Being a Puerto Rican woman in America isn’t always the easiest task especially when you grow up in a household of Spanglish and slang. When I was little, I struggled with grammar and writing in general because of my dialect that I grew up around. This was a problem for my teachers, so they suggested for me to receive tutoring and speech therapy. After reading Greenfield’s “The Standard English Fairytale” I realized it truly was racist what they did to me as a child. Over time I always felt it was which is why around certain people I speak in the voice that was trained into me by my white teachers around all people who are not of color, while around people of my race I speak my dialect which brings me so much happiness. “Standard English” should not exist because it destroys the progress America has made on stopping racism from being a part of American people’s lives. Greenfield states” the evidence of the claim that “Standard English” is an abstraction deliberately and deceptively used to refer to a variety of privileged white speech patterns can be observed in a number of significant phenomena”. (Greenfield, 2011).
In my own experience this has happened to me when I was in the fifth grade when a white student was a horrible writer when it came to grammar and sentence structure and all the teacher said to him was “ John just make sure you read over your paper before you turn it in, but other than that good job!” while with me she said “ Oh sweetie its okay your writing will get better over time you just have to work extra hard and focus on what you want your paper to sound like.” As a child I thought I was dumb, but I had better grades then that white student, but since I was Hispanic, I had to work “extra hard” to succeed in the teacher eyes. I believe writing should be creative and fun because it’s an outlet for your mind and a way for you to spread your opinions and ideas.
In Peter Elbows “The Believing Game-Methodological Believing” he talks about writing is influential in the world, that everyone should write and spread positive thinking. The Believing game is “the disciplined practice of trying to be as welcoming or accepting as possible to every idea we encounter not just listening to views different from our own and holding back from arguing with them; not just trying to restate them without bias; but actually, trying to believe them.” (Elbow, 2008). This relates to Greenfield’s view on “Standard English” because Elbow is telling people that writing should be accepted no matter how its written and not fall victim to the “doubting game” which most people do because our minds are trained to argue with other people’s opinions and find what’s wrong with their writing. If we lived in Peter Elbows world there wouldn’t be “Standard English” which is a world I personally would love to live in.
In the article by Bridget Draxler the “Social Justice in the Writing Center” she makes a good point from the teacher’s perspective of racial issues she says, “as a white woman, I felt I had no place to lead conversations like this one, and frankly, I didn’t know how.” (Draxler, 2017). This quote was about how she’s uncomfortable talking about racism and prejudice towards people of color because she’s white. I don’t completely agree with white people not being able to express their opinions when it comes to race, but I feel there are certain boundaries.
My question would be, why can’t writing just be writing? Why does race have to be a part of someone’s writing?
Suley,
I really enjoyed reading this article. I also took a real interest in Greenfield’s article and wrote my blog post centered around it, so it was interesting to hear another perspective that was similar to mine. Systematic racism can be difficult to spot because as a society we are so used to it. I think you really captured that in this post.
The fact that you tied these articles in with your own personal experiences also made it that much more fascinating to read. To hear the perspective of a Puerto Rican woman who has dealt with his racism on a personal level brings the issue to life that much more. It was horrifying to read about how condescending your teacher was simply because of your race, and the different treatment you received as a student. I’m glad by now you know you’re not “dumb”-in fact, I believe you are an extremely bright student who would be a real asset in the Writing Collab at CU.