Quote 1: “Many people of color expect authority to be earned by personal efforts and exhibited by personal characteristics. In other words, “the authoritative person gets to be a teacher because she is authoritative.” Some members of middle-class cultures, by contrast, expect one to achieve authority by the acquisition of an authoritative role. That is, “the teacher is the authority because she is the teacher.”” (pg 10)
This quote highlights a difference between people of middle-class culture and people, particularly people of color, in working-class culture. In working-class families there tends to be a more explicit expression of power as opposed to middle-class families who often veil the power they have over their children. This creates a contrast in which one family's authority figure demands authority by explicit directiveness (working class) and another assumes authority simply for being the older party (middle class). The author throughout the text explains that education is taught with the culture of the people in power in mind that being middle to upper class. This gives an advantage to children who come from middle-class backgrounds as they are already raised with that culture and know the underlying rules and expectations. Children not raised in that culture struggle to understand these assumed rules and will often get labelled as behavior or special needs students and oftentimes they are students of color.
Quote 2: “pretending that gatekeeping points don’t exist is to ensure that many students will not pass through them.” (pg 13)
When white liberal educators teach students of color many fail to acknowledge the presence of power in the classroom and how it translates to the real world. Whether this is due to discomfort at their own privilege of being knowledgeable of the culture this power is rooted in or their ignorance at the fact that many students of color are not raised knowing the rules and expectations of this culture many liberal educators opt to pretend that the power does not exist. While their intention is good and they can acknowledge that students of color have different cultures that should be celebrated white educators fail to recognize that in the real world what is considered “proper” and “correct” is controlled by a culture that these students have not been raised in. Not teaching students of color how to write, talk, and present themselves the way this culture expects them to is to harm their chances when they are sent out to the workforce. Not only will employers not take them seriously but these same employers will also be reluctant to hire people of color in the future as it will feed into stereotypes already in place.
Quote 3: “This teacher further advocates having students interview various personnel officers in actual workplaces about their attitudes toward divergent styles in oral and written language. Students begin to understand how arbitrary language standards are, but also how politically charged they are.” (pg 16)
The teacher Delpit is talking about is engaging his students in questioning language and cultural standards in the workplace. By acknowledging the fact that what we consider formal English was mainly constructed by middle-class white people, the student can begin to understand the political connotations behind formal English. This also means that the student can begin to undo the negative and derogatory statements made towards his normal way of speaking or Black English and how this language is not only real but also valid in the context of his culture. Just because his culture is not the one in a position of power does not make it any less important to him or his community it should be celebrated and not erased.
What to share in class:
Despite the potential harm of having one culture be the one we use to judge things academically, I believe it necessary for every institution to have the same foundational standards on what is expected at least in terms of writing. This is to ensure that everyone receives the same base education and to avoid confusion among peers. We as educators need to make it a goal to ensure that while we have a culture that we use to teach foundational skills that does not make any other culture less important or inferior.
