The University of Washington at Tacoma caused a stir last week, which I've been stewing on since. The school's writing center released a statement that claimed English grammar as "racist," that because language is constantly changing, there can be no standardizing and thus no enforcement of "proper" usage. Such proclamations continue to confirm my belief that parents should avoid public universities at all costs.
Let's consider the implications of such stupidity. While it goes without saying that English is an ever-evolving construct of linguistic tools, this does not exclude the reality that there are basic structures that allow us to communicate with one another with efficiency and accuracy. To consider such patterns as racially determined ignores what language actually is: a method for taking action in the world.
We don't use "thee" or "thou" anymore, and we invent words like "vlog" and "selfie" in order to more clearly participate in social engagement, to narrow our focus of meaning and to minimize potential confusion. The same goes for grammatical structures. We follow a few basic rules, which are always arrived at through market forces rather than a particular authority, organically rather than legally. And we have these rules so that we all know we are all playing the same game.
I often use this game metaphor in my classes. Imagine if a group of friends gets together to play basketball and one team thinks a basket is worth two points, but the other deems a basket worth five points. Imagine if one team doesn't know what "traveling" or "double-dribbling" means. Those teams cannot play the game. They may attempt to play something, but it will no longer be basketball. As stipulated, rules do change over time, but almost always toward improvement for the success of the game. Dunking didn't used to be allowed--thank goodness everyone agree that rule needed to be changed.
So it is with English. We place our subjects, verbs, and modifiers in certain locations within the sentence in order to convey a message efficiently and accurately. We employ commas and semi-colons for the same reason. Grammar has rules, irrespective of how they came about or who propagated them, because if it didn't, our world would be so difficult to navigate, relationships so difficult to form, that life would become worse for all of us, regardless of what social group we tend to inhabit.
By this university's logic of grammar as racist, we must then also consider other languages racist; after all, every nation or cultural group has a predominant language. Therefore, if I, as an English-speaking American, travel to Mexico, I can claim that Spanish is a racist language because it does not conform to my personal comfort. Mexicans would not have the right to correct me when I made an error. The same would be true with those speaking/writing Farsi in Iran, Swahili in Africa, Urdu in Pakistan, or Chinese or Japanese in the Far East, or any other language with any other ethnicity. I could always claim that the people who speak it are simply reifying their own hegemony and excluding all Others who attempt to adopt or alter such languages. Good luck trying to form friendships, operate with basic cultural norms, assimilate into a new group or location, or even engage in respectful dialogue with such a perspective of language. When you view language as a consistent force of oppression, rather than the social tool it is, why would anyone ever attempt to communicate with one another?
We could also explore this concept in other subject areas. Since Euclid, Newton, and Einstein were all white guys, UWT would have us believe their mathematical principles must have been shaped by their race and place in their respective dominant cultures. After finally seeing the excellent movie Hidden Figures last week, something is now dawning on me: those poor African American ladies at NASA should have just refused to operate by the guidelines of those scientific forefathers. They could've simply invented a "Black Math" or a "Female Math" or a "Virginian Math" or any other subset with which they felt more comfortable. The formula that saved the day in the film, from Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler (another horrible white guy we must assume), should have been ignored in favor of geometrical functions that weren't written by meanies. I'm sure John Glenn would've been a bit more hesitant hopping on that rocket.
When we diminish the value of grammar, we endorse a more confusing and more segregated culture. Language brings people together, but UWT seems to prefer boundaries between people. Instead of participating in a common linguistic culture in which we can all pursue our own goals, choosing to disregard the most important method for such a pursuit is in opposition of what a college education is supposed to be.
Let's consider the implications of such stupidity. While it goes without saying that English is an ever-evolving construct of linguistic tools, this does not exclude the reality that there are basic structures that allow us to communicate with one another with efficiency and accuracy. To consider such patterns as racially determined ignores what language actually is: a method for taking action in the world.
We don't use "thee" or "thou" anymore, and we invent words like "vlog" and "selfie" in order to more clearly participate in social engagement, to narrow our focus of meaning and to minimize potential confusion. The same goes for grammatical structures. We follow a few basic rules, which are always arrived at through market forces rather than a particular authority, organically rather than legally. And we have these rules so that we all know we are all playing the same game.
I often use this game metaphor in my classes. Imagine if a group of friends gets together to play basketball and one team thinks a basket is worth two points, but the other deems a basket worth five points. Imagine if one team doesn't know what "traveling" or "double-dribbling" means. Those teams cannot play the game. They may attempt to play something, but it will no longer be basketball. As stipulated, rules do change over time, but almost always toward improvement for the success of the game. Dunking didn't used to be allowed--thank goodness everyone agree that rule needed to be changed.
So it is with English. We place our subjects, verbs, and modifiers in certain locations within the sentence in order to convey a message efficiently and accurately. We employ commas and semi-colons for the same reason. Grammar has rules, irrespective of how they came about or who propagated them, because if it didn't, our world would be so difficult to navigate, relationships so difficult to form, that life would become worse for all of us, regardless of what social group we tend to inhabit.
By this university's logic of grammar as racist, we must then also consider other languages racist; after all, every nation or cultural group has a predominant language. Therefore, if I, as an English-speaking American, travel to Mexico, I can claim that Spanish is a racist language because it does not conform to my personal comfort. Mexicans would not have the right to correct me when I made an error. The same would be true with those speaking/writing Farsi in Iran, Swahili in Africa, Urdu in Pakistan, or Chinese or Japanese in the Far East, or any other language with any other ethnicity. I could always claim that the people who speak it are simply reifying their own hegemony and excluding all Others who attempt to adopt or alter such languages. Good luck trying to form friendships, operate with basic cultural norms, assimilate into a new group or location, or even engage in respectful dialogue with such a perspective of language. When you view language as a consistent force of oppression, rather than the social tool it is, why would anyone ever attempt to communicate with one another?
We could also explore this concept in other subject areas. Since Euclid, Newton, and Einstein were all white guys, UWT would have us believe their mathematical principles must have been shaped by their race and place in their respective dominant cultures. After finally seeing the excellent movie Hidden Figures last week, something is now dawning on me: those poor African American ladies at NASA should have just refused to operate by the guidelines of those scientific forefathers. They could've simply invented a "Black Math" or a "Female Math" or a "Virginian Math" or any other subset with which they felt more comfortable. The formula that saved the day in the film, from Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler (another horrible white guy we must assume), should have been ignored in favor of geometrical functions that weren't written by meanies. I'm sure John Glenn would've been a bit more hesitant hopping on that rocket.
When we diminish the value of grammar, we endorse a more confusing and more segregated culture. Language brings people together, but UWT seems to prefer boundaries between people. Instead of participating in a common linguistic culture in which we can all pursue our own goals, choosing to disregard the most important method for such a pursuit is in opposition of what a college education is supposed to be.