English and Political Correctness: Am I Racist?

Accents do not bother me.  If a person speaks well, it simply does not matter to me that she or he has an accent.  What does bother me enormously is the complete abuse and misuse of English.  And seems to me that one of the most unfortunate consequences of Political Correctness is that view that there is no need to correct a person’s English just so long we have understood what the person has meant.  Indeed, no doubt the thought is that it is downright mean and arrogant to correct the person.  Well, I disagree.  

Of course, there is a time and place for everything.  So I am not at all advocating correcting people where this turns out to be none other than a form of tremendous humiliation.  But I find it stupefying that people whose job it is to deal with the public cannot speak basic English.  Here is perhaps my favorite example: “May I know your name, please?”  For just about every company that I call, I get someone whose first language was other than English who handles the call and that is what they ask in order get started: “May I know your name, please”.  

Of course, I understand what the sale representative really means to say, namely “What is your name, please?”  However, what I absolutely do not understand at all is why in the course of being trained, sale representatives are not instructed as to what the proper expression is.  It is entirely irrelevant that callers can be counted upon to grasp what the proper question is.  The answer, I suspect, as to why training does include the proper formation of the question is none other than the stance of politically correctness, which has that it is in some way racist to correct people for their mistakes with the English language, given that one has managed to understand them, anyhow.  

Well, I hold a very simple view, namely that respect is a two-way street.  To be sure, there is nothing at all to be said for brutally criticizing a person for her or his poor English.  There is nothing to be said for humiliating the person.  In either case, that constitutes a lack of basic respect for that individual.  However, we also have a lack of basic respect in the other direction, when people are so busy being proud of their ethnic identity that they feel entitled not to learn to speak English properly.  And I resent that. 

Political Correctness does not help the matter because it is too busy invoking the charge of racism for even giving any thought to correcting those whose command of the language is so impoverished.

What intrigues me, though, is how often non-native English speakers will mock Americans for not being able to speak a language other than English or for speaking that other language so very poorly that it would almost be better if they did not try to speak it.  And this shows me just how disingenuous so many are.  

Furthermore, it is as clear as anything is to me that learning to speak properly the language of the country to which is moving is none other than a simple measure of basic respect.  I have no clue why anyone would suppose that doing so is in some way incompatible with a person being proud of her or his ethnic identity.  Similarly, I have no idea why correcting a person’s English in the right way and at the right time is racist.  

I correct the English of my white well-off students.  Does that help to diffuse the charge of racism when I correct the English of a Latino student or an Asian student?

The problem of which I am speaking is beginning to manifest itself in a major way at American universities.  Diversity is valued more than competence with the language, where diversity often makes reference to students from overseas.  Needless to say, to value diversity to that extent is to make a horrendous mistake; for when diversity is valued more than competence with the language, then standards of intellectual excellence invariably slip.  After all, there is a limit to what one can teach people whose command of the language is seriously limited and who think that there is nothing to be said for improving their ability to speak the language and, moreover, it is deemed racist even to entertain the thought.

When I think of racism, I do not think of an effort to improve the person’s standing by, for instance, significantly enhancing his command of the language, be it English or whatever.  Rather, I think of having the aim to make the person worse off.  But clearly the view of racism that I have stands in need of being seriously updated!  I need a therapist who will help me to see that I am racist in thinking that it is a good thing for people to enhance their command of the English language, especially those who are students or who are dealing with the public.  

© 2012 Laurence Thomas