This week’s readings discuss the relationship between education, language, and racism, ableism, and anti-migrant policies and ideologies. Baker-Bell (2020) points out how an analysis of anti-Blackness is crucial to understanding the linguistic violence Black students experience in educational systems that operate under white supremacist logics to police Black students and Black Language. An important aspect to this reading is how it conceptualizes the way anti-Blackness operates violently through racist pedagogies, which attempt to erase, police, and control Black Language under the guise of “education.” By connecting carceral anti-Blackness to the educational linguistic experiences of Black students, Baker-Bell (2020) emphasizes the importance of connecting processes of racialization to how languages are/become marginalized.
As argued in “Crip Linguistics Goes to School,” systems of racism and ableism are intrinsically connected and operate in similar ways. The carceral and policing component of how ableism and racism operate in language education is especially compelling. Henner & Robinson argue that teachers are trained to police language in d/Deaf students, especially d/Deaf students of color, as well as against linguistically marginalized students and students of color generally, especially since ableism and racism uphold hegemonic systems – respectively able-bodied supremacy and white supremacy. Emphasizing the policing role of language teachers is incredibly important to understanding how violent educational spaces are for BIPOC students, disabled students, migrant students, and linguistically marginalized students generally. The power relations present in the classroom, where teachers are trained to police language, are intended to force non-normative students – also known as literally any student who is not white, a native english speaker, a migrant, or disabled – to adhere to specific ways of languaging that erase intergenerational, multicultural, multilingual, and political ways of languaging.
The educational trajectories of emergent bilingual students are shaped by countless factors, but it is incredibly important to recognize the crucial role of racialized capitalism in upholding anti-migrant ideologies, racism, and ableism in education. Schools that focus on upholding standard language ideology through their pedagogical practices are in turn eradicating linguistic differences, which are deeply tied to identity and culture. I think this brings up larger questions about interrogating, dismantling, and revolutionizing education and pedagogies. The material reality of schools being sites of carceral violence, racialized violence, and ableist violence, does not mean that there is no alternative; rather, Crip Linguistics and Antiracist Black Language Pedagogy reveal that empowering students and their modes of languaging is possible and necessary. Working towards dismantling systems of oppression is essential to transforming educational spaces to be sites of healing, sanctuary, and transformation.