Korb is a writer and editor from Austin, Texas. In the following essay, she looks at ways in which language and dialect are used in "Blues Ain't No Mockin Bird" to support the theme of respect for oneself and others.

Toni Cade Bambara, the possessor of "one of the finest ears for the nuances of black English," may have revolutionized the use of contemporary African American dialect in literature, introducing it to non-African American audiences in much the same way that Mark Twain brought the dialect of middle America to people of the mid-nineteenth century through his character Huckleberry Finn. Like Zora Neale Hurston in her works of the 1920s and 1930s, Bambara uses language to capture what is unique about her characters' experiences and voices. Through Bambara's fiction, people around the world have come to better appreciate the richness of African-American language, mythology, and history and...