A Race to the Bottom in Language Standards
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/03...ard-l-cravatts/\

In a society of victims, knowledge and facts and reason no longer apply.
Fri Mar 12, 2021 Richard L. Cravatts


Richard L. Cravatts, Ph.D., a Freedom Center Journalism Fellow in Academic Free Speech and President Emeritus of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, is the author of Dispatches From the Campus War Against Israel and Jews.

When the prescient George Orwell observed that “There is no swifter route to the corruption of thought than through the corruption of language” he may not have been anticipating what is taking place with educators who have allowed their obsession with racial justice to influence how they maintain standards in their teaching methods and pedagogy.

Last July, for example, as the country was embroiled in race-motivated riots and social unrest over the death of George Floyd and others, The Conference on College Composition and Communication (an affiliate of the National Council of Teachers of English) released a set of demands to achieve what they termed “Black Linguistic Justice.” The document had the curious name “This Ain’t Another Statement! This is a DEMAND for Black Linguistic Justice!” but the message was clear: that the purported violence against Black people by police on the streets of America reflected the same alleged racist situation in schools. “As language and literacy researchers and educators,” the demand document read, “we acknowledge that the same anti-Black violence toward Black people in the streets across the United States mirrors the anti-Black violence that is going down in these academic streets.”

Not content to have a single standard by which the English language is taught, these social justice charlatans demanded, first, that “teachers stop using academic language and standard English as the accepted communicative norm . . . .” Why is that? Because standard English, something that should be and is color blind, in the minds of these activist educators “reflects White Mainstream English!,” presumably a situation that is untenable. Black students should not have to choose between Black linguistics and standard English usage, they contend, something they refer to as “code-switching,” because “this is linguistically violent to the humanity and spirit of Black Language speakers.” Instead of having all students learn one standard of English usage, these activists wish Black students to think of conforming to standards as something that is inherently racist, and the educators demand that Black students be constantly reminded of their victim status, that “we must teach Black students about anti-Black linguistic racism and white linguistic supremacy!”-- excerpt, rest at link above --