Reading the article “Towards Linguistic and Disability Justice in Education” by Jennifer Phuong and Karla M. Venegas in conjunction with the papers “Scoff No More” and “Rethinking Inclusion as Mundanity” by April Baker-Bell made me think about the very same topic of the recurring theme that inclusion and justice should come from the bottom to the top—not the other way around. These studies in combination not only challenge the educational systems but also suggest reframing the whole concept of who, inclusion, justice, and linguistic rights are to be represented and carried out.
The duo Phuong and Venegas stress the point that very often justice is treated as a set of rights without real grounding and is subsequently made to fit within the frame of the policies of the institutions, but rather a “project,” to which Tuck and Yang (2018) contribute with their definition combining “worldview, strategy, motive, and practice” (p. 7). They put forwards the call for rights-based frameworks that have become the norm and as Baker-Bell (2020) carefully criticizes the schools that oppress the Black Language while claiming to be equitable. Baker-Bell states, “Black people and Black language scholars keep having to remind y’all that it is a legit language” (p. 13). Both authors draw the attention of the reader to the fact that the use of language—the linguistically marginalized groups—is closely linked to their history of oppression, survival, and resistance.
To illustrate the point, the authors present a notable instance from student feedback in Baker-Bell’s class. Allistar thinks about the use of language, “I did not know we spoke like that. I think the language should be preserved because this language helped us form American culture.” This discovery is an indication of the potential of teaching methods that recognize the language heritage of students. At this point, it is worth quoting Smitherman who states that Critical Language Awareness (CLA) is vital: “It seeks to heighten their awareness of the stakes involved in language attitude and policies of correctness” (2017, p. 10). Rather than treating language as just a medium, CLA makes children aware that the language rules and standards that exist have their own constituencies of beneficiaries and the excluded.
When the rays of race, disability, and language overlap, the nuances of these exclusions become even more multifaceted. Phuong and Venegas inform us about the situation where students from minority backgrounds are declared to have disabilities and consequently put through the special education process more than the other students by applying monolingual and ableist standards. They suggest that it be done through the leadership of “those most affected”—which is really in line with Sins Invalid’s (2019) disability justice framework (p. 23). It is not only a moral demand but also a methodological one: the activities of justice need to come from the communities they aim to assist.
The first and foremost “rhetorical question” here is the renaming of the topic that “Rethinking Inclusion as Mundanity” which is providing a breath of fresh air to the practices of disability that are commonly and wrongfully perceived as, at best, part of mainstreaming. The teacher introducing the deaf child to the hearing world as an add-on processing is an extreme measure whereas the kindergarten classroom described in the example integrates LSF (French Sign Language) and oral French as coequal ways of communication. This practice mirrors what Bucholtz et al. (2014) say that justice “rooted in practice rather than policy” (p. 146). The dullness of inclusion can be repeatedly displayed through the daily interactions of the hearing and deaf children, for instance, a deaf and a hearing kid playing together without any help.
In the three examined cases, linguistic practices are never treated as such. Linguist bell hooks (p. 170) argues that enslaved Africans were able to make a “counter language” from broken English and in this way they turned the losing of linguistic resources into a process of survival and resistance (1994). Likewise, the students of Baker-Bell slowly realize that what they have been told to hide—Black Language—is really a very complex and “rule-governed” system that deserves acknowledgement and even pride (Smitherman, 2017, p. 6; Rickford, 2002, p. 1). An example of such a student is Janel, who said, “I never knew that it was legitimate,” and thus she is empowered by this new knowledge to be who she really is.
In the end, these works lead to the conclusion of a daring renewal of education through compulsion. Baker-Bell declares that the very purpose of the justice movement is “to create something we ain’t never seen before” (2020, p. 101). The future world—one that is going to be free of linguistic, racial, and disability injustices—cannot be born solely from policies. It has to be constructed through relationships, critical pedagogy, and the daily practices of those who have been deprived of their rights for so long.