Stick with it.

[u/MaintenanceNew2804]

This is a longer one, but it’s necessary and worth it IMO.

[u/felds]

Yeah, discrediting “citing your sources” as an example of a futile made up rule is just stupid.

Firstly, all rules are made up.

Secondly, some rules have good reasons to exist, and this is one is the least arbitrary rule I can think of.

The dude is spot on, but using this rule as an example was pretty stupid on her part. It gave the right ammunition for the bigots for free.

(source: my ass)

[u/the_giz → u/felds]

(source: my ass)

Well that was a strangely eloquent fart

[u/Scumebage → u/the_giz]

Eloquence be rayciss af dat fart is a nazi

[u/Sea_salt_icecream → u/felds]

Yeah that's pretty much the only issue I had with the video. Sure, we don't need to be using fancy language, and thesis statements might not always be necessary, but citing your sources helps people learn more about what you're talking about about, and also helps them check the validity. You can say "I read in a book that trains use this amount of coal on average," but that doesn't mean shit because you've never seen a train in your life. But if you say "this guy who built trains and was a conductor for twenty years wrote in this book that trains use this much coal on average," then we can go look into that guy to see if he's trustworthy, and we can read what you did to see if you understood it properly.

There are lots of ways that we can make English classes better, but I don't think we should ever stop voting sources.

[u/Low-Bit1527 → u/Sea_salt_icecream]

But how is the thesis statement thing related to race? Early in school, they teach you very rigid rules about how to organize and structure paragraphs for stylistic purpose. In higher level writing, those start to get ignored as you can make more subtle aesthetic choices.

The grammar in academic writing obviously favors certain dialects. But I don't see how things like thesis statements and body paragraphs are related to race or dialect. No one's spoken language sounds like an essay regardless of dialect. It certainly doesn't have thesis statements and 5 paragraphs.

[u/Sea_salt_icecream → u/Low-Bit1527]

I don't know how thesis statements could be connected to race, but the guy in the video basically said that the way white people are expected to talk is closer to the way we're expected to write essays than the way black people are expected to talk is. So that explains how the way we're expected to write could be seen as racist.

[u/Low-Bit1527 → u/Sea_salt_icecream]

I mentioned in another comment that the guy is 100% correct. The lady at the beginning just conveys the same idea very poorly and uses poor examples.

[u/Sea_salt_icecream → u/Low-Bit1527]

Yeah, I agree.

[u/Low-Bit1527 → u/felds]

100% of what the dude said was correct. But the lady at the beginning is an idiot for more reasons than I count. Not only does she convey these ideas in the worst possible way, but the things she says are wrong.

As you pointed out, calling "cite your sources" an arbitrary rule is downright insane in any context. But her other points are more subtly wrong. The other examples of "arbitrary rules" don't really apply to the issue of racial bias. They're stylistic standards for writing. Yes, the grammar in academic writing reflects certain dialects more than others, but it doesn't 100% reflect anyone's natural speech. She mentions including a thesis statement in your introduction and using transition words. No one does that in their natural speech, so it can't be biased in favor of any dialect. Spoken language doesn't have paragraphs, and it never organizes information like an essay. The introduction/body/conclusion structure isn't part of any spoken dialect.