/literature course, I can't imagine I'd be welcome in an Ebonics course.

Traditionally, cultural studies have welcomed students from all backgrounds. Heck, where I work they just named a male professor chair of the women's studies program.

I suppose I'm cynical, but I don't think the same applies in this case.