The express focus of this book is primarily on black American language. However, it is asserted, a comprehensive interpretation of this language requires an understanding of its social and cultural context. This book reviews the various ways in which the black experience in the United States has been treated in social science. It points out a dilemma stated to result from an absence of a true ethnography of the black experience in the U.S. This absence has made it difficult to assess such matters as the cognitive basis of reading and dialect systems, particularly as these relate to the black experience. It is maintained that old cultural patterns persist over many generations, in spite of a drive toward homogeneity. Such cultural differences form a coherent organized pattern, it is asserted; and these patterns have consequences for preferred modes of interaction, communication, problem solving, and self-identity or self-concept. This book is slated to discuss the dynamics of these cultural and cognitive forces and to seek to offer some suggestions for bringing about the circumstances that may actually accelerate the movement toward a true melting pot. Topics discussed in detail in this book include: "some generalizations about wholistic cultures and subcultures", sociolinguistics, intellectual functioning, problem solving, culture-fair tests, and self-concept. (Author/JM)