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Everything is racist. Everything is cool when you’re part of the woke team. The latest racist construct in the epitome of “racist” countries (The United States, of course)? Grammar at Rutgers University.
This is not the first time college writing centers have made this claim:
The Rutgers English department created a Committee on Bias Awareness and Prevention in 2012. In light of Black Lives Matter protests, the school has moved past bias awareness and prevention and into a focus on “decolonization” and “decolonizing” their writing center. Whatever that means.
Rutgers English department chair, Rebecca Walkowitz, stated that her department will “changing standards of English instruction” and will focus on “social justice and critical grammar”.
This approach challenges the familiar dogma that writing instruction should limit emphasis on grammar/sentence-level issues so as to not put students from multilingual, non-standard ‘academic’ English backgrounds at a disadvantage. Instead, it encourages students to develop a critical awareness of the variety of choices available to them [with] regard to micro-level issues in order to empower them and equip them to push against biases based on ‘written’ accents.”-Rebecca Walkowitz
Wait, what? Students of all backgrounds managed to get admitted to Rutgers. But It would be absolutely insane and racist to actually expect them to write a grammatically correct sentence! Speech pathologist and libertarian activist, Leonydus Johnson, called the change “insulting, patronizing, and in itself, extremely racist.”
This is one of the most insulting things I've seen in a while. Deemphasizing "traditional grammar"…
Are you kidding me???
They're treating being black like some kind of intellectual disability with a need for special accommodations. https://t.co/wd6cRyWrDC
— Leonydus Johnson (@LeonydusJohnson) July 21, 2020
This, to me, sums things up in a nutshell. Woke white, upper-middle-class, tenured professors in our university system honestly do not believe that Blacks, Hispanics and non-white populations entering their classrooms are capable of using proper grammar? That is insulting. That should cost them their jobs. But alas, their jobs will remain intact while they will continue to pump college students with this utter nonsense. This is coming from the same people who say President Trump is illiterate and cannot string a sentence together and because of this, we, as Americans look dumb.
But, what the hell? Why not change the English language so it’s not so raaaaaacist? We’ve already thrown out proper gender pronouns because they were not inclusive enough. Seriously, try having someone who works in your office insist upon being called “singular they” even though he or she is a singular person of ONE of the two genders. All of a sudden, you misstep, you burst this person’s ideological, fictional bubble and call this person by his or her proper pronoun and not a singular (plural) pronoun and that’s how a lawsuit begins. Or you’re the one who is in the bosses’ office being reprimanded or even fired for being “insensitive” when in reality, you are just calling a person by the pronoun that corresponds to the gender he or she were biologically born into before he or she decided to be called “they/them”! So much for “science”.
So now, students can write absolutely craptatstic essays and still manage to get a passing grade. That’s if their institution of higher learning participates in a grading system. Some colleges threw those out a while back in favor of “narrative evaluations“. Can’t have some who receive superior grades compared to others. Gotta even out the playing field. In this way, everyone sucks. But the suck is inclusive.
With all of these writing centers revamping and loosening their rules for grammar, I’m beginning to think that it will be a cake walk for my soon-to-be-high school freshman when he decides to apply for the pre-med program of his choice but I know better. In truth, being a white boy from a middle-class family, his grades, his records, his volunteering all will need to be up to par and his entrance essay will have to be grammatically perfect. And even then, some admissions geniuses would deem him a racist person of privilege and give his spot to someone else. So much for getting your kids to dig in their heels and work hard. Meanwhile, Rutgers will provide more reading to upper-level writing classes on the subjects of racism, sexism, homophobia, and related forms of “systemic discrimination.” Don’t worry. Papers written on the subject matter in these classes will not be graded based on grammar. That would be racist. Subject? Predicate? Syntax? Agreement? They don’t mean a thing. Just axe Rutgers.
