Delpit

Lisa Delpit’s The Politics of Teaching Literate Discourse is a great response to James Paul Gee’s “What is Literacy”. The opinions of others are hard to change, but as an educator, we can unconsciously unleash our opinions in the ways we address the academic concerns of certain students. I feel it’s important for teachers to recognize any bias or prejudice they may hold against a particular group of society and once they recognize and acknowledge that bias or prejudice nature they either seek to eliminate them or quit their profession entirely to prevent the mis-education of any student.    The ideology held by Gee, is sure to be shared by many in within the academic community and to a certain extent they hold a level of truth. It can be quite difficult for one to acquire a discourse “foreign” to them and the best way to attempt to master any discourse is through acquisition; similar to the mimicking technique offered by Bartholomae. Yet to completely dismiss the possibility that any African American will be able to master secondary discourse is absurd. There have been numerous African Americans, both of today and yesterday, who have exemplified on a national level their ability to engage in the dominant secondary discourse of America. The challenge is not in being an intellectual but being seen as an intellectual in the same regard as a white person! Even today those African Americans who are given national recognition are still faced with the challenges of being African American and being educated, “you must do twice as well as white people to be considered half as good” (a lesson I learned hard in the 5^th grade).  The extra work is in making them see beyond your race and allowing you to engage in their discourse once you’ve mastered their discourse. One example can be found in Chris Matthews’ controversial comment toward President Barack Obama in that he “forgot he was black tonight for an hour…” after his speech.  Although the comment cause much uproar throughout the internet community, Chris Matthews words resonates true to the way in which the dominate culture views not only our president but any intellectual African American.

This is not to say the primary discourses of African Americans are in some way wrong, ignorant or subordinate. The recognition of African American discourse as a prominent feature within our culture is vital to creating a positive self-image within the African American community. As Delpit noted, “Carter G. Woodson called for similar pedagogy almost seventy years ago. He extolled teachers in his 1933 Mid-Education of the Negro to teach “mainstream,” but to teach as well the life, history, language, philosophy, and literature of their own people. Only this kind of education, he argued, would prepare an educated class which would serve the needs of the African-American community,” (Delpit, 552).

African American discourse is relevant to the extent that it has been mimicked for years musically. Most notable cases have been that of Elvis Presley and even artist of today such as Justin Timberlake, Eminem, and Adele; they’ve mastered the slang, soul, and angst of African American music but not to the extent they’ve completely abandon the primary discourse of their own. And throughout the African American community they’ve been accepted yet the same acceptance cannot be acknowledged in the reverse. African American pop artist like Rihanna are always in the R&B category, not because she has not mastered the secondary discourse of pop music but because the dominate culture will not recognize her as a pop artist or they do not believe she is capable of engaging in pop discourse. Again I state the process of assimilation has been a tough, long road for African Americans and I’ve completely given up! I see no problem in the dominate culture seeing me as black as long as I accept that blackness is beautiful and good.