Talking White...
My whole life I was told that I talk “white”. Now, to be fair, the phrasing used by others that were astonished by my linguistic abilities was not always extreme. While there have been many times that I was told that I “talk white” verbatim, all the times by black people, others’ acknowledgement of my seemingly vocal whiteness manifested itself in different ways. I was told that I spoke eloquently (as if I should not), had a big vocabulary (as if I should not) and that I enunciated well (as if I should not). In my younger days I always assumed that people were just whole-heartedly impressed by me, but as I matured, I began to realize that these “compliments” were truly insults attacking my blackness, and whatever my blackness meant.
In his article, “What Does ‘Talking Black’ And ‘Talking White’ Really Mean Anyway”, Jason Perry attempts to speak about the American Culture issue described in the title. Despite his attempts, Mr. Perry did not accomplish much in his article, but posed definitions that caused me more confusion than anything. I had a lot of issues with the article, but my biggest three were his lack of history, the complete lacking of technical terms, and his uninspiring tone towards the topic. To completely understand the meaning of a cultural issue like talking “black” one needs to go to the origin of the thought itself. Jason Perry makes no attempts of explaining to his readers why language and race is so polarizing in America. He makes no mention of slavery, oppression, self-hate and the actual fact that black people were literally kept from learning. It is impossible to understand why some African Americans speak the way they do in America, if you completely bypass the history that caused it. Additionally, Perry uses terms like “talking black” and “speaking proper” to explain what people say in everyday language, but he never uses the technical terms associated with the phrases. The author does not mention Standard American English (SAE), African American Vernacular English (AAVE), or European American Vernacular English (EAVE) and what those terms means. Lastly, Perry never really argues for anything, and he certainly does not reassure African Americans of the positives and negatives of speaking both/either AAVE or SAE.
The attacking of the way people speak is an attack on an individual or community’s identity. In the history of America, black people have been both denied access to an education and ridiculed for not having it. Out of the lacking of education and resources bore AAVE. In modern times, many African Americans have the ability to speak SAE and a dialect, so why should we look down on that?
In his article, “What Does ‘Talking Black’ And ‘Talking White’ Really Mean Anyway”, Jason Perry attempts to speak about the American Culture issue described in the title. Despite his attempts, Mr. Perry did not accomplish much in his article, but posed definitions that caused me more confusion than anything. I had a lot of issues with the article, but my biggest three were his lack of history, the complete lacking of technical terms, and his uninspiring tone towards the topic. To completely understand the meaning of a cultural issue like talking “black” one needs to go to the origin of the thought itself. Jason Perry makes no attempts of explaining to his readers why language and race is so polarizing in America. He makes no mention of slavery, oppression, self-hate and the actual fact that black people were literally kept from learning. It is impossible to understand why some African Americans speak the way they do in America, if you completely bypass the history that caused it. Additionally, Perry uses terms like “talking black” and “speaking proper” to explain what people say in everyday language, but he never uses the technical terms associated with the phrases. The author does not mention Standard American English (SAE), African American Vernacular English (AAVE), or European American Vernacular English (EAVE) and what those terms means. Lastly, Perry never really argues for anything, and he certainly does not reassure African Americans of the positives and negatives of speaking both/either AAVE or SAE.
The attacking of the way people speak is an attack on an individual or community’s identity. In the history of America, black people have been both denied access to an education and ridiculed for not having it. Out of the lacking of education and resources bore AAVE. In modern times, many African Americans have the ability to speak SAE and a dialect, so why should we look down on that?