Scott says: Well, if they manage to get rid of APA format, I’ll consider that a win..(seriously, why does anyone let psychiatrists tell us how to write???).. as always, colleges seem to be going out of their way to not only prove that they’re woke, but that degree from their institutions are completely worthless…
NTSOG says: “… Blacks, Hispanics and non-white populations entering their classrooms are capable of using proper grammar?”
Of course they are capable if they are taught to understand English and its rules and usage just as they [and all of us] would be taught the rules and usage of German, Japanese, and any other foreign language they studied in school and college – or will the various foreign language schools in universities be required to cease teaching languages in a formal sense? I attended undergraduate classes in English Expression and German at IU [Bloomington] and we all – students of all races and backgrounds – studied the underlying structure and rules of language together.
On a personal note I am autistic and have a quite high measured IQ. However I need other people to speak and write in a formal manner if I am to understand what they are saying. [This is common in autistic people: we tend to act/speak in a formal manner as ‘sentimental’ society appears chaotic to us. We need rules and structure to function competently.] I have great difficulty comprehending jargon or colloquialisms and frequently miss the point of what others say when they speak in a casual manner using the vernacular. Had I not been drilled[!!!!] as a child in the Queen’s English and how to present myself to others [including making eye contact and all the other social ‘graces’ required in the process of polite communication to and with others], by my pedantic father and strict English mother as well as at school I would have never prospered in life as I would not have been able to communicate to and with others on my own. I would have become, relatively, handicapped as being able to communicate by word and in writing is fundamental to existing and adapting in open society.
This is just another example of discrimination through low expectations by pseudo-intellectual and academically lazy fools trying to be popular, but actually cheating their students.
GWB says: as being able to communicate by word and in writing is fundamental to existing and adapting in open society
Only in a civilized society. If we’re all reduced to pointing and grunting to receive our soma, only the elite alphas have to write or speak well.
GWB says: But the suck is inclusive.
LOL!
more reading to upper-level writing classes on the subjects of racism, sexism, homophobia, and related forms of “systemic discrimination.”
And, thereby, fewer bits of decent reading that might expand their minds and teach them to think.
They must read the proper catechisms, after all.
This is an excellent post.
The project to destroy order and Western Christian culture is in high gear. They’ve been particularly effective in the university system, a haven for White Progressive clown thought. There is an issue at the high school level, particularly in the black neighborhood where I work. The Grand Project to dismantle these United States requires school to do its work. If you close the schools, who will do the indoctrinating? But if you open the schools, the Covid-19 death narrative takes a big loss. What do you do? If you want unfree, brainwashed drones, you must keep the schools open. But if you actively do that, then the latticework holding up the CV19 farcical forced response crumbles. The black neighborhood doesn’t go for this paternalistic progressive nonsense as much as you think.
I wrote about this today here: https://education-ny.blogspot.com/2020/07/school-reopening-update-nwo-edition.html
David G. says: From what I can tell, grammar has pretty much disappeared in most of society. Just listen to media and search long and hard for decent, communicative, English. From incessant misuse of “literally” to abandonment of adverbs, I declare language all but dead.
Rick Caird says: It is amazing how willing academic institutions are to abandon their mission of higher learning in favor of nonsense. This is a case in point: The English department will now focus on “social justice and critical grammar”. There are two magic words here “social justice” and “critical”. Neither of these make sense in the study of the English language and the study of English literature. Importing nonsense into the English curriculum shows a very limited understanding of the academic mission. Rebecca Walkowitz should be fired immediately as not being up to the standards of an academic program while anyone who speaks of “decolonization” should be returned to the elementary, remedial English program starting with “Dick and Jane”.
GWB says: “critical” [doesn’t] make sense in the study of the English language and the study of English literature.
Oh, I don’t know. I had some pretty critical English teachers in my day……..
Importing nonsense into the English curriculum shows a very limited understanding of the academic mission.
I don’t know about that. I think they understand entirely what they’re doing, and doing it well: propagandizing the young, pliable mind. They’re making good little drones for supporting the elite classes.
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