grammar policing and derailing
Grammar policing is one of the nastiest and most privileged forms of derailing I’ve come into contact with. When you nitpick a person’s argument because of formatting, grammar, or spelling errors, rather than examining the actual intent and objective worth of what they are saying, you’re not just derailing, you are silencing people and closing off the debate to large groups of people.
When you police grammar and spelling in discussions, what you are saying is:
- discussion is only a space for the academically minded
- for the formally educated, perfect English speaking, college-level minority
- self-expression must adhere to racist/ablist/classist/neurotypical standards to be of worth in a discussion, to matter to you, because you uphold those standards and therefore your opinions and expression matters above all others
- I don’t want to engage you or your point, or your experience, because I don’t like the way you’ve expressed it, it is not the way I express things
All of these are bullshit, all of these things are ways to dismiss arguments, stifle expression, and erase entire groups of people from the discussion. When you ask people to only engage you if they are educated enough, neurotypical enough, versed in your language of choice, and detached enough to put up with all of your bullshit and play nice with people who are likely actively or passively oppressing them? You are cutting off entire perspectives from your debate, and you are being a fucking asshole. If you read someone’s post and dismiss what they are trying to express because you think they were rude (tone argument), or illogical (you’re too emotionally invested), or didn’t spell something correctly (grammar policing), you are seriously just being a privileged dick and either pushing people out of your space, or invading their space to try to hold them up to your bullshit standard, and you need to gtfo.
Something to think about.
~Rosie
