#oppressive structures

[internetr0yalty]

Gender is not a social construct

If that were that case all the trans kids raised by parents who forced them to act/dress like their assigned gender would have no problem being their assigned gender however dysphoria clearly proves that's not the case that it is something more internal than environmental. This type of idea is toxic to trans folk so like stop

[ninjaruski]

A Grading Problem.

I'm halfway through my third essay, and I've encountered a problem that has come up repeatedly in my grading.

What passes for "academic style" in writing is really the preferred mode of articulation by structures of oppression and domination. However, the demand for "academic style" presents a unique problem for students of color, particularly Black students, because they style is foreign to their cultural and social cultivation. In my experience, Black students tend to write in ways that correspond to how they speak, with the notable exception of those Black students who have learned to code switch by necessity of their lived experience.

This presents a unique problem for my grading: I have Black students who demonstrate understanding and application of the concepts and the material that we are covering, but who also write in a way that corresponds with how they speak. Given my cultural background, I can understand what they are saying and how they are saying, and their language does not appear "incorrect" to me. However, my awareness of the way in which the education system fails Black students, particularly young Black men, includes an awareness that the system, and the agents of that system, view their language as "incorrect" or "not appropriate for an academic setting."

To this end, I'm stuck with a problem: the content of some of these students' essays is brilliant, but their articulation is not "academic." To this end, I could penalize my students for using the language that comes naturally to them because it does not correspond with a structure of domination, or I could allow them to use this language which would then present them with the false idea that other agents of the system will accept their language. The first option is extremely distasteful to me, as It means that I must become complicit in the perpetuation of a system that resists their very presence; the second option is also untenable because I might be setting them up to be failed by a system that does not view them as capable from the start.

I really don't know what to do here, and it is clear to me that someone likely has not sat down with these students and had a conversation about their writing in terms that they understand. I've heard, repeatedly, from my Black students (and other students who are from marginalized populations) that they just "aren't good at writing," which is wrong: they're equipped to do the work, their cultural orientation runs into conflicts with a system that privileges a certain mode of articulation.

So I'm stuck: these students know the material, they simply do not articulate it in ways that align with the dominant mode of expression. If I comply with the demands of this oppressive structure, I am engaging in the perpetuation of structures of domination that I'm trying to challenge. If I do not comply, I am setting them up to suffer at the hands of the system.

Does anyone have any advice?