Despite decades of research on Black Language, its survival since enslavement, and its linguistic imprint on the nation and globe, Black people and Black Language scholars keep having to remind y’all that it is a legit language. (Baker-Bell)

Have you ever heard an author pop off so loud you hear it through the page?

Baker-Bell’s chapters in her book Linguistic Justice are each better than the next, but the overall tone matches the tone of the other readings from this semester: technical communicators should be concerned with, and are natural advocates for social justice concerns. The readings tell us at various times that we can, should, or must do this kind of advocacy work.

“It is important to consider how technical communication can continue to help advocate for diverse needs. Doing so may help us, as scholars and those who are committed to social justice, better connect diversity and advocacy in an effort to push against structural oppression.” (Edwards)

 

There must be efforts, both institutionally and in the classroom, that go beyond paying lip service to diversity and diverse practices to more intentional and engaged approaches… I am reminded of how this work has to be intentional, multifaceted, and outreach drive to continually consider the connections between the university and the community. (Edwards)

The authors even tell us about the ways we can convince future technical communicators that this work is important. There are multiple strategies for pedagogies that center social justice, that name and shame systems of power, and that encourage students to see their work as advocacy. The texts explain that this is not merely about language, and that it is actively harmful to ignore these topics.

… using this approach did result in fostering a greater awareness of the advocacy embedded in everyday texts and the potential power and responsibility that technical and professional communicators have (the power of media knowledge, values and action). (Warren-Riley)

 

Telling children that While Mainstream English is needed for survival can no longer be the answer, especially as we are witnessing Black people being mishandled, discriminated against, and murdered while using White Mainstream English, and in some cases, before they even open their mouths. (Baker-Bell)

 

…any instruction that emphasizes the importance of White Mainstream English over all other linguistic forms is especially dangerous for Black students, and other linguistically marginalized students of color, as it communicates to them that being Black and speaking in Black Language are insufficient. (Baker-Bell)

 

But then, if we believe the experts like Baker-Bell, hooks, Johnson, and many many others, what about us? Why do we have to wait to pass the torch to the next wave? What about the educators who are supposed to be teaching this future generation of technical communicators?

I argue that we cannot do that. We cannot wait to merely teach a future generation to be just, anti-racist technical communicators. Because if we fail to engage with these pedagogies in our own practices, we’re not just letting down BIPOC students. We are upholding the systems that oppress them.

No doubt, the anti-Black Linguistic Racism that is used to diminish Black Language and Black students in schools is not yet separate from the rampant and deliberate anti-Black racism and violence inflicted upon Black people in society… Linguistic Justice is a call to action: a call to radically imagine and create a world free of anti-blackness. (Baker-Bell)

 

[Linguistic Justice] is an antiracist approach to language and literacy education. It is about dismantling Anti-Black Linguistic Racism and white linguistic hegemony and supremacy in classrooms and in the world. (Baker-Bell)

How can we make the argument that all texts are imbued with values, then continue to use the texts that uphold the values of white supremacy with no comment? When we tell students that White Mainstream English is how to get yourself taken seriously in professional or academic settings, we are telling them that it’s more important to support the systems of white supremacy than it is to educate the educators. When we refuse to engage with anti-racist pedagogies, we are not being neutral. We are not taking some kind of ‘middle-of-the-road’ stance between traditional education and ‘wokeness’. We are, instead, upholding the values that underpin all of these systems. And if we’re telling students that the systems in question are founded in white supremacy (which they are), then what are students supposed to learn from that?