Read on Twitter
I really despise tweets/posts that make fun of people with their [“incorrect”] use of grammar. As if it is a sign or measure of intelligence. It’s classist, elitist, and rooted in racism & colonialism. You get their point right? That should be enough.
I can’t even lie because I know some of y’all knew this, but I used to be a grammar hoe in HS and got irked when I saw errors and was quick to correct, but after learning about linguistic discrimination and how fake grammar is and how I’d been so pressed about it, ~
I realized that it was a form of internalization into the colonial mind that you have to speak like the white man in order to be accepted by the white man. Obv as a metaphor, but in reality, “professionalism” is centered in the western white image. That includes grammar
grammar is a construct yes it helps you seem smarter than those less inclined to distinguish “your” and “you’re” but that’s thanks to linguistic discrimination. We are perpetuating when we judge people based on their grammar, when like I said, you understand them regardless.
reading this thread makes me sad, because of how much we can see how our society is socialized into being turned off by “poor” grammar. and how normal and inexcusable it is to discriminate people based on the way they talk https://twitter.com/kae_jda/status/1299463756360097792
Anyway, my point is.. before we discriminate, I think we should acknowledge that (1) linguistic discrimination is real and more often rooted in racism & affects the most underserved folks (2) education is not easily accessible (3) grammar is not a sign/measure of intelligence.
