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Garity criticizes the regulations that outlaw his sister from teaching languages in the affected students’ mother tongue because their inability to speak English will mean losing the much-needed government funds. The poem addresses racial inequality by stating that the ESL teacher’s students should consider their cultural background and native language as equally important as whites’, despite the attempt by policymakers and the mainstream whites to portray other non-English approaches to language as “shameful.”
In addition, the poem fights racial inequality by stating that the privileges that whites enjoy are synthetic and can be attributed to the advantage created by the uneven system, rather than the inability of the people of color to make a meaningful contribution towards improving their welfare. The poet argues that his white community is privileged to enjoy the benefits of the English language in a “rigged game” where they learn their mother tongue whereas the aliens are denied the opportunity to learn their mother tongue more. Garity’s “Rigged Game” is an interesting poem that tacitly calls for the reform of the ESL syllabus to be racially inclusive.
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