Hmm, of the people I went to middle school with who used racist (and sexist and homophobic) language constantly, only a small percentage of them held any real antagonism to people of color, I believe. (That's the percentage which is now causing problems as my home town becomes more integrated.) But I don't think the language that was nonetheless being used should be in any way condoned (nor did I condone it, which helped to fuel my own alienation from the peers during that period, before I left for a private high school) as simply being the manifestation of a classed characteristic.
Since the race and gender theory studied by the middle-class people with college educations locates much of the cause of injustice precisely in language, it's not surprising that they would want to take a normative approach to language use at all class levels. When they turn this lens on working-class communities, classism undoubtly infects their analysis, but I doubt is sufficient to explain for the entirety of the critique.
If my middle school were a television show, it'd probably be true that having the students talk the way they did would be "realistic," but I wouldn't want the show to glorify it, nor could I fault anyone who was unwilling to write fanfic for the show because the language squicked them.
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Date: 2008-02-27 12:19 pm (UTC)Since the race and gender theory studied by the middle-class people with college educations locates much of the cause of injustice precisely in language, it's not surprising that they would want to take a normative approach to language use at all class levels. When they turn this lens on working-class communities, classism undoubtly infects their analysis, but I doubt is sufficient to explain for the entirety of the critique.
If my middle school were a television show, it'd probably be true that having the students talk the way they did would be "realistic," but I wouldn't want the show to glorify it, nor could I fault anyone who was unwilling to write fanfic for the show because the language squicked them.