There are lots of social practices that we engage in, where being concise and using fewer words is actually seen as better than using more words, rig… - Nelson Flores

I think, empirically, we have the data that shows that all communities have complex, rich language practices that they engage in, but people don’t believe it because they don’t wanna believe it because they have deep investment in these ideas that certain communities have more rich language practices than other communities. At that point, you can’t disprove white supremacy. If people are invested in white supremacy, then they’re gonna be invested in white supremacy.

I think our society finds fixing racialized communities as a seductive narrative. Because it really leaves the rest of the society off the hook, right? So, we don’t have to reflect on the root causes of racial inequalities, because we can just say, “Oh, it’s their fault, because they’re not using – they’re not asking their children questions.” I don’t know how anyone who, who has any experience working in neighborhoods, um, that have experienced multiple generations of racialized poverty, um, could possibly think that changing the way that you ask questions to your child, or increasing the number of words [laughter] that you give them, is really going to be what’s the make-it or break-it for whether that child is gonna thrive or not, right?

what Hart and Risley and many people who propose the word gap do is that, they take practices that have typically been associated with middle-class, upper-middle-class affluent white populations, and, surprise, surprise, they decide that those are quality. Um, which, of course, is not an objective statement, um, and, one could argue, is actually a racist statement, to claim that a particular cultural background is higher-quality than the other.