Race, Class, and Gender in Literacy Research (Summer 2011)

Though I’ve been aware that racial divisions have always existed and the dialect of a language has been one method of distinguishing these differences, I had never considered that stigmas occurred among one’s culture or race if they used standard English. Instead, I thought the stigma was reversed when minorities used their dialect within society. Both Delpit and Dowdy provided insight into this issue with firsthand personal experiences.

It’s funny how an ideal image of what intelligence looks like forms within society. I would have to agree that centuries of American culture have deemed ‘white’ people as more intelligent which ultimately leads to success, leaving those who were anything but white at a disadvantage. It only makes sense that these social outcasts could taste a hint of that success and intelligence if they tried to appear to be like the ‘whites.’ The easiest way to do so would be to act and talk like a white person. After all, is language not a true measure of intelligence? If you can’t look physically look intelligent, then why not try to sound like it?

As I was reading the articles by Delpit and Dowdy, I couldn’t help but think about one of the movies my daughters frequently view during their playtime – “RV” which stars actor Robin Williams. In the movie, Williams’ movie family meet a hillbilly family while vacationing in an RV. While Williams’ family, portrayed as a typical white American family who is regarded with success and intelligence, spends a majority of their vacation time trying to avoid the hillbilly family, they eventually realize that those they thought stupid were actually geniuses. Surprisingly, truth is revealed, and the hillbilly family with the dumb-sounding dialect are found to be highly educated where both parents and children have excelled academically above what others have expected of them. Though race wasn’t an issue in this particular movie, language was. Therefore, it is easy for me to understand that racial minorities may feel that they have more than one obstacle in their way of achieving success and respect from what is always perceived and presented as the standard. Such obstacles are the color of their skin and the cultural language and dialect they speak.

These minorities have discovered that everything is about the audience, meaning that a person can look and sound the part, and language is the means to do this acting. Therefore, successful individuals and leaders like Michelle Obama found that in order to achieve in a ‘white person’s world,” it was necessary to talk ‘white,’ using the King or Queen’s English, in order to get the “A” needed to pass in school and achieve academic success and higher social status. What was divided based on race was able to be bridged through language.

Knowing this makes the role of the educator all the more important. I feel that teachers need to make sure they are not imposing ideas or feelings upon these racial minorities. Though the articles and video referenced more to black Americans, these same issues pertain to any race that is not regarded as ‘white.’ Ignorance shouldn’t be measured on outside appearance and the way words spill from the mouth. As a white teacher, I’m well aware that success is measured often by looks and sound. However, I need to make sure that my students are aware of code-switching. In order to do this, I need to make them feel that their language, interests, and views are just as important as mine. I liked how Delpit mentioned that teachers need to find the interests of their students and let it be the center of the curriculum as it is integrated with all of the content areas. This idea of building an academic program around the interests of the students doesn’t lower the standards of instruction. Instead, it allows students to begin to respect their teachers as their teachers show respect and value them. Showing students that their teachers value everything about them – their home dialect and family – then teachers can incorporate the importance of standard language and teach it as a means to help establish success without imposing that it is the right way and their home language is the opposite. If language is one of the most intimate expressions of identity, then why would teachers not listen to their students in order to know their students better? Instead of making students struggle with the mental conflicts of trying to translate between home language and standard language, why don’t teachers try to create an accepting environment where students can learn the appropriate times to code-switch? Is this not making language a means to an end, allowing students to utilize it to benefit them?

Melissa Riley