...some [African Americans] handicap themselves more greatly by insisting on the validity of ebonics as a form of speech and by adopting a "gangsta" style of behaviour.

Ebonics is more formally known as African American Vernacular English. Here's an excerpt from a wikipedia article on AAVE:

"African American Vernacular English (AAVE) – also called Ebonics, African American English, Black English, Black Vernacular, Black English Vernacular (BEV) and Black Vernacular English (BVE) – is a variety (dialect, ethnolect and sociolect) of American English. Its pronunciation is in some respects common to Southern American English, which is spoken by many African Americans and many non-African Americans in the United States. There is little regional variation among speakers of AAVE.[1] Several creolists, including William Stewart, John Dillard, and John Rickford argue that AAVE shares so many characteristics with Creole dialects spoken by black people in much of the world that AAVE itself is a creole.[2] It has been suggested that AAVE has grammatical structures in common with West African languages or even that AAVE is best described as an African based language with English words.[3] Speakers of AAVE are typically bidialectal. As with all linguistic forms, its usage is influenced by age, status, topic and setting. There are many literary uses of this variety of English, particularly in African-American literature"

-snip-

I accept the Creolist position with regard to AAVE. I recognize the need for African Americans and other Americans to be bilingual/bicultural. It's important to know how to speak and write mainstream English. However, I believe that it is also important to recognize the creativity that comes from AAVE and also from hip hop languaging, which I believe is a subset of African American Vernacular English.

I also want to say this-gangsta rap is only one form of rap music, although it's the most promoted form of that rap {hip hop} music. Also, rap music is only one form of hip hop culture. I also need to say that hip hop is a highly creative spoken and written languaging form {I'm separating out the profanity and woman hating aspects of hip hop languaging}. Some of the words and expressions that have originated from hip hop culture have been accepted into informal, and even more formal mainstream American English {for example, "my bad", "bling bling", "24-7"; "giving props"; "def"; "give a shout out to", "diss"}.

One aspect of hip hop languaging that I consider interesting is how words are spelled to better conform to their sound. For instance "phat" {fat} and "enuf" {enough}. Also, letters are numbers are used as substitute for words {for instance "4" {for/four} and "u" {you}. {Of course, this practice may also be the result of or heavily influenced by text messaging and internet blogging{.

With regards to "phat", that word also takes on a whole new meaning, as do many hip hop words. Also, hip hop languaging has enhanced the importance of how a word {but particularly personal names look as well as how they sound. By "look" I mean the addition of accent marks or hypens, or capital letters after the first syllable-in addition to/or in place of different spellings of names. In my opinion, the reason this is done is to add uniqueness to the name while still being consistent with the way the name is pronounced. Examples of the increased importance of visuals in Hip Hop African American personal names are the female name "La-Shay"; and the male name "DeOndre".

My bottom line is that I wish that people would stop dissin African American Vernacular English in general and hip hop languaging in particular. I wish people would give these languaging forms the props they deserves for their creativity.

Disclaimer:
By no means do I support or condone gangsta rap or gangsta culture, African American or otherwise.