we don’t have to learn how to code switch, because code switching is basically other people learning how to talk like us. I probably should add to my list of privileges that so-called “standard English“ is my mother tongue. I naturally speak the same way that TV News commentators speak, and this gives me a level of credibility that I usually don’t deserve. I talk about this in one of my Medium articles.
This is a privilege that is not possessed by a lot of other white people, such as Jimmy Carter and Donald Trump.
I’m afraid your suggestion of a banning all non-standard language would unfairly give me even more of that privilege. Who is to say what is standard and what is non-standard? would you ban black teachers whose natural language is AAVE? There are the additional problems that 1) banning colloquialisms would make every teacher’s lectures insufferably boring, and 2) require a draconian system of classroom policing that would scare away anyone who would be a good teacher.
as I keep saying, we need to recognize that we are still in the process of redesigning courtesy to accommodate the feelings of marginalized people. We shouldn’t punish people for not anticipating how that process turns out, although you can make a case for criticizing, and perhaps disciplining, teachers who refuse to participate in that process. if that teacher insisted on continuing to use the expression “cotton picking“ after being informed of its offensiveness, I would fire them. But I wouldn’t fire them for making this mistake in the first place.
