An important aspect of the current situation is the strong social reaction against suggestions that the home language of African American children be used in the first steps of learning to read and write.

However, research in the years that followed found that in many of its important features, African American Vernacular English was becoming not less, but more different from other dialects.

And instead of getting a pepper-and-salt effect, we find very clear and sharp divisions between the dialects of the United States, which are getting more different from each other as time goes on.

William Labov Quotes