Endorsed by Leading Voices
"Get ready for gem after gem and stories woven between intellectual fire to lift off the page. Let me say this plainly: Jamila J. Lyiscott can write, can interrogate language, and push us to think of the possibilities of Black language for self-determination, refusal, and freedom. She is a scholar of the people, putting in the work to help us understand how code-switching can be self-betrayal. I am excited that a book so needed is here. You won’t hear Black children the same after reading The Cost of Code-Switching and How We Get Free."
-Bettina L. Love, author of Punished for Dreaming, a New York Times Bestseller
"Can the subaltern speak? Damn straight! In prose equally powerful and tender, Jamila Lyiscott declares code-switching obsolete, a remnant of a racist colonial linguistic hierarchy meant to subjugate and erase a people’s heritage. No more. This book packs the punch of Muhammad Ali, and like the GOAT incites the silenced to enter every room and shout, “What’s My Name?"
-Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Yo’ Mama’s DisFunktional!: Fighting the Culture Wars in Urban America
"Jamila Lyiscott has written a transformative book that inspires and indicts. Weaving historical analysis with her own narrative, Lyiscott interrogates the racial politics of code-switching as an outdated mode of social and political survival in Black lives. What a carefully written and culturally rooted book that provides individual and collective healing."
- Ibram X. Kendi, #1 New York Times Best Selling Author of How to Be an Antiracist
Author. Professor. Anti-Codeswitch Ambassador.
Code-switching encodes racial hierarchies. It does not innocently permit us to move from one equally regarded language into another. It involves colonial conditioning about who is barbaric and who is sanctified, who is delinquent and who is standard, who is professional and who is ratchet.
As Seen On
I study the intersection of language, race, and power as an analytic tool to explore, assert, and defend the value of Black life globally
Who is Dr. J?
Dr. Jamila Lyiscott aka, Dr. J, is an aspiring way-maker, a community-engaged scholar, nationally renowned speaker, and the author of Black Appetite. White Food: Issues of Race, Voice, and Justice Within and Beyond the Classroom. She currently serves as a Tenured Professor of Social Justice Education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she is the co-founder and co-director of the Center of Racial Justice and Youth Engaged Research. Dr. J is most well known for being featured on TED.com where her video, ‘3 Ways to Speak English,’ has been viewed over 5 million times. She has delivered keynotes and workshops at 100s of institutions throughout the nation where she works closely with youth, educators, and communities towards racial healing, equity, and justice
Dr.J's Public Speaking Engagements
Dr. J offers dynamic historically grounded speeches and workshops that unmask the racial politics of code-switching and tools for reclamation
Dr. J addresses the literacy crisis by establishing heritage literacies as an essential site of liberation and educational actualization
Dr. J is a leading scholar in the theorization and practice of Youth Participatory Action Research, positioning youth of color of color as change-makers in their schools and communities
At the intersection of art, education, and activism, Dr. J will coach participants to implement hip-hop and spoken word texts and cultivate hip-hop and spoken word literacies across in-school and out-of-school settings.
