Sometimes, well, let’s make that often, progressive politics appears to be very much a “cut off your nose to spite your face” childish temper tantrum. The ongoing flights of these social justice loco birds’ loopy reasoning can leave you dazed, dizzy and decidedly dumbfounded, but be brave and wade through the entire linked blog post, “Why Grammar Snobbery Has No Place in the Movement”, discussed in a piece, “Proper English Grammar is Now Racist”, at The American Thinker this morning.
The grammar snobbery post comes from Melissa A. Fabello, a self-described social justice warrior and an English teacher. Let’s bow our heads and pray that none of our children or grandchildren end up subjected to her politicized propaganda that setting standard English as the standard is a form of class privilege and inherently oppressive. Ms Fabello’s arguments on ‘”privilege” appear, not surprisingly, on a blog called “Everyday Feminism”. She writes:
But there’s a difference between understanding standard grammar and demanding it, between believing there’s a time and a place for so-called “proper” English and ridiculing anyone who steps outside of what you deem “acceptable.”
There’s a difference between appreciating language and being a snob.
And the last place that we need grammar snobbery is in social justice movements.
And not just because getting hung up on the correct use of homonyms or subject-predicate agreement is distracting to the job at hand, but also because purporting one form of English as elite is inherently oppressive.
In Fabello’s view, “it’s important to note that any time we create a hierarchy by positioning one thing as “better” than another, we’re being oppressive.” ( all bold-faced statements are hers, not mine). Yes, the American march to mediocrity follows the beat of some decidedly off-beat drummers. Obviously, she was not reared by my mother, the strictest teacher on there’s a right way to just about everything in life, from how to fold your underwear to how to help your neighbors.
Patricia L. Dickson, author of The American Thinker piece mentioned above, sums up this bizarre alter-universe of progressive political thought:
“The entire article is a futile attempt to justify the failure of the public school system. The author is using the soft bigotry of low expectations under the guise of social justice.”
Some of the very practices American slave owners used to keep their black slaves submissive now appear to be sold as “empowering”. In the words of Frederick Douglass, a writer whom Ms Fabello should study closely:
“Slavery does away with fathers, as it does away with families. Slavery has no use for either fathers or families, and its laws do not recognize their existence in the social arrangements of the plantation. When they do exist, they are not the outgrowths of slavery, but are antagonistic to that system. The order of civilization is reversed here. The name of the child is not expected to be that of its father, and his condition does not necessarily affect that of the child.”
Douglass, Frederick (2009-10-04). My Bondage and My Freedom (p. 29). Public Domain Books. Kindle Edition.
Laws were enacted in some states forbidding slaves to learn to read or write, in the belief that their education was a threat to the slavery system (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/slavery/experience/education/docs1.html).
Learning standard English, if not the language in the home, should be viewed as an opportunity toward advancement, just as acquiring any other foreign language can open many doors too. Promoting willful ignorance in the name of “social justice” will keep many black children locked in poverty, hopeless and dependent on the largesse of government welfare programs – from cradle to grave. Perhaps, that is the intention. Is this bondage for the modern era?
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