From Policing to Sustaining Black Language: Decolonizing Oral Reading Assessments and Advancing Linguistic Justice

ABSTRACT This article argues for the urgent need to reframe oral reading assessments through a lens of linguistic justice by centering Black Language as a sophisticated linguistic system within a decolonizing framework. Despite rhetorical claims of honoring linguistic diversity, assessment practices often demand assimilation to standardized English, perpetuating colonial and deficit‐oriented ideologies. Drawing on translanguaging theory as a decolonizing project, the article demonstrates how features of Black Language in oral reading reflect students' active meaning‐making and should be recognized as strengths in reading development rather than treated as errors. Through analysis of assessment practices, raciolinguistic ideologies, and historical contexts, I examine the harm caused when Black Language goes unacknowledged and offer concrete pathways for educators to move from deficit‐oriented evaluation toward linguistically sustaining practice. The article concludes with five decolonizing paradigm shifts spanning assessment, classroom instruction, multimodal representation, and teacher education, moving educators from policing to sustaining Black Language.