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Do you that that it's racist for a White teacher to "correct" a Black student speaking using AAVE?

If you don't know what AAVE is, it's basically the way African-Americans/Black Americans speak in their own communities, which is usually different than the way White Americans speak. "AAVE" stands for "African-American Vernacular English."

So anyway... back in 5th grade when I was 11, that elementary school I went to was almost 100% Black people with me being one of the very few White people, though even then half the teachers or so were still White.

But anyway, this White teacher I had in 5th grade from some reason was OBSESSED with fixing Black students speaking using AAVE. Like not even on the school assignments or anything, but the way they'd speak just in general, even at lunch or whatever.

At the time I thought this was funny. But looking back now... it seems kind of racist?

Like for example, this student had left a book on the table, and the teacher asked him why he has just put the book on the table after she asked everyone to clear their desks.

So he said, "That been there from earlier!"

And she was like, "WHAT? WHAT? What did you just say? The correct way to is it is 'it was already there from earlier!' NOT 'that been there from earlier!' Get it right!"

Or another example, at lunch, a student said, "These chicken fangers be so good!"

And she was like, "It's these chicken fingers are so good! Not whatever you just said!"

And like... the entire school was Black, so it's not like she was targeting the one Black kid or anything, but it seemed like she was disrespecting African-American culture. AAVE is part of their culture, so it felt like she was disrespecting that.

And like this was just regular, casual speech. Not formal assignments. On written assignments they all used formal "White people English" or whatever you wanna call it.

Their parents and their family also spoke the exact same way. So it's not like they made stuff up.

TL;DR Like not even on formal written assignments, just speaking casually. Like even during lunch.
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PinkMoon · 26-30, F
As a black person disrespecting the english language and its rules is historically a form of subversion against colonization and the history of the erasure of black culture. During appropriate scenarios we code switch and comply but during our own time aint nobody need your red pen underlining what it is and isnt grammatically correct english. Correcting grammar is appropriate in the classroom, doing it outside of the classroom setting is annoying and rude but not racist. I had a teacher like that except she was racist. I'm South African so we still retain our native languages. She would tell us not to speak our languages even during lunch breaks. Fuck her,that didn't stop us. That's a clear example of racism.
peterlee · M
@PinkMoon Read contemporary literature. Language is fluid.
@PinkMoon In the U.S. AAVE is the closest we’ve had to an alternate dialect, although much of it is classified as "slang" and used by whites and other minorities trying to sound "cool". 🤔