The case for racist English classes

An essay on the art of politics

Dear H-,

Your not going to believe this — or actually, maybe you will — but it’s really easy to get people to look down on you. And in fact I’ve already done it above. The trick lies in the “your.”

A “your” in the wrong place hints at all kinds of things — for instance, whether I’m sloppy, or hurried, or ignorant, or stupid. It makes you wonder if I ever passed the fourth grade and whether I learned anything after it. It's only fair to ask what kind of writer I am after that — and what kind of a thinker. If Jesus told us to “not judge” (whatever that means) He also said we can’t be trusted with much until we’ve been trusted with little. And I’ve intentionally shown you what happens when somebody can’t be trusted. Simply put, he gets judged — usually without mercy.

This is really the point of grammatical standards: not that we’ve had the same language forever, or that the English we’re speaking today is the English we’ll be speaking tomorrow, but that a single typo can ruin your whole message — like a single wart can ruin a nice smile. This is the point of the much-maligned English professor in the first place: the idea that somebody out there can teach us how to not completely screw up our delivery.

Some genius running the University of Washington’s Writing Center disagrees. He believes an English course should be inclusive, and we assert the opposite. It ought to be so exclusive that if you fail to make yourself included you fail. We believe a course ought to change a person, and that it ought to change him for the better — even if the “better” in this case means “the whiter.”

The liberals of course have some arguments in their defense. Everyone knows (except English professors) that English professors get pedantic; and nobody can deny that refusing to end a sentence in a preposition can be just as annoying as saying “literally” when what you really meant is “figuratively.” It’s literally one of the worst things I know of. There’s a being too “proper” in speech like there’s a being too “proper” with women*; and either of them ruins our chances at having great intercourse. Which brings us to a very important point. In every discussion about the “right” language, the question isn’t whether we’re annoying to everybody, but whether we’re annoying to the people we’re trying to win over.

Everyone has a dialect, after all. The most important thing for any English student to learn is how to write like the right ones. For instance, like the people who run our businesses and colleges and speak like our most inspiring leaders and theorists. We don't have time to learn how to speak like a sneaker-collecting baby-daddy or a trailer park Nazi because we don’t need them — or like them, or want to be around them. Our interest in Standard White English is fitting in with the best movers and thinkers today. This means writing like James Baldwin and Ta-Nehisi Coates — two of the whitest Black writers in history, and easily two of the best. What’s important is that whoever goes to an American school can learn to speak like somebody fit for American command. Anyone who teaches anything less sucks at her job. Figuratively.

The sounds we know as words are symbolic for ideas. The way we string those words together is a metaphor for how well we put ideas together. Obama never ran a business or joined the military or held an executive office, but he spoke like a responsible and educated white man, so Americans assumed he could act like one. Whether we were right or wrong is beside the point. He became the President, and he couldn’t have done it if he wrote or talked like Kanye West.

In this sense a good English class is only prejudicial as any other class is prejudicial. It sees somebody else who did well and wants us to be like them too. It takes no interest in our feelings about whether or not we’re the best. It makes us the best. And if we’re not all capable of being the best, a good English class should make us be able to fake it.

A person who has no interest in changing has no business enrolling. They have no business being in business — or in the business of making others trust us known as politics. In everything we do there’s an element of belonging. Whether we decide to belong with the best or not is entirely our decision. And a good school should give us the ability to choose at our leisure.

Yours,
-J

February 26^th, 2017

P.S. If you want to know where we went wrong with English classes you would have to look to our other humanities departments. For years we’ve been celebrating science, technology, engineering and math, and everyone forgot what exactly makes a great man.

Psychology won’t do it. Sociology is a joke. Feminine studies has only gotten us to misunderstand women; the purpose of gender studies was to destroy the idea of genders; and black studies has only made black people worse. The humanities teach you what people feel and how to move them. It’s the art of knowing our emotional springs and how to press them. As such a dead humanities department isn’t just a dead humanities department. It’s a generation of people who don’t know what to do with people.

People complaining that promotions are unfair and politics is too full of politics and good English is racist are only seeing the tip of the iceberg. People who don’t believe in humanities rarely expect that the world is all politics. They have no idea that a hierarchy exists everywhere, and that who you know and how you manage them has everything to do with your success. The art of relating is every bit as crucial to your success as how well you work and how much you know.

The study of English is political by nature. It’s the art of putting your soul into somebody else's. The first question of English is how can I put my soul into words? The second question is how can I make them enjoy it? Anybody who ignores these two things isn’t just unfit to teach English. He’s destined to be managed by smarter people.

*Is there a being too proper with speech and women? Yes, nobody who ever confuses manners with formality is ever going to be a good closer.

Formality is the art of inspiring respect. It shows that you fit in with the high and mighty, and are supposed to be taken seriously. Manners is the art of making people feel easy, light, trustworthy, and comfortable. One of them aims at not screwing up. The other makes it really easy to screw.

Better manners means more fun. More formality means this is serious — and if you wear a tuxedo to the frat party, it had better be as a joke. Because you'll feel uncomfortable, and if people think you’re being serious, the butt of the jokes is going to be you.