Stop 'helping' black people

Enough already! Stop trying to do us favors with the condescending lowering-of-standards to ease a guilty conscience you need not have. If you're not apologizing for your "privilege," you're telling us that our not speaking standard English is acceptable because that expectation is "oppressive" and "the biggest form of cognitive dissonance." The adage applies: "With friends like these, who needs enemies?" I have had enough of the soft bigotry of low expectations disguised as justice.

UW-Madison junior Erika Gallagher was spurred to action when she observed in her undergraduate classes that standard English further marginalized the already-marginalized, namely black students. Her observations led her to conduct research, which included interviewing "UW-Madison student leaders from marginalized groups." Is a "student leader" a student in a leadership position or an adult who works with students? I don't know, but I do know that if what these "leaders" came up with amounts to lowering expectations for blacks, the university should rethink its leadership criteria.

As the Daily Cardinal reported, "Gallagher said she hopes to develop her research into a nonprofit organization that 'teaches teachers to teach,' with the goal that educators will eventually express disclaimers at the start of each semester that state they will accept any form of English students are comfortable with." This "whatever you are comfortable with" trend makes no sense with school bathroom policy, and it makes no sense in school classroom policy, either.

My hope is that Gallagher is simply suffering from the naivety common to the young and that she will soon realize her thinking is skewed. I have no doubt she feels good about correcting what she perceives to be a societal wrong, but she's not aiming at the right target.

Why is it that people repeatedly feel like they are helping black people by lowering standards, by saying, "We understand. We'll get it right. You will not be expected to do what others before you have done"? What they do not say -- but clearly believe (sometimes without realizing it) -- is even worse: "We know you cannot learn what others have learned."

Granted, many grow up in families and communities where people do not speak standard English. But this is not new. Folks have been overcoming odds since David slew Goliath. Yes, black students, like other students, have distinct giants to face, which is precisely why we have to arm them with the proper weapons.

Gallagher does black people a disservice by asking teachers to accept any old thing. Life doesn't work that way. It may be unfair that people judge intelligence by language -- and I agree the two are not the same -- but that's life. If Gallagher wants to teach anyone anything, it should be teaching our young people how to speak the language they have to use to fill out college applications, conduct interviews, and communicate with supervisors, rather than teaching teachers how to look past all those norms.

Gallagher is correct on one point, however. She obviously understands that "hometalk" does have a place within society. I agree. My #AuntAlma book is filled with quotations spoken in a southern dialect. So I believe strongly in a person's right to talk differently at different times. I do it all the time myself. When I'm in certain settings with certain people, I speak one way. When around others, I may switch it up to something else -- something appropriate for those circumstances. That's not ignorance; that's power. As I told my students for years, choosing to switch between standard English and Ebonics or slang is fine. One might even argue that it's proper. "However," I added, "you can only make that choice if you can. But if you do not know anything other than broken English, you have no choice, and therefore, you have no power." The power is in the ability to choose. Gallagher needs to understand that stripping that opportunity from students not only does not help them; it hurts them. What's worse is it reveals what she thinks of them, which is not much. Sadly, she believes they are incapable of doing what she and others have done: learn. And this reveals that she has much more to learn than they do.

Read the Daily Cardinal article here: www.dailycardinal.com/article/2017/04/student-earns-national-attention-for-research-on-racism-in-language

Adrienne Ross is an editor, writer, public speaker, former teacher and coach, Southeast Missourian editorial board member and owner of Adrienne Ross Communications.