Winston Allen

Activism at School

In Nathan Heller’s article “THE BIG UNEASY” publish in the New Yorker, he addresses many points of view on the activism taking place at universities, and especially, Oberlin College. He began by citing examples of this activism through – what is mostly comprised of Liberal-Arts educations – the changes that universities and colleges alike had to go through in order to appease its students. For example, Yale was told that they had to avoid offensive Halloween costumes for the sake of it denouncing transgressive expression. Harvard also went through many changes, one of the more impactful ones being that they had to change their “house masters” to faculty deans in fear of it being offensive. Finally, Bowdoin student, Heller notes, were punished for wearing sombreros to a tequila party. With this information at hand, I think it to be incredible that so many people are so offended by so many things these days. I am not justifying anyone’s actions and I am certainly not agreeing with or denying the wrongdoing of any of these actions, but I find it incredible to see how coddled so many young people are today. A quotation I found to be interesting on the matter was,

“…arguing that young people taught to embrace “vindictive protectiveness” were being poorly educated for the challenges of the real world. Shielding students from the unwelcome ideas was unhealthy for the workforce and the democratic commonweal,”

I agree with this statement wholeheartedly. I do not think that this statement could be any more accurate than it is.

I believe this statement to be true because in the workforce, not everybody is going to see eye-to-eye on everything. Most people will not respect one another and most people are only there to work for themselves so that they can earn enough money to support their family and themselves. There are a few natural-born leaders who make everyone feel like a unit and address issues properly, however, that is definitely a small minority. But, to go back to my argument of sorts, if we are not teaching people how to deal with adversity and how to deal with people who do not like them, then what are we teaching people about how to deal with the real world? Socially, how can they survive? How can someone survive who is easily offended? I am not saying that people who are offended easily can succeed or survive in a social climate. But, I am saying that if one does not learn to have thick skin and be able to deal with adversity, then they will be dealing with a lot of anger and sadness and not a whole lot of optimism or happiness about being who they are. If I have offended anyone with my previous statements, I apologize and am always open for a discussion about it. However, truth be told, I think it is a bit ridiculous that I even have to include an apology to begin with. Just trying to start an interesting discussion!

Hunger for Education

Richard Rodriguez had an interesting upbringing paired with his academic experience. In his piece, “The Achievement of Desire: Personal Reflections on Learning ‘Basics,’” Rodriguez creates this interesting notion that his primary discourse – or what it should have been – is in fact not his primary discourse at all. He grew up in academia. He loved it. He forced himself to read about and learn about subjects that he did not like because he felt as though he needed to have all of the information available. It was also no secret, he was far better off in the classroom than either of his parents had been. He makes an ample amount of remarks regarding how his parents were always discrediting him and his intelligence as he got smarter because they were not entirely sure how to handle it. Despite him noting that he absolutely had the love and support of his family, he was uncomfortable at home. He loved the language of his teachers and mentors. He often found himself trying to mimic them and be like them. These were the people, he thought, that knew what they were doing. I just want to finish this thought with, no, I do not believe that he thought his parents were not doing anything right, he just adored his hunger for learning and had to keep feeding it and the teachers were the ones with all the knowledge.

To continue, I found it interesting how he ends up coming full circle and he begins to learn to appreciate his past and his parents and everything. Rodriguez understands that he does not act like those of his family at home. He is different, he chose a different path than them and felt as though the discourse that he picked up along the way was what felt comfortable to him. Rodrigues highlights his eventual longing of the past when he notes ,

“I remembered in my parents, growing older—before I turned, unafraid, to desire the past, and thereby achieved what had eluded me for long, the end of education.”
Rodriguez, 254

I found this to be an interesting way to finish off the piece because he recognizes the differences in himself from his family and he attributes it to his hunger for education and always wanting to learn more. He does not denounce it or even say it was negative, but he understands that what should have been his primary discourse and first course of language ended up being an uncomfortable secondary discourse for him because he never truly embraced it for what it was.

Same Animal, Different Beast, One Language

Barbara Mellix’s “From Outside, In” was what I thought to be a very interesting response to a cultural difference that has been taking place in America since the very first slave traders began to bring men and women over to the colonies. She begins immediately by describing the difference between “Black English” and “Standard English.” Mellix explains that how when she is around her immediate nucleic family she feels comfortable to speak in what she considers her native tongue of Black English. When she is at an event involving more distant family members or people that she does not know, she tries her best to speak in Standard English. Interestingly, she notes that her immediate family is always uncomfortable when it comes to speaking Standard English. She goes in to detail about her father speaking when she writes,

“My father was more articulate, more aggressive. He spoke quickly, his words sharp and clear. But he held his proud head higher, a signal that he, too, was uncomfortable.” (Mellix, 259, p 3)

I found this to be a fascinating description because of how uncomfortable and how distinct she believed the difference in the dialects to be. Both parties involved are speaking English and, yet, Mellix and the rest of her family, all of whom know how to use Standard English, seem to be almost wildly uncomfortable when they are not using their “native tongue.” This still goes on today. I have many friends who live in more urban areas than myself and when I visit them, the dialect is different – different words, words being used in other fashions. It is striking how distinct the differences are.

To continue, Mellix goes on to discuss her journey with Standard English in a college classroom when she found herself in an entry-level composition class at the University of Pittsburgh. Barbara Mellix initially describes her experiences in the class as,

“Each experience of writing was like standing naked and revealing my imperfection, my ‘otherness’.” (Mellix 264, p 2)

Quite obviously, Mellix is very comfortable with Standard English and she writes with incredible talent, however, she is very uncomfortable being able to utilize her ability to go back and forth between using Black and Standard English with ease in the early stages of her writing. I believe this to be intriguing because of mastery of the English language in which she writes with. She demonstrates her elite writing talent but has come so far from an entirely different dialect of the English language being able to write and speak as well as she does.