By William B. Fukley

Not only is there no inherent ‘standard’ of English but there must not be no inherent standard of English!

The spray-painted protest signs at the Academic Freedom Conference held at Stanford University on November 4 and 5 were liberating! They were also courageous given that Stanford University was too cowardly to distance itself from an event where racism [was] given shelter and immunity. David Palumbo-Liu, a comparative literature professor at Stanford, described the event by saying, “The hypocrisy is so thick that you need a gas mask to survive.”

The signs protesting the event read: Academic Freedom for Who?

The racist grammar-policing participants snickered not realizing that the joke was on them. As a redeeming sign of us no longer being unprivileged objects of victimization, but privileged subjects who are victimizing, we are no longer using the —m word!

Say it loud, we are ungrammatical and proud! Academic Freedom for Who?

As the womanist scholar Allison Wiltz wrote,

America, white people have a problematic history of grammar policing. This is because they force-fed the English language into Black and Indigenous people through violent, oppressive means. Black Americans using English is a testament to white colonists’ cruelty. They forced them to abandon their original African dialects. White people’s grammar policing Black people is fundamentally racist, mainly because this dynamic assumes white intellectual superiority. This practice is more than tone-deaf; it’s dehumanizing.

It all started with America’s original sin — slavery. White people wanted to maintain control.

We are in control now!!!!!!