Black students should not be penalized for using \u201cBlack Language\u201d and college courses should critically interrogate \u201cwhite linguistic hegemony and anti-Black linguistic racism,\u201d said a scholar who gave a presentation recently at Northern Illinois University.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople\u2019s language experiences are not separate from their racial experiences,\u201d the University of Michigan\u2019s April Baker-Bell told an online audience during a November workshop for faculty and graduate students at Northern Illinois University.<\/p>\n
The way black language is \u201cdevalued in classrooms reflects how Black lives are devalued in the world,\u201d she told attendees. \u201cSimilarly, the way we think about this notion of standard mainstream English is directly connected to the invisible way that White culture is often deemed normal, neutral, and superior in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Best known for her book \u201cLinguistic Justice: Black Language, Literacy, Identity, and Pedagogy,\u201d Baker-Bell is an associate professor of language, culture, and justice in education, and was one of six professors who co-authored<\/a> a 2020 document<\/a> calling to abolish \u201cWhite Mainstream English.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Baker-Bell, when educators require black students to compose their written assignments using what is generally considered standard or mainstream English, they are committing acts of \u201cAnti-Black Linguistic Racism,\u201d defined by Baker-Bell in a linguistic justice workbook she distributed to workshop attendees as \u201cthe linguistic violence, persecution, dehumanization, and marginalization that Black Language-speakers experience in schools and in everyday life.\u201d<\/p>\n Baker-Bell did not respond to an email from The College Fix<\/em> inquiring whether she believes it is ever appropriate for professors to insist students use standard English or if she believes doing so is always an inherent act of bigotry.<\/p>\n At the workshop, which was co-sponsored by NIU\u2019s English Graduate Student Association, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and Faculty Academy on Cultural Competence and Equity, Baker-Bell spent roughly 30 minutes lecturing about the historical roots of black language in slavery, made the argument that black English syntactically qualifies as its own language, and discussed different pedagogical approaches to black English speakers, prior to distributing the workbook.<\/p>\n The first half of the workbook provided participants with multiple exercises to give them the \u201copportunity to think through how [they] might be complicit in the reproduction of anti-Black racism and anti-Black linguistic racism through curricula, language instruction, pedagogies, practices, and language policies,\u201d as well as how they can \u201cmove toward an antiracist approach to language pedagogy.\u201d<\/p>\n The workbook also covered how educators could incorporate linguistic justice into standard writing courses before going on to present a model for a dedicated linguistic justice course.<\/p>\n Goals of the proposed course center around helping students develop their \u201clinguistic consciousness,\u201d understand the historical and cultural context of black language, \u201cwrite for linguistic justice,\u201d and critically interrogate \u201cwhite linguistic hegemony and anti-Black linguistic racism.\u201d<\/p>\n Suggested assignments for the model linguistic justice course include a TikTok or digital animation project on how white linguistic hegemony, anti-black linguistic racism, or black linguistic appropriation are perpetuated by the media.<\/p>\n