Culture Codes

The Silenced Dialogue.  (The Code)

Lisa Delpit's article, The Silenced Dialogue: Power and Pedagogy in Educating Other People's Children, argues that "the different perspectives on the debate over "skills" versus "process: approaches can lead to an understanding of the silence dialogue. The silence dialogue is a term that Delpit uses to describe how some non-white educators feel as though they have been silenced from the dialogue on how to educate children of color. It took me  a second read to really understand where the author was coming from.  Some of her ideas, at first glance, seemed strange and to be quite frank a little divisive. It was when I read the text the second time and tried to look at it through an educator's lens that I really understood what the author is invoking.

Delpitt coins a term that I knew existed but did not know had a name, the "culture code". The culture code she speaks of relate "to linguistic forms of communicative strategies, and presentation of self that is, ways of talking, ways of writing, ways of dressing and interacting". An example of the dominant culture code can be how African American students who use hip hop language in daily interactions with each other, can be looked at as unintelligent if the same type of cultural language is used in a professional setting. An African American student has to learn how to speak the language code of the pervasive white culture, and a white student will never have to learn how to speak the language that African Americans use in order to navigate the world. The culture code is yet another barrier that children of color have to navigate in order to even the playing field. 

When it relates to the linguistic culture code, Lisa Delpit argues that a barrier of communication exists between the way that students of color are being taught that is inherently different from the way that they are being communicated with at home. She argues that in education the way that the "liberal educators" try to educate children of color can be flawed and does a disservice. Delpit  argues that middle class white families want their children to be an "autonomous student" or a student that can think for themselves without outside influences. These middle class students have already internalized the inherent culture codes of the culture of power.  While parents of color want more they want their students to be also be able to navigate the "white man's world" as the mother in the article is quoted.  Why would two different cultures want different things when it comes to educating their children? The answer lies in the culture code. The mother of the student, perhaps understand that there is a different cultural approach that her child must speak fluently. There are many different dialects inside of one language.

In the words of Martha Demientieff, 

We listen to the way people talk not to judge them, but to tell what part of the river they come from. These other people are not like that. They think everybody needs to talk like them. Unlike us they have a hard time hearing what people say if they don't talk exactly like them. Their way of talking and writing is called formal English

At first glance, quotes and statements like the one above  were a little difficult to conceptualize. I felt icky agreeing with some of the explicitly race labeled quotes in the article. It almost felt as if the author was blaming white middle class educators for not catering to the needs of students of color in the classroom. It could be, that maybe I just am not quite ready to talk about race, using the terms to differentiate a group of people. Once I read the second time the words really started to sink in, and I thought about the Johnson reading from the week before. His words echoed (and I'm paraphrasing) without giving things names how can we talk about it. The truth is, quotes like the one by Martha Demientieff, explicitly describe what it is like to educate students of a different linguistic code of English. The culture of power decides what dialect to use and makes it formal English. Student whose families do not speak the language code of formal English at home are at a disadvantage. I though a great deal about Brown vs Board of Education and the first years of desegregation in schools. Little Ruby Bridge's all over the country now found themselves in classrooms that did not use techniques that fit towards their linguistic code, and it feels that we have gotten a lot better at creating a much more inclusive classroom, but have we done enough?

PS. Below is a really cool cartoon I found on privilege. Completely unrelated to my blog post and this weeks reading but I felt it was cool and I wanted to put it in my blog for later use.

Privilege Power and Difference

In the book Privilege, Power, and Difference, by Allan G Johnson, the author analyzes the social constructs of race in America. The author, among many other things, argues that race, gender, sexual orientation, social class, divide us and will continue to divide us unless people learn to understand their own privilege. Johnson begins the text by quoting Rodney King "can we all get along" sometime after the officer's who had brutally beaten him, were acquitted of any wrong doing. The sentiment that Rodney King echoes is a sentiment that is more complex than the simplicity of the language."in response to the Rodney King quote Johnson states "At the dawn of the twenty-first century, it is clear that however much people might wish it otherwise, the answer is still no."
The answer is still no because of everyday racism and oppression that occur daily. The answer is still no because the social construct of the US will not let us get along and keep the oppressors in power, as the author states"We are not prisoners to some natural order that makes us hopelessly and endlessly against one another we are prisoners to something, but its closer to our own making than we realize. And we therefore are far from helpless to change it ourselves" there are things that we can do to help us begin the process of "getting along" When the author mentions that "us being hopelessly against each other is something closer to our making that we realize", he is referring to the social construct that we (sometimes unknowingly) agree upon. I am reminded of the Letter from Mecca by Malcolm X when Malcolm X travels to Mecca and he begins praying with Muslims that looked just like white American men. These men also prayed with people that looked just like him, and he mentions, "We were truly all the same (brothers) because their belief in one god had removed the white from their mind, the white from their behavior and the white from their attitude." Malcolm X was implying that race was something that was learned and something of the social contract of American culture. The word white could almost be substituted for the word privilege and have very similar meaning. "Remove the privilege from the mind, the privilege from their behavior and the privilege from their attitude"  I believe is the sentiment that Johnson argues is what is preventing us from getting along.

The wheel exercise made me really think about how I also agree to the social contract of the US. I wonder if I were not born poor, Hispanic and male how my life would be affected, What if I was born a white middle class white female, how would my life be different than it would now. It brought me to a weird place. Would I have appreciated my education as much as I do know if I went I lived in a pocket of social economic status where it is the norm for student to attain a bachelor's degree, as opposed to people from my background, with college graduation rates that are abysmal. Would I feel comfortable if I was a non-heterosexual male, with my male colleagues? Would I get invited to lunch by my male colleagues as often as I do now? The wheel also made my think about my privilege as a male. Although as a person of color who was born to a poor immigrant family, I never though about the privilege I benefit from.

Lastly I am brought back to the Rodney King video. In watching the video and hearing him say those words, it almost moves me to tears. I think of the video of his beating and the rioting and I wonder how much emotional pain the man must have been in. I think of privilege and the way it envelops our world and makes us feel like it is normal to live oppressed or in privilege. I imagine Rodney King feeling lost, and not knowing how to describe how oppressed he was. I imagine him feeling like he had created this chaos. The chaos had nothing to do with him yet he, the oppressed, says those words almost like an apology. "Can we all get along, can we stop making it harder for older people and the kids"

Introduction, (Omar Reyes)

My name is Omar Reyes, I am currently an admissions officer at Rhode Island College. Currently I do not teach in a classroom setting however I am in constant contact with student through my employment as an admissions officer. I typically visit 30-35 high schools a year and speak to student(mostly potential first generation college students) on the benefits of a Rhode Island College education. When visiting these schools I am always so dumbfounded by the lack of opportunities in some urban districts compared to the more suburban school districts. I can visit a school that is in pristine condition, with robotics labs, and even a bank inside, not an atm a bank inside, and then drive 5 minutes down the road and find a school with leaky roofs and broken desks. I am currently not in any specific graduate program; I am taking non-degree courses for general interest and to become a much more well rounded individual. In my spare time I enjoy watching the NBA, I am a huge New York Knicks fan.  I am looking forward to meeting all of you in person and taking this class!