Ebonics -language or dialect/variety?

Ebonics, or African American Vernacular Enlglish, is a subject of hot debate. With the rise of the hip-hop culture, it has come to the forefront. We hear these non-standard words all the time ("playa", "balla", etc.) in popular music and all around. We note the different grammtical featrues (such as absense of the copulative verb ["She fly!"]. When the Oakland school board (California) declared that Ebonics was not English, nor even an Indo-European tongue but a West African language in 1996 and decided to use it in teaching children who primarly used Ebonics, the conflict exploded